State of the Dead
God made humans to live forever. He gave them a Tree of Life (Gen. 2:9) to make them live forever. In Genesis 2:17 he tells them that IF they do one thing, they “shall durely die”. This shows that dying is not natral or inevitable. Even the food given humans and animals did not include anything dying (Gen.1:29-30).
The serpent (Satan) said in Genesis 3:4 that if they do that one thing they will not surely die”. Either God or the serpent is lying! In Genesis 3:19 God says “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.: In verse 24 it shows that after sinning, humans could not eat from the tree of life anymore
But Satan has made many people believe that death is not returning to dust, but being conscious somehow of either pain or happiness. “Hell” is seen by most religions to be a place of perpetual torment. Revelation 20:10 is often used to support that idea: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Carefully reading just a few more verses, down into chapter 21 verse 1 shows clearly tho, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” If the first earth is passed away, the lake of fire that was on it must be no more also!!!
Simple reasoning should suffice too, to show that the doctrine of eternal torment is a lie. If i’m a bad person who cheats, lies, steals, kills, commits adultery, worships idols, breaks the sabbath etc., and die without repenting at say, the age of 23, would it be fair of God to burn me for 23 years? 230 years? 2,300,000,000 years? No? What about ALL ETERNITY? How could i possibly have “no tears” anymore in heaven if i knew my mom was burning and burning and burning forever below? Yuck!
Luke 16:19-31 relates a story about Lazarus and a rich man. This is often used to support some kind of existence in death like purgatory, but a careful reading dispels that notion. Jesus took a story that all were familiar with at his time – of a rich man who goes ot heaven and a poor man who goes to hell – and turned it on its end to give a deeper meaning. The great gulf fixed, and the dipping of the finger in water and man eating crumbs from the table, all these things point to a parable that is used to tell an important truth without being taken as physically real. Parables like the man who borrowed 10,000 talents, and the eye being the lamp of the body are surely not to be taken literally, but as showing a great spiritual truth. Surely he did not mean that physically Herod was a “fox”, even tho he called him that. The great spiritual truth is made easy to understand in parables for those who are seeking to understand with the Spirit of Christ.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 is probably the clearest place in the Bible that shows the state of the dead: “the dead know nothing”. How did Jesus view death? (Luke 8:52). John 11:11-14 relates very clearly that death is just a sleep in the eyes of God. That’s why he could truthfully say in verse 26 “whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” When my mother died i could finally understand for the first time the meaning of John 11:25-26. The “dead” people of all ages whose names are in the Book of Life are seen as “alive” in God’s eyes, and those people walking and talking and breathing around us today who do not have their names in the Book of Life are seen as “dead” in God’s eyes – zombies as it were.
James 2:26 became real to me when my father died in my arms – humans become just meat without spirit (or breath of life). The breath does not existence without the body just as the body does not have existence without the spirit. When the two are present – “living soul”. When one or the other is not present – “sleep”. When neither is present (like in the Lake of Fire) – “death”.
With nearly all religions and even atheists believing in existence after death, it is easy to see how Satan is preparing the whole world for his masterpiece of deception – his angels will appear as dead people come back to life.
1Thessalonians 4:13-18 also shows that the state of the dead is a “sleep”. Verse 15: “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 them which are asleep.”Whether we are alive, or whether we sleep, let’s remain in the Lord and avoid death.