What happens when we die?

It's not just a subject of religion - it is common belief that death is a passage from one form of life to another. 

After the devastating fire at a Chicago club in March 2003, one of the survivors spoke in an interview about the loss of a talented friend. 

"Heaven must have been needing more rock and roll," she said, that's why God took a talented young musician. Without being unfeeling about the loss of these young and promising lives in that tragedy, there are two points jumping from this statement.

Firstly, some people believe that heaven may be a place of rock and roll, partying, and reveling as we know it. See the topic "What is heaven like?"

Secondly, most people think we go to heaven when we die - an issue that has to do with the state of the dead.

Be aware that you cannot determine the truth in these spiritual matters by popular vote. Not because everyone thinks so makes it correct. Again, remember that, historically, most times the majority have been wrong on spiritual issues.

Popular notions not necessarily correct

Just imagine how Noah and his family must have been looked down on by the rest of the world's population as they labored to build an ark for 120 years. But the majority was wrong!

According to the Bible:

  1. Death is a sleep - John 11:11-14, Ecclesiastes 9:5,6
  2. David (man after God's own heart) did not go to heaven when he died - Acts 2:32-34
  3. Moses was specially resurrected by God and taken to heaven after he had been buried - Jude 1:9
  4. One of the major events at the second coming of Jesus is the resurrection of the dead (who are now sleeping in their graves); the righteous living will be taken to heaven along with those in the first resurrection - 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

So what happens when we die? The Bible says, our breath simply goes back to God, who gave it. The physical body returns to the dust from which it was made.

God's Formula for Human Life

Genesis 2:7 says, "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." 

This text gives a straightforward formula that God used for creating humans. The body from the dust or ground plus the breath of life (which only God could give) equaled a living being or soul.

Of course, you and I could take the ingredients that make ice cream and throw them together and not get even a scoop of ice cream to satisfy our tastes. Unless we know how to 'operate' on the ingredients, we will just be making a mess.

So only God knows the recipe to create life, although man may claim to know the ingredients, we cannot repeat or reproduce the process of "dust + breath = living being".

In school we learned the verity in the stoichiometric equation for the synthesis of water. Everyone knows that if you remove the oxygen from the water molecule the water doesn't exist any more. Same thing if hydrogen is removed.

Likewise when the breath of life is removed from our bodies, we are dead - we are no more living souls. It is as clear as lightning.

So Death is...

Death is a reversal of the summative process. When the breath of life is gone from a living being, life ceases for the individual. In other words, "living being - breath = dust." It is simple arithmetic. 

Over the centuries popular theories have been promulgated and now popular theories have become common place and accepted. To think otherwise is to risk being labeled fanatical.

But the truth is clear from the mouth of the One who conquered death and the grave. Death is a sleep. And who have fallen asleep will one day be awaken - either to eternal life or to eternal (or complete) destruction.

Heaven's hope holds good news

In this life, there is no cure for death - death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). However, it is promised that there will be no more pain or death one day soon (Revelation 21:4).

Like my father who was full of hope in the face of death, won't you embrace heaven's hope - the hope that only God through Jesus Christ can offer?

Further reading and study materials: