Catherine, I know you want early Christian writings, say from the second century. But meanwhile, I thought you might be interested in my testimony concerning my personal search for the truth about death and resurrection. I gave this testimony in a church of which I was part for many years. That church believed in immediate consciousness after death, and so I had to be cautious in the manner in which I expressed my search. (By the way, I do include an interesting quote from second-century Justin Martyr who associated the idea of going to heaven when you die, as gnostic.)
Job 19:25-27 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God,whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
A Testimony Concerning My Understanding of the Resurrection
As a boy, I was taught that each of us is immortal, that is, the real person is the soul, which presently inhabits a mortal body and after that mortal body dies, the soul will live on and live eternally in either heaven or hell. When I began to read the Bible for myself later, I noticed a passage that contained a statement which didn’t seem consistent with this teaching:
I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no human being has ever seen or can see. To him be honour and permanent dominion. Truly. (I Tim 6:14-16)
Years later, I discovered that the Greek philosophers taught their disciples that each person has an immortal soul, the real person so to speak. Plato taught that though your body may die, your soul, the real you, will be born into another body, either that of a person, or if you haven’t lived a good life, into that of an animal. According to Plato, these reincarnations will continue forever. The gnostics during the first centuries of Christianity got many of their ideas from the Greek philosophers. However, they claimed to be Christians. But they thought that all matter, including human bodies, were the creation of a lesser god, Yahweh, the god of the Jews, who thought he was the supreme God, but was mistaken. They taught that the Father of Jesus was the real supreme God. He was the creator of all spirits, and things spiritual. So physical bodies are worthless, and will never be raised to life. Only the immortal spirit will live on, and go to Heaven or Hell at death. A few gnostics claimed to believe in the resurrection, but for them, that meant the soul going to heaven. Some of them said that the church at large was mistaken in teaching that first comes death and later resurrection. They the gnostics knew the truth, that first comes the resurrection, and then death. For the gnostic, that meant that first the soul leaves the body and is raised up to go to heaven, and this causes the body to die. Justin Martyr, who was himself a follower of Plato, after he became a Christian, accepted completely the Christian teaching of first death, and later the resurrection. Once he debated for days with a group of Jews headed by Trypho, showing that God had a Son, Jesus, and that the Old Testament spoke of Jesus throughout. But Justin wanted to make sure that the Jews didn’t get the true Christians confused with the gnostics. So he told them:
*“If you have fallen in with some who are called ‘Christians’, but … who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven, do not imagine that they are Christians.”(Dialogue With Trypho Chap. LXXX paragraph 2 *
I also read early Christian writings who defended the faith against gnosticism by saying that Jesus didn’t go to heaven at death. They said He had to spend 3 days and nights in the grave, before being raised and ascending to heaven. So surely we won’t ascend to heaven either until we are raised from death.
I realized that Genesis teaches that God formed man, a mere lifeless body from earth, and then breathed into this body the breath of life, and man became a living soul. It doesn’t teach that man received a soul, but he became a soul. The Hebrew word translated as “soul” is “nephesh”. This word means “being”. Indeed the RSV translates it, “man became a living being.”
I discovered that animals also are called living souls or living beings.
Ge 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living soul [creature] after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind: and it was so.
Nu 19:11 He that touches the dead soul of any person shall be unclean seven days.
If “soul” means the immaterial consciousness of a person, I wondered how anyone can touch the dead soul of a person. Of course, nephesh is not translated as “soul” in this context. It is translated as “body”! Which meaning does it have “body” or “soul”? I thought, it can’t mean both. No. It means “being”. I realized that I am a nephesh. I am a being. I am not a canine being – a dog. I am not a feline being – a cat. I am not a bovine being – a bull. I am a human being – a man. You can touch my being or soul with your hand.
The spirit of gnosticism was present even in the days of Paul! He wrote to the Corinthians:
2 Tim 2:14, 16-18 Remind them of this, and charge them before the Lord to avoid disputing about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers… Avoid such empty discussion, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will eat its way like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have deviated from the truth by saying that the resurrection has already come to pass. They are upsetting the faith of some.
I began to think that Hymenaeus and Philetus taught what the gnostics later taught! Perhaps this was a prototype of gnosticism. According to gnosticism, Jesus’ resurrection was not a resurrection of His body, but of His Spirit. Likewise, our spirits will be raised at death and go to heaven. And so the resurrection for each one who has died, according to Hymenaeus and Philetus, is past. It occurred when the person died.
Early in my search, I came across a couple of passages in the Psalms that seemed to indicate that there was no consciousness after death:
*Psalm 6:4,5 Turn, O Yahweh, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?
Psalm 146:3,4 Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his thoughts have perished.*
Do these statements from Psalms say what they seem to say? That now is the time to praise God, since after death we have no remembrance of God, for our thoughts have perished. We have no consciousness.
I examined the great resurrection chapter: I Corinthians 15: 16-20:
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
It seems that Paul is saying that if the dead are not raised, then the dead in Christ have perished. They are dead and gone forever.
I also noticed the word “sleep” is frequently used in the New Testament for death. Our Lord Himself so used it. I wondered why this word would be used for death, if the dead are happily walking around in heaven fellowshipping with those who have gone before, or witnessing the events on earth, which is how some interpret the “cloud of witnesses” mentioned in Hebrews 12:1. They wouldn’t be sleeping would they?
Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to awake him out of sleep.”
The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he’ll be all right.”
Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead.” (John 11:11-14 )
So I wondered why Jesus would have used sleep as a figure of speech concerning death, if the dead are conscious.
If the resurrection is just a resurrection of the body, I wondered, what’s the point? Why not be content with worshipping God and visiting our loved ones in heaven as a disembodied spirit? I’ve heard some say, that we will need a body in heaven, since our soul is not complete unless it is attached to a body. Ah, but if the story of the rich man and Lazarus represents the intermediate state, (between death and resurrection), I thought, well… in that story, they did have bodies. Lazarus had a finger. The rich man asked him to dip his finger in water, and cool his tongue. The rich man had a tongue. They could see each other. So really, I asked myself, why do we need a bodily resurrection at all? Indeed I noticed that those who believe that they will go to heaven at death, attach little importance to their personal resurrection. Their hope seems to be in getting to heaven when they die. But I found that Paul emphasized the resurrection. For Paul, the resurrection was the great hope. Without it, we would be dead forever.
I Cor 15:32 …If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Why would lack of resurrection make any difference if we go immediately to heaven of hell at death?
I Thess 4:13-18 But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Then Jesus declared:
John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
Four times in John 6, Jesus declares that He will raise His disciples on the last day. Why didn’t Jesus say, “… and I will take him to heaven when he dies.”? What’s the importance of his being raised up? Not much importance, I thought, if it’s just a matter of attaching a body to the soul. But a great importance, if that is the only way a person is going to live again. Such were my thoughts.
And what about the story of the rich man and Lazarus? Isn’t that a clear description of life immediately after death? Well, I already mentioned that the Greeks and the gnostics believed that the soul is the consciousness, and survives death. I thought perhaps the Jews of the day picked up the idea from the Greeks, and altered it, by declaring that the soul does not reincarnate, but goes to the underworld — hades. I read the discourse of Flavius Josephus, the well-known Jewish historian,who described hades or “hell” just as Jesus described it in his parable, except Josephus gave much more detail. I found out that “hades” and the earlier use of the English word “hell” refers to a hidden place. Lovers used to seek a hell so as to be unseen and undisturbed. Did you ever hell potatoes? I discovered that this word was altered, so that now we speak of “hilling” potatoes, but it was originally “helling”. When you hell potatoes you cover them over, hide them from the sun. Did Jesus use a common idea of life after death as the basis for His parable? I began to think so. You will recall that he used the story to show to the Pharisees that even if it were possible for someone to come back from the dead, they would not believe.
Some say that Jesus wouldn’t do that. He would never use a false belief to illustrate a truth. Wouldn’t He? I remembered His encounter with the rich young man:
Matt 19:16 And behold, one came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?”
