Faith Questions Lenten Series - What Happens After You Die?

I often hear questions along the lines of what happens after you die? 

Similar to these are:  What actually happened to Jesus between Good Friday and the resurrection?  What does it mean that he descended to the dead, or that he descended into hell?

Answering these questions is complicated, but it also gives us a good foundation for understanding how the Bible works.

When most people think about what happens after you die their ideas come from the ancient Greeks.  The ancient Greeks believed there was a body/soul split.  When the body died the soul was released.  It would then go to either heaven or hell.  Many Christians will vehemently insist that this is what the Bible teaches too, but it does not.  Indeed these thoughts are present in our scriptural writings, but they are secondary, they are supportive, not primary.  

What is primary is the ancient Hebrew ideas of the body and of death.  The ancient Hebrews did not accept the body/soul split of the Greeks.  To them body and soul were one.  And when you died, that was it.  You were dead.  Consider Ecclesiastes 9:5-6: “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost.  Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens.”

            This remains at the heart of the Bible’s teaching about what happens after death.  However, newer writings of the Old Testament and the New Testament do indeed show ever more Greek influence.  That created an interesting division in Judaism.  You’ll remember the sect of the Sadducees.  They were a conservative group that only considered only the oldest parts of the Old Testament to be scripture.  No surprise they thought death was the absolute end of a person.  They didn’t believe in a resurrection from the dead.  The far more liberal Pharisees included the newer writings of the Old Testament in their scripture, and indeed those parts showing more Greek influence about existence after death.  They did believe in the resurrection.

Despite a Greek influence in their understanding about a person their understanding remained firmly rooted in ancient Hebrew ideas.  And the same is at the core of our Christian thoughts. 

1^st Corinthians 15, which we read earlier, is the most concise teaching about what happens after death in our scripture Bible.  Notice there is no body/soul split.  The dead are dead.  They don’t have bodies decomposing in one place while their souls exist elsewhere.  It speaks of a resurrection event.  It speaks of a glorious new existence in some form.  Harper’s Bible Dictionary calls it a, “complete transformation of the human being in his or her psychosomatic totality.”  (Pg. 864).  In other words, everything is new, while somehow who you are also remains whole.

            Some people are unnerved by the idea of deceased relatives having no existence at all right now.  But I remind people of God’s powers.  God is beyond time itself.  From God’s perspective the future is already over and the past hasn’t yet happened.  It is we who are bound by time.  It is we who are separated by those we love who have died.  To put it differently, time is only relevant to the living.

            Now, what of those parts of the New Testament like Acts 2 and 1 Peter 5 that speak of Jesus going to the realm of the dead?  I don’t believe these texts were designed to give us insight into what happens after you die.  It appears that the authors are using Greek ideas to teach a deeper truth.  It is always important to remember that the Bible’s authors will borrow from other belief systems in order to teach a deeper truth.  In the case of death the teaching is that the power of God’s love in Christ does have power over death.

            Death is absolute, but God’s love is even greater.

            If we as Christians think our soul is immortal then we miss the power and miracle of God’s love, and the resurrection.  When you die you die.  Your body dies.  Your soul dies with it.  It doesn’t have a supernatural existence that is somehow maintained.  God promises to bring it all back from non-existence.  Christ’s resurrection and the promise of our own is then a true miracle of absolute proportions.  That is what we live for in faith and hope.