You are at the last moments of your life on the earth. An illness has you in its grips and time has run out. You close your eyes for the last time, and you are suddenly aware of much more than your eyes could ever see. The Bible talks about faith being to believe in something without seeing it. For those with much faith what they see next perhaps will not be a surprise, but really it is one thing to believe but another to see. And you are seeing.
I should think the first thing you will be aware of is the
presence of God, all around like the sun on a hot summer’s day - warm, and
assuring. Perhaps the next thing you
will see is an angel. One of their tasks
is to transport us to our next destination.
The angel probably has known you a long time. They fight battles in that strange spirit
world that now is totally familiar and real to you. But, all that is behind you. Strangely, your interest in the working of
angels and demons actually ends when you die.
Their battles, actions, or lack thereof really only affected you in ‘the
flesh’. Now you are far behind the reach of the most powerful demon and in no
need whatsoever of the help of the greatest archangel. In fact you will soon help them.
Even though your body is dead, another part of you called
the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ in the Bible continues to exist, to feel and to think. We
are made by God as a unity of body and soul. People ask me exactly what our
souls are and I have trouble answering since the answer is both ‘us’ and ‘not
us’ since we are incomplete without our bodies. Christianity teaches that the
body is not evil but is an essential part of us. In fact the bodiless state you
are in after death is only temporary.
This temporary state you are in creates a temporary
afterlife. Moments after death you are transported either to Paradise or
Hades. I know those sound like weird terms, but stay with me for a moment. They
are places very much like eternal heaven and eternal hell yet neither of them
is permanent, both being emptied out on the great day of judgement (more
below). No believer has entered into the final heaven nor has any sinner entered
the final hell. For you though, I
suppose none of that will matter that much.
Paradise is still the
place of God and a place of friends and peace, very much like heaven as Hades
is really very much like hell. It is in
that place you wait around for a while. Sadly, there are no good deeds you can
do in Hades to somehow earn your favour with God nor can the prayers of your
living friends alter your destiny. I guess the lesson is to decide now what you
believe.
Those of you who read up on these sorts of things may feel
that I left something out – the Judgement Day. Well that day is coming, but you
have already had a kind of judgement happen to you though without all the
fanfare. So what are you waiting for? This might sound corny but you are
waiting for the end of the world. Human history will go on for however long it
will until Jesus comes back.
After that you and everyone else who has ever lived (both
good and bad) will be brought before the judgement seat of God. I believe at
that time we are given some explanation as to why we are judged as we are. Then
we will all be “resurrected” and given eternal bodies. These are physical
bodies that will be able to withstand the rigours of eternity. I tell the
students that they will look like the perfect version of themselves so I will
look exactly as I am now!
For those of you who pictured heavenly eternity as being a
bunch of disembodied spirits sitting on some kind of cloud with stringed
musical devices the next part will be a surprise. The earth is cleansed/fixed
and we are returned to it. That’s right - heaven is here on the planet. You
will live here, walk around and experience time as you do now. Some believe
that Jesus had the first eternal body, and He was able to do cool things like
appear within a locked room. If indeed that is a characteristic of these bodies
and not just of the Lord it would solve our greatest limitation. We would
thereafter become explorers of the universe while we explore and come to know
our Creator.
I don’t claim to be speaking for all branches of
Christianity with the above paragraphs (nor are my own statements flawless!).
But what I have written is a rough answer to the question of what happens to us
after we die from a Christian Protestant perspective.
By Jason Gayoway
Published in The Daily Herald Tribune November 28, 2013
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