STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH
-The Doctrine of the blessed and unending life of the righteous.
The continued existence of the soul after death is a matter of divine revelation. Christ shed a flood of light on the darkness beyond the grave. He revealed the nature of this future state and showed how, for the people of God, that state was one of life. From the Old Testament the highest views presented of the nature and destiny of man were;
- Man was created in the image of God, and therefore like God, and of the same nature as a spirit, and capable of fellowship with his maker.
- Man was created immortal but death of the body was only a punishment for his sins.
- Man’s possessions and enjoyments of the earth are always temporary and insignificant, not adapted to meet the soul’s necessities.
- Hades or Sheol is the abode of departed spirits, who were there in a state of consciousness; some in a state of misery, others in a state of happiness. (Isa.26:19; Dan.12:2).
In the New Testament Christ proves to the Sadducees that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are living in the fellowship and enjoyment of God. He taught as touching the dead, that the rise, neither can they die anymore; for they are equal with the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.
The state of the soul of a believer immediately after death
Soul and body are two distinct substances, a vital union that constitute what is called man in his present state of existence. The soul is the self, the ego, the seat of his personality, and the body is the organ.
The soul continues its conscious existence and its power of acting and of being acted upon after its separation from the body meaning the dead, do not cease to be nor do they cease to be conscious and active.
We see in Rev.14:13 that those who die in the Lord are, from that moment onward, in a state of blessedness because they cease from their labours and enter on the reward of the righteous. Those who believe in Jesus are not thus condemned, instead they have eternal life for it is impossible that the souls in which Christ thus lives should remain in a state of misery and degradation, nor do they remain in the abode of the departed spirits of believers awaiting the second coming of Christ as was the case with the Old Testament believers.
Sheol
All the people of God, who died before the advent of Christ, were confined in Sheol, or the under-world. The soul at death is said to be dismissed naked into silent, dark and dreary region of the under-world. Sheol or Hades is the gloomy realm of shades wherein are gathered
and detained the souls of all the dead generations. This place is the prison of souls, over which the angels keep watch. In Hades there is a furnace of unquenchable fire into which no one has yet been cast. It is reserved for the banishment of the wicked at the end of the world, when the righteous will be made citizens of an eternal kingdom. Although the good and the bad are both in Hades yet they are not in the same part of it.
Sheol is represented as divided into two departments;
i) Paradise
In Paradise, a place of positive enjoyment, were all Jews or only those who had faithfully observed the law. Those are they who would be raised from the dead when the Messiah came, and all the Gentiles would be left forever in the abode of the darkness.
ii) Gehenna
In Gehenna, a place of positive suffering, where were the Gentiles.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus both are represented as going into Sheol or Hades; the one was comforted and the other tormented. What separates the two, paradise from hell is a distance no greater than a thread. Here they remain until the resurrection.
The souls of believers do at death immediately pass into glory
They enter the under-world by the same gate and when this gate is passed, the guardian angels guide the souls of the departed different
ways; the righteous are guided to the right to a region full of light; the wicked are constrained to take the left hand path, leading to a region near the unquenchable fire.
- The good are free from all discomfort, and rejoice in expectation of their admission into heaven.
- The wicked are miserable in constant anticipation of their coming doom.
In Luke 16:22, the beggar died, and was straight away carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom implying the transition was immediate from earth to heaven. The Lord said to the penitent thief, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43). According to the scriptures, paradise is heaven, (2Cor.12:4; Rev.2:7).
What Christ did during the three days of his sojourn in the invisible world?
When Christ died upon the cross, He descended into Hades, or Hell for the purpose of delivering the souls of the dead from their prison; and that they were the redeemed captives of whom the Apostle said in Eph.4:8-10, as led by Christ into heaven.
In 2Cor, "We know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." When our present body is dissolved the soul will not be found naked, but will be immediately clothed with another and more spiritual body suited to the altered state of its existence.
In Phil.1:23 Paul was confident that as soon as he departed from the flesh, he would immediately be with Christ.
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