We all have to go through it. This is the “After Death Site”. So what is death?
If you are a strict materialist, you believe that death is the end of a living creature–nothing more. This is what it looks like for sure. But revelation from all corners of religion and near death experiences, let alone just the experience of being conscious suggests that death is something more.
Medically death is easy to measure. The heart stops. Brain activity becomes immeasurable in a short period of time. The experience from the inside, as reported by those who went through a near death experience, is very similar for all people. You experience a tunnel with a light at the end. The light has proven to be Heaven, or Hell (technically Sheol), or something that appears heavenly but is likely a deception.
What has happened? Not having direct experience myself, I lean on 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 for insight:
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened–not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
This passage is a little confusing in that it weaves two metaphors for our bodies–a dwelling and clothing. When we are “alive” here on Earth our bodies are referred to as a tent because they are temporary and fragile. We groan while in them, because we are aging, experience pain, and want, and Monday mornings. That being true, we still have the will to live. We do not want to be “unclothed”, meaning that our spiritual self would have no connection to our physical self.
Death “unclothes” us for a moment. Our earthly body is too damaged to go on, and we drift free of it. It is the nature of our “soul/conscious” to reconnect, but not on Earth. We don’t reincarnate. We are drawn away instead and reconnect to a body either in Heaven or Sheol. This is what the Bible refers to as the “first” death. Could this process be sloppy, allowing some to reincarnate and others to drift free like ghosts? I don’t know, but the Bible would suggest not.
For those who have a Heavenly dwelling because of Jesus, death has a two-edged significance. To be separated from our bodies is part of the punishment for sin. Our bodies are sin damaged and we must leave them. So death is bad. But on the other side, death allows us to connect with our Heavenly dwelling (further clothed), or as 2 Corinthians says, “be swallowed up by life”. So death is good.
For those who do not have a place in Heaven, they emerge in Sheol (please see the other articles on Sheol in this blog). This is not good. You are aware of the judgment that has befallen you and you have a physicality that can experience the harshness of your new environment. It is not the final judgment, but it much like it. Those who have experienced this through a near death experience have reported about it with terror and shame. They did not want to return.
Death can be as scary as Halloween presents it, or it can be the greatest moment of your existence to date. Jesus is the difference maker.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If that were not so, I would have told you. (John 14:1-2)
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