What happens after death?

Another of Job’s hard questions is, “But man dies, and wastes away: yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?” (Job 14:10). Job had considered the tree that was felled, its root remaining in the soil, and that the presence of moisture caused fresh shoots to grow, but it was so different with man, and so the question arose in his mind as to where man went on departing this life. He knew the body wasted away, but where was the man who dwelt in the body? The answer to Job’s hard question was given by the Lord in Luke 16:19–31; and Luke 23:43; and by Paul through the Spirit in 2 Corinthians 5:1–8; and Philippians 1:23. For the believer, death means entry into Christ’s presence in the heavenly paradise, but for the unbeliever it is entry into hell with all its torments.

Now what is hades for the believer? Scripture tells us that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, and when the believer is absent from the body he is at home with the Lord. The thief went the day he died into companionship with Jesus. There is no such thing as soul-sleep, but death is gain, and introduces the believer to the “far better” portion. The moment the breath leaves the body of the believer his spirit, conscious and happy, goes to be with His Saviour, there to await the resurrection day, which will end for his soul the condition of hades, as it will end the condition of death for his body.

Naturally the story of the rich man and Lazarus is hotly assailed by those who insist upon the sleep of the soul (Luke 16:19-31). It is regarded as the citadel of the position against which they revolt, and therefore it must be reduced by any means possible. But the waves of unbelief may lash themselves against it ever so furiously; it stands nevertheless. Call the story a parable if you please (though the Saviour does not), there you have men in the world of spirits the reverse of unconscious — fully alive to the sensations of bliss and woe. Moreover, this is not the only Scripture passage which represents men in conversation in the spirit world; Isa. 14:9-11; Ezek. 32:21 are as explicit, if not as graphic, as Luke 16:19- 31. The rich man "died and was buried"; that is, his body. Next we are told: "In hell (Hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in torments"; that is, his soul. The body was in the tomb; but his soul was in Hades. Let us not seek to evade the plain force of this; it is wiser far to take home to our souls the lesson divinely intended. The conclusion of the matter is this, that when the border-line is crossed, the disembodied soul passes forthwith into conscious bliss or woe; though it is admitted that neither saved nor lost reach their final consummation until the resurrection day is over. Let us not fail to remember that that which marks the line of demarcation between saved and lost is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His precious atoning blood.

In Revelation 6:9-11; 13:15; 14:13 and 15:2-4, we see the spirits and souls of the two halves of the Tribulation in heaven, but not as yet resurrected. However, as seen from Revelation 6:10, they (their spirits and souls) are fully conscious and free to ask questions of their Lord. There is no such thing as soul-sleep. For the believers of all times, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). For the unbeliever, it is to be in torment (Luke 16:23) in God's prison, awaiting final judgment (1 Peter 3:19) and then hell, the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:11-15).

Nor is it true that between death and the resurrection the soul sleeps. The Lord, in the Gospel of Luke, has made the truth no less certain for both the wicked and the righteous. In Luke 16 He shows us the beggar dying and carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. This was certainly not the body but the soul; for the soul is the seat of personality. Whilst alive, soul and body are together. When death comes, the soul is the person till the resurrection, when they are together again for evermore; and therefore it is that only man rises from the grave; for he alone possesses a God-inbreathed soul — an immortal principle from God. As death is but an intermediate and incomplete state, resurrection (whether for just or unjust) will restore the full being, and in a condition for eternity. But, meanwhile, the beggar was, according to parabolic language, with the blessed beyond death. He was blessed with faithful Abraham, and not asleep. The rich man also died, and was buried. There was laid his body in the grave with whatever pomp. But in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments. His soul, thus, was not asleep; he was in torments. It is perfectly certain that this is a picture, not of resurrection, but of the intermediate state; for he is represented as entreating for his five brethren, that some startling testimony might reach them, "lest they also come into this place of torment." When resurrection dawns, there will be no question of testimony to save. Besides, the Lord stands for the divine authority of Scripture. They had the inspired witnesses, and if these were not heard, neither would they be persuaded if one rose from the dead.

Again, in Luke 20, in answer to unbelieving Sadducees (who said there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit), the Lord lays down that the God of the fathers is not God of dead but of living; "for all live unto Him" (Luke 20:38). It is not only that the saints rise for the first, holy, and blessed resurrection, but that meanwhile also they live for Him, if not for man; and that "all" so live, not the saints alone. With eternal life in Christ the believer is mortal; without that life the unbeliever's soul lives, save spiritually, after he dies. And spiritually dead the natural man is while he is alive.

This truth is not confined to the present portion of our Gospel. We have similar teaching elsewhere. Does not the account of the rich man and Lazarus intimate the same thing? Yea, more; not only the existence of the soul separate from the body, after death, of course, but also blessedness and misery at once. They are not absolutely dependent on the resurrection. Besides, there is the final publicly adjudicated portion of misery for body and soul before the great white throne. But, in Luke 16, blessedness and misery at once are felt by the soul in the dissolution of the link with the body. The figures, no doubt, are taken, as they must be, from the body. Thus we find the desire for cooling of the tongue, which men of speculative mind use to prove that it was the time of being clothed with a real body. Nothing of the sort. The Spirit of God speaks to be understood, and (if He is to be understood by men) He must deign to use language adapted to our comprehension. He cannot give us the understanding of a state which we have never experienced, unless it be by figures taken from the present state. A similar truth appears also later on in the case of the converted thief. The point there is just the same — immediate blessedness, and not merely when the body is raised from the dead by and by. That is what he looked for when he sought to be remembered, when Jesus comes in His kingdom. But the Lord adds more — immediate blessedness now: "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Depend upon it, we cannot be too stringent in maintaining the importance both of the resurrection, and of the immediate blessedness or misery of the soul separate from the body before the resurrection. To give up the reality of the soul's existence in either misery or blessedness at once is only a stepping-stone to materialism; and materialism is but a prelude to giving up both the truth and the grace of God, and all the awful reality of man's sin and Satan's power. Materialism always is essentially infidel, though far from being, the only form of infidelity.

Resurrection is life for the dead body. The spirit of the departed believer is with Christ, which, as the apostle says, is a "far better" state than the present. This state is reached immediately upon falling asleep. Hence the Lord said to the robber, "Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise." There was, in consequence, for his spiritual nature, an instantaneous transfer to the highest heaven, while the mangled body waits in the dust of the earth for the awakening word of life in the coming hour. Then in the first resurrection the Lord's redemptive work will be completed for spirit, soul and body — for him and for all who had like faith.

But before entering at length into this question, a few remarks in explanation of the use of terms may be helpful. When we say of a man that he died, we speak of the individual as ceasing by death to exist on earth, his place here knows him no more. (Job 7:10.) Yet we are assured from scripture that his spirit does not die. The body can, and does; death claims it; the grave holds it. The person, however, lives to God, as the Lord told the Sadducees in the temple at Jerusalem. (Luke 20:38.) By death the soul is set free from the body, and the latter thereupon ceases to live, so we talk of a dead body in contradistinction to a living body. Viewing the individual as a whole, we say of him what is true of a part, he is dead; for the body, which is part of him, is dead. On the other hand, if we think of the individual in the unclothed state — for there is such a state (2 Cor. 5:4; 2 Peter 1:14; Rev. 6:9) — remembering that the soul does not die, we speak of him as living. Personality, which is attributed to him when in the body, is attributed to him equally when out of it. Christians are absent from the body, and present with the Lord. (2 Cor. 5:8.) The penitent thief was with Christ in paradise, but of the disposal of his body we have no record. Nor is this true of saints only. The rich man died, and was buried, yet was alive in hades. And Samuel, speaking to Saul years after his body had been laid in the grave, told the king that by the morrow Saul and his sons would be with him. (1 Sam. 28:19.) Hence, if we say such an one has died, we understand that a separation has taken place between his body and his soul, the former thereby merely died, though the latter still lives, for in common language we speak of the individual as he appears to us. Thus when we read of the dead, meaning thereby those who have departed this life, we understand that they are so called on account of their present bodily condition. As unclothed spirits they are really alive, but their bodies being dead, they are termed the dead. So we read of the Lord, "These things saith the First and the Last, which was dead and is alive." (Rev. 2:8.) We read of those who share in the first resurrection, "They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (Rev. 20:4.) We read, moreover, of the lost, "The rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were finished." (Rev. 20:5.) In each of these instances, the condition, whether dead or living, is viewed as dependent on the state of the body. If that is dead, the person is dead. If that is raised again and reunited to the soul, the person is said to be living.

There is an hour when the three parts of which man is constituted, "spirit and soul and body," must for a time be separated. That hour is DEATH. "Man dieth and wasteth away," says Job (14:10), when regarding the body, and Paul in the New Testament repeats it, but follows him beyond the grave. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." (Heb. 9:27.) Death is the penalty attached to sin. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin." (Rom. 5:12.) It is that condition of the body when seen without a tenant. The body is the man's earthly house or tabernacle, the habitation of both spirit and soul, so that while in it he is said to be "at home in the body." While in the body also he is said to be "clothed." (Job 10:11 to Job 2, or Job 5:4, 6.) But he leaves the body at death. Thus we read, "Desiring rather to be absent from the body"; again, "To depart and to be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil. 1:23); and again, "The body without the spirit (pneuma) is dead." (James 2:26.) Here we learn that at death the spirit is not there. But we also read that the death of the body does not affect the soul. "Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul" (psukee). (Matt. 10:28.) At death the soul (psukee) is "required" (Luke 12:20), and then all that ministers merely to the body is left behind for others. The body only is that part in man which is mortal. In Heb. 9:27 it is seen to be both capable of, and liable to, death, and after that also to corruption. (Compare Acts 13:36, 1 Cor. 15:42, Rom. 7:12, etc.) "Flesh and blood (of which the body is formed) cannot inherit the kingdom of God." So the remark of Martha "Lord, by this time he stinketh" (John 11:39) though spoken of the man, could only refer to the body. Corruption she knew had begun in it, but the cry, "Lazarus, come forth!" from Him - who was both the Creator and the Life, was answered at once by the whole man, "spirit, and soul, and body." "And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." We see therefore that that part of the man, the body in which he dwelt, and in which he is said to be clothed, "Flesh and skin, bones and sinews," this only rested in that grave at Bethany, where corruption had already begun its work.

The soul of man being immortal, he still exists after death, and it is revealed in scripture that his body will be raised, and he will either be in eternity away from God in punishment for the sins he has committed; or, by the grace of God, be in an eternity of happiness with the Lord Jesus through His atoning work on the cross.