And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”
*He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?”
Jesus said to him, “If you would be complete, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
*
If you would enter life, keep the commandments. We all know that the answer to inheriting eternal life is not keeping the commandments. But that is what the young man believed. So I realized Jesus used the young man’s belief to bring him to the real way to eternal life — leave everything and follow Him. That is the only way.
I had been told of several more scriptures that teach that Christians go to heaven at death. Without looking at the context, they did seem to teach that. I was confused, and didn’t know what to believe about the intermediate state. Then when I examined the context of these Scriptures, I discovered some very interesting facts.
Mt 22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."
If God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must be living, right? So it would seem until I looked at the context. Jesus was addressing the Jewish sect of the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection. He said:
Mt 22:31,32 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."
So I realized that Jesus was simply saying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would not stay dead; they would be raised from the dead. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Then we have Jesus words to the thief on the cross:
And he said to him, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Well what could be clearer than that? Jesus told him that he would be with Him in Paradise on that very day, didn’t He? Then I found out that there were no punctuation marks in the early Greek manuscripts of the NT. It was all written in capital letters with no spaces between the words and no punctuation. We can read it a different way:
Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.
Someone told me once. He wouldn’t talk that way: “I tell you today”. But I considered that we have a modern version of this very thing. Nowadays we might say, “I’m telling you right now, you will be with me in paradise.”
Then there’s the commonly used statement: “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. If anything is going to settle it surely that will! Isn’t that the plain words of Scripture? I thought it was… until I looked it up. It’s actually a misquote. This is another one we need to read in context:
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Cor 5:1-10)
I asked myself, what is this house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? Is it not the resurrection body?
“For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed…” (Not that we would be unclothed, disembodied spirits, but clothed with the resurrection body. That’s the way I saw it.) “… so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” This is similar to what Paul wrote in the great resurrection chapter — I Cor 15. In that chapter he wrote: “This mortal must put on immortality.”
*So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be absent from the body and present with the Lord. *
So it seemed to me, in view of the context, that Paul is saying that we would rather be absent from this present, mortal body, and present with the Lord in the immortal body that we shall have after the resurrection, when this mortal puts on immortality.
So whether we are present or absent, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
This last sentence really clinched it for me. Paul is not starting a new topic. That word “for” at the beginning of the sentence relates it to all that has gone before. I realized that nowhere does the scripture indicate that we appear before the judgment seat of Christ when we die and go to heaven. Rather it is when Christ comes, and we are raised from the dead. So I realized that this whole passage must be a discussion of the resurrection.
2Co 4:14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
As I understand it, Paul was saying that we will be brought into the presence of the risen Jesus at the time that God will raise us from the dead.
In closing, I just want to say, even if this were a matter of fact only, it is worth pursuing. I have been on a personal search for truth and reality for most of my life. But it’s not merely a matter of fact. It’s not merely a matter of who has the right belief. This is a matter of looking for that great hope which has been set before us, the hope of the Lord’s coming, the hope of resurrection, and the hope of righteousness, of completion, of sonship, all to take place in one glorious moment, when the Lord comes, raises us, and brings to completion the good work which He began in us. For me, it is my great hope! I firmly believe, that, after I die, unless the Lord raises me, I’ll remain dead. So I have to trust Him fully to raise me, even as Jesus Himself trusted His Father fully, when He said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
I want to end with the same Scripture as that with which I began:
Job 19:25-27 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God,whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
But … whichever way it will be … whether we go directly to heaven at death, or await the resurrection, our personal experience will be the same. For immediately after death, the next thing of which we will be aware, is being in the presence of God.
Any help will be most appreciated.
My friend is arguing that when we die we don’t really ‘die’ but we are alive in spirit form and are immortal. He believes that the Bible teaches this as per the examples I cited earlier. He has the majority of history it seems and Christendom supporting his position. The fact that you live on in spirit form after you die explains why (according to Orthodox Christianity and possibly Judaism) the unsaved are punished consciously FOREVER…now can you see why this is so important to get right?