CLEAR BIBLE TEACHING ABOUT DEATH AND BEYOND. The Bible has very clear teaching about what happens when you die. A living being is made up of a body, plus breath, and this equals life. ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ Genesis 2:7. Sometimes this breath is called ‘spirit’. It comes from the word ‘to breathe’, just as God breathed into Adam. We have respiratory diseases. They are to do with breathing.
In death the breath leaves us. When Jesus died, He said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit, and having said thus He gave up the ghost.’ ‘Ghost’ is another word for the breath or the spirit. He was giving His life back to God, the giver of life. When Stephen was stoned to death, he said, ‘Lord Jesus receive my spirit’ … and he fell asleep.
In death those that are sleeping do not know anything; they are resting until Jesus comes and the resurrection call is heard. ‘For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go on ahead of] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together, with them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words.’ 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18.
THE DEVIL’S COUNTERFEIT TEACHING ON DEATH AND BEYOND. Satan has placed a counterfeit in the world that has all but obliterated God’s truth about death and beyond. It originated in Greek philosophy and teaches that in our fleshly bodies we have an immortal soul that lives on independently. This view sees death as the transition point or door, from one kind of life to another, with life continuing. But God said that ‘the wages of sin would be death’. By contrast, Satan taught that ‘ye shall not surely die.’
THE AFFECT OF THE LIE. This lie has been accepted into almost every faith and religion of the world. Unfortunately, it means because we have heard this lie so often that all our views of life and death are now coloured by it, so that, when we read the Bible hastily, we think we see, even in God’s own words, the lying words that Satan spoke in the beginning when he first deceived Eve. His entire purpose even today is to continue to deceive those that are made in the image of God so that they will not hear the words of God and, as a result, lose God’s true gift of eternal life. Satan hates God ands he hates those who were created in the image of God.
THE IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES OF BIBLE STUDY |
