What is the moment of death according to the Bible?

While spirit, soul, and body continue in the harmonious relations to each which constitute the man; he is in LIFE, as that word is ordinarily used. When the triunity breaks up—when the soul and spirit leave the body—the condition is reached which is called DEATH. Neither of the three component parts becomes extinct, but their disruption breaks up the man—the man dies. The body returns to dust; the spirit to God who gave it. The former we know by sight; the latter comes to us as a revelation from God (Eccl. 12:7). Death is separation: never extinction. Even Annihilationists are compelled to admit that something survives, in which the identity of the man is preserved till resurrection and judgment (John 5:28 -29; Rev. 20:12). This “something,” Scripture informs us, is the disembodied spirit, which, liberated from its tenements continues to exist. The question remains—Where?

Clever people seem to change their minds from generation to generation, as to when death actually occurs. Scripture seems to make it clear for the simple believer that death occurs when the immaterial part of the person leaves the material part. Is that correct?

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.

F.J.E. — That is the body falling into decay. Death would be, then, the separation of the parts of man, but it in no wise involves extinction.

But it might be better to inquire in the first place what takes place at death. Paul tells us that death would be gain to him (Phil. 1:22), for it would mean being absent from the body, and present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5). The body would go to corruption, and the spirit to Christ. Our Lord when giving up His life on the cross commended His spirit to the Father, and Stephen when he was being stoned to death commended his Spirit to Jesus (Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59). When Stephen expired he was present with the Lord, that is, as identified with his spirit; but we are also told in the next chapter that devout men buried him, and made great lamentation over him, that is as identified with his body. As I have said, the body goes to the grave, the spirit to Christ, so that it is perfectly right to speak of a departed saint as with Christ, and it is just as right to speak of him as in his grave.

When dissolution takes place the body is in the condition of death; the soul in the condition of hades.

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.

Next, when scripture speaks of the dead as sleeping, what sleeps, the body or the soul? Stephen fell asleep we read in Acts 7:60, but we know from 2 Corinthians 5:8, Philippians 1:23, that he was with Christ. Looked at from man's point of view he slept, for the body was still, and unconscious of all that was passing around it. The same might have been said of the rich man by any who gazed on his corpse. But look behind the curtain which hides the other world from our view. The rich man was in torment, no rest, no sleep, for him (Luke 16:23), yet nothing disturbed the peacefulness of the chamber of death. Still, motionless, because lifeless, was his body, whilst in hades he was suffering excruciating torment. Still, motionless, was Stephen's body. He slept. But he was with Christ, to whom he had committed his spirit. And all can understand such language. For when natural sleep overtakes us, what sleeps? The body. And whilst that is wrapped in slumber, the spirit may be holding converse with God, and receiving instruction from Him. (Job 4:12–21; Jer. 31:26.) Yet we say of the person, he sleeps, nevertheless it is of the body only that the statement is critically correct. So of natural death, which Adam entailed on his posterity. It is called sleep, because the body is lifeless, motionless, and at rest. Speaking, therefore, of such things as man on earth can view them, the condition of the body, whatever that condition may be, guides us in our description of the man. He slept, he is buried, he stinketh, he saw corruption, all these are facts predicated of the person, though critically true only of his body.

That the resurrection is that of persons nobody in his senses would deny, but death is that of persons also; and yet it is only the body that is really dead, as we read in James 2:26, “The body without the spirit is dead.”

This implication is directly sustained when we read, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:7).

Here we have the truth, not that the spirit ceases to exist at the death of the body, but that it returns to the God who gave it. That teaches two things—that the spirit lives after death and that it is not dependent upon the body for continued existence, but responsible to the One who gave it.

And what shall we say of Solomon, King David’s son, who was so wonderfully favoured in his early life as king over Israel, but who turned aside in his later life to folly and idolatry. In the disillusionment of his closing days he wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has been aptly described as “the dirge of a dead world with its greatest prince as chief mourner.” Solomon writing of the unsatisfying portion of what was under the sun,” used that expression twenty-seven times, declaring that all was vanity and vexation of spirit. Was there then nothing ABOVE THE SUN? Did he believe that at death body and soul ceased to exist, and that man perished, as if he had never been? Hear what he says, “Man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets … then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:5, 7).

Thus spake the wisest of men. The meaning is plain. The body dies, but the spirit goes to the Creator. Can anything be plainer?