What they say about death world religions and customs rooted in human society? Who is Responsible for False Teachings About Death and How the Bible Helps Eliminate False Beliefs about death? Book - Think and Grow Rich!
Misconception about death
Throughout human history, people have been puzzled and frightened by the grim prospect of death. The fear of death was fueled by false
creeds, as well as popular customs and ingrained ideas of people.
This fear can deprive a person of the joy of life and undermine his confidence that there is meaning in life.
Remember what God told the first people about their future? “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fishof the sea, and of the birds of the air, and of every living thing that moves on the earth.”(Genesis 1:28) What a wonderful prospect!
2. False teaching. People die because God takes them to himself.
One 27-year-old mother, dying and leaving behind three children, said to a Catholic nun: “You don’t need to tell me that this is God’s will... I hate it when
they tell me this". Yes, many religions teach that God takes people to himself so that they can be where he is.
Is God really so cruel and brings death to people, although he knows that this is a great grief for us? No, the God of the Bible cannot do that.
1 John 4:8 says that «» . Note that this does not say that God shows love or has love, but that he is love.
God's love is so strong, pure and perfect, it is such an integral part of his personality and all his affairs that God can be called the very personification of love. No, God does not take people to himself to be where he is.
Because of false religion, many are mistaken about where and in what condition the dead are. Heaven, hell - these and similar concepts are either incomprehensible or downright terrifying.
The Bible, on the other hand, says that the dead are in a state of unconsciousness, which is much like sleep (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; John 11:11-14).
Therefore, we should not worry about what will happen to us after death, just as we do not worry about someone who is fast asleep. Jesus predicted a time when "all those in memorial crypts"(John 5:28, 29; Luke 23:43).
3. False teaching. God takes little children to Himself to make them angels.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who observed terminally ill people, noticed what believers usually talk about. About
On one occasion she wrote: “Isn’t it wise to tell a child who has lost his brother that God loves babies very much, so he took Johnny to heaven.”
Such words distort ideas about God, and are also in no way consistent with God’s personality traits and actions. Dr. Kübler-Ross continues: “When this girl grew up, she could not help feeling resentment towards God. And thirty years later, when she lost little son, the feeling of bitterness developed into depressive psychosis.”
Does God need to take a child away from his parents in order to make him another one, as if God needs this child more than his parents?
If God really took children to himself, it would be cruel and selfish. The Bible, on the contrary, says that "love from God"(1 John 4:7).
Can loving God be the cause of a tragedy that is difficult for any decent person to come to terms with?
How to explain the death of children? The answer is partly found in Ecclesiastes 9:11: "Time and chance for them all."
And Psalm 50:7 says that all people are sinful and imperfect from the moment of conception, and therefore everyone eventually dies for one reason or another.
reason. Sometimes death befalls a baby while still in the womb, and he is born dead.
Other children die as a result bad conditions life or accident. God is not to blame for their deaths.
4. False teaching. Some people will suffer after death.
Many religions teach that sinners go to hell after death, where they will face eternal torment. Are these teachings consistent with common sense and with
The Bible? People live on average 70-80 years. Even if someone has committed terrible atrocities all their life, is it fair to torture them forever for it?
No. It would be extremely unfair to torture a person forever for the sins that he committed during his short life.
Only God can reveal to us what happens after death, and he talks about it in his Word, the Bible. It says: “As those [animals] die, so these [people] die, and everyone has one breath... Everything goes to one place: everything came from dust and everything will return to dust.”(Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20).
Hellfire isn't even mentioned here. When a person dies, he returns to dust, that is, he ceases to exist.
In order to experience torment, a person must be conscious. Are the deceased conscious? The Bible gives the answer: “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any reward for them, because the memory of them is consigned to oblivion.”(Ecclesiastes 9:5). The dead know nothing and cannot feel any pain.
5. False teaching. With death we cease to exist forever.
With death we cease to exist, but not necessarily forever. Faithful to God, Job knew that when he died, he would be in the grave. But he still prayed to God:
“Oh, if only You would hide me in the grave [grave] and cover me until Your anger passes, set a time for me and then remember me! WhenIf a person dies, will he live again? […] You would call, and I would give you an answer.”(Job 14:13-15).
Job believed that if he remained faithful to God until death, God would remember him in due time and resurrect him. All God's servants of old believed this.
Jesus himself confirmed this hope by showing that God would raise the dead through him. Christ assured: “The hour is coming in which all who are in the memorial tombs will hear his [Jesus’] voice and will come out: those who did good for the resurrection of life, and those who did evil for the resurrection of judgment.”(John 5:28, 29).
Soon God will destroy all evil and establish new world under the rule heavenly kingdom(Psalm 37:10, 11; Daniel 2:44; Revelation 16:14, 16).
There will be no fear
The hope of resurrection, as well as the knowledge of who will resurrect people, is comforting. Jesus promised: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”(John 8:32).
Truth also frees us from the fear of death. Jehovah is the only one who can reverse the aging process and eliminate death, giving us eternal life. Can God's promises be trusted? Yes.
Because God's word always comes true (Isaiah 55:11). Learn more about God's purposes for people.
People living in your area can help you with this.
Some Common Misconceptions About Death
1. Death is the natural end of life.
2. People die because God takes them to himself.
3. God takes little children to Himself to make them angels.
4. Some suffer torment after death.
5. With death we cease to exist forever.
What the Bible says about death
1. Then God blessed them and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, cultivate it and rule over sea fish, abovecreatures that fly in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the earth." But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it you will certainly die.”(Genesis 1:28; 2:17).
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death spread to all people, because all sinned... (Romans 5:12).
2. Then all flesh will lose life and man will return to dust (Job 34:15).
But the meek will inherit the earth and enjoy the abundance of peace. The righteous will inherit the earth and will live on it forever. Heaven - heaven belongs to Jehovah,
and he gave the land to the sons of men (Psalm 36:11, 29; 113:24).
3. Behold, in iniquity I was born in pain, and in sin my mother conceived me. Bless Jehovah, O my soul. O Jehovah my God, you are very great. You are clothed
in dignity and splendor. You make your angels spirits, your servants into all-consuming fire (Psalm 50:7; 103:1, 4).
Also about angels he says: “He makes his angels spirits and his ministers flames of fire. Are they not all spirits for service,
sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:7, 14).
4. His spirit leaves, and he returns to his land. On that day his thoughts disappear (Psalm 145:4).
The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no more reward for them, because the memory of them is consigned to oblivion. Everything that can
It is your hand to do, do it with all your might, because in Sheol, the place where you will go, there is no work, no plans, no knowledge, no wisdom (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10).
Because the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).
5.If a person dies, will he be able to live again? All the days of my slavery I will wait until my liberation comes. You call and I will answer you.
You will be homesick for the work of your own hands (Job 14:14, 15).
We prefer not to say anything about her at all, because she is too scary. When someone close to us dies, we call it descriptively: “he left us...” And yet, death is the only event in life that happens to every person, without exception. What does the Bible say about her?
"The day of death is better than the day of birth"
There are amazing words in the book of Ecclesiastes: “The name is better good oil, and the day of death better than the day his birth" (7:1). Ecclesiastes, of course, can hardly be called an optimist, but this seems too gloomy even for him. In what sense should this be understood? Apparently, this is what we are talking about here. A newborn child, like precious oil, exists only physically and does not yet have a name. Its potential, like its incense, can be wasted—or wasted? - for very different purposes, and can disappear very quickly, like the aroma of precious oil. But if during his life a person acquires a good name for himself, on the day of death it remains with him forever.
This understanding is also present in traditional interpretations. Here is what the authors of the Talmudic treatises “Shemot Rabba” and “Kohelet Rabba” write about this: “When a person is born, everyone rejoices; when he dies, everyone cries... It's like one ship leaving the harbor and another entering it. They rejoiced at the leaving ship, but no one rejoiced at the entering one. There was one clever man, and he said to the people: “I see you have everything mixed up. There is no reason to rejoice at the departing ship, for no one knows what its fate will be, what seas and storms it will encounter on its way; but he who returns to the harbor should be rejoiced by all, since he has arrived safely.”
Likewise, when a person dies, everyone should rejoice and be grateful that he left this world with a good name.”
The rabbis are echoed by the Christian theologian and translator, Blessed Jerome of Stridon: ““And the day of death is better than the day of birth” - this means either that it is better to leave this world and avoid its suffering and unreliable life, than, having entered this world, to patiently endure everything these hardships, because when we die, our deeds are known, and when we are born, they are unknown; or that birth binds the freedom of the soul to the body, and death frees it.”
A modern reader who believes in the immortality of the soul, after some reflection, will probably agree with this conclusion: after all, he understands how birth into eternal life, where a righteous person (or a forgiven sinner) can finally find everything that he lacked in life temporal. But these words will seem truly surprising to us if we think about it: they were spoken in a society where few people thought about afterlife bliss.
IN Old Testament we will find only two references, both controversial and dubious, in which one can, if desired, discern an indication of something good beyond the grave. One - . Synodal translation says: “The wicked will be rejected for his evil, but the righteous will have hope even at his death.” " . It would seem that everything is quite clear, but... modern scientists believe that this is still a correction by the scribes of subsequent times, and initially in the text instead of the words “at death” there was “in his integrity (has hope)”, that is, he gains good. In the Hebrew text, probably two letters swapped places and the meaning changed, this sometimes happens when copying manuscripts - and the Greek text, the Septuagint, here speaks of righteousness, and not of death.
Another place is in the book of Job (19:25–26). The Synodal translation here is quite optimistic: “And I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day He will raise this decaying skin of mine from the dust, and I will see God in my flesh.” But in fact the original is full of ambiguities; suffice it to say that it does not say “in the flesh,” but literally “out of the flesh” or “outside the flesh,” and, apparently, this means that Job will no longer have flesh. In my translation, this passage reads like this: “I know that my Intercessor lives, He – the Last – will rise above the ashes! Even when my skin falls off and my flesh falls away, I will see God.”
But even if both of these places really talk about a good fate beyond the grave, we simply won’t find any others like them. But we will find in the same Proverbs, in the same Job, many references to death as a terrible, final limit set for all of us, beyond which there will be no light, no joy, no salvation. The same Job says: “The waters of the lake go away, and the river runs out and dries up: so a man lies down and does not get up; until the end of heaven he will not awaken and rise from his sleep... You press him to the end, and he leaves; you betray his face and send him away. Whether his children are honored - he does not know; whether they are humiliated - he does not notice; but his flesh hurts in him, and his soul suffers in him” (14:11-12, 20-22).
And yet in this same book we encounter an amazing, daring, prophetic word about Sheol - world of the dead. In my opinion, these lines stand closer to Calvary and the resurrection than anything else in the Old Testament. Let me quote them in my own translation:
I yearn for Sheol as for home, and in the darkness I prepare a bed for myself,
I call the coffin my father,
and the worm - mother and sister. Where is it, my hope?
My hope - who saw? Will she come down to the gates of Sheol?
Will he fall into the ground with me? (17:13–16)
Yes, he will come down, yes, he will lie down - we are ready to shout to Job from the heights of the New Testament, but he still knows nothing about it. He is preparing to go there irrevocably, not expecting anything good for himself there. He died “an old man, full of life,” he saw his great-grandchildren, and approximately the same thing is said about other righteous people, but this only emphasizes the main idea of the Old Testament: all good things happen here and now, do not expect any good there. On the one hand, before Golgotha, before the atonement for the sins of all mankind, it was indeed impossible to talk about paradise. On the other hand, maybe this is how the Lord taught the Israelites to be faithful to God not for the sake of afterlife rewards, but for the sake of life itself with God here and now?
So, for the man of the Old Testament, everything valuable and important in life happened here on earth; but the man of the times of the New Testament already knew that beyond the grave he would have to give an account of his earthly life and that his further fate would depend on this judgment. People believed that they would be resurrected “on the last day,” when earthly history would end and something new, incomprehensible, but beautiful, about which the prophets spoke, would begin.
"God did not create death"
But what does the Bible say about this very transition, about death? It appears with the Fall; Giving Adam the commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Lord warns him: “on the day you eat from it, you will die” (). As we read a little further, we will see that Adam and Eve lived not just long, but incredibly long after the day they broke the commandment. Apparently the warning meant that on that day they would be subject to death. Adam, Genesis tells us, lived 930 years, his son Seth lived 912 years, and his grandson Enosh lived 905 years. The dates, of course, are unthinkable in our world, and their symbolic meaning has already been discussed in Chapter 9: as we move away from the source of life, God, the period of earthly existence gradually shortens.
The non-canonical book of the Wisdom of Solomon (1:13–16) discusses this in more detail: “God did not create death and does not rejoice in the destruction of the living, for He created everything for existence, and everything in the world is salvific, and there is no harmful poison, and there is no kingdom of hell in earth.
Righteousness is immortal, but unrighteousness causes death: the wicked attracted her with their hands and words, considered her a friend and wasted away, and made an alliance with her, for they are worthy to be her lot.” And in the New Testament the Apostle Paul discusses this ():
“By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so it spread to all men, because all sinned.”
Of course, this may seem unfair: I personally did not sin in the Garden of Eden, why should I bear the punishment for that sin? This can be answered differently, although the meaning will still be approximately the same. We can say that all humanity inherited original sin from Eve (according to Orthodox belief, only Christ was free from it; Catholics add the Mother of God Mary to Him). This is not just responsibility for something that happened a long time ago, but a tendency to sin, which one way or another manifests itself in any person. Children of a drug addict mother are born with drug addiction, although they have never taken a drug, not to mention the very likely genetic failures; sin is the most terrible drug, addiction to which occurs at the first use.
But you can understand the same thing a little differently: in Adam and Eve, the Bible poetically depicted primitive humanity on some very early stages its development, when people decided to live by their own minds and turned away from the One God. We are all involved in this humanity, which said a firm “no” to God, because we periodically do the same in our lives.
"Strong as death, love"
It would seem that if death is a consequence of sin and the stamp of sinfulness on all humanity, then it is an unconditional evil that can only be cursed. But the most cheerful book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, even seems to sing about it (8:6): “Put me as a seal on your heart, like a ring on your hand: for love is strong as death; jealousy is fierce as hell.” Poets of subsequent centuries will object: no, love is stronger than death, it conquers it, but the biblical author did not write about who wins in a duel. He simply compared love with the strongest thing in this world after God, and did not find anything stronger than death.
Of course, no one wished death for themselves and, if possible, tried to avert it. We find almost no bible books suicides. For Greco-Roman antiquity, for example, a person’s ability to end his mortal existence was a sign of courage and spiritual height. This is not at all the case in the Bible, where it is an act of extreme despair: the wounded Saul kills himself so as not to be captured by the Philistines, who abuse him (); The sage Ahithophel kills himself, whose advice was first rejected by the ruler (). There is nothing to say about Judas Iscariot ().
But the people of biblical times seemed to treat their own and others’ deaths much more calmly than we do. The prophet Balaam, looking at the Israeli people, blesses them and unexpectedly says: “May my soul die of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!” (). How can you wish yourself death? No, he just knows that death cannot be avoided, and he prays that Which It is he who desires death for himself: like the righteous. That same calm completion of the good path that Ecclesiastes apparently spoke about. By the way, Balaam was not given what he asked for: this “prophet for hire,” who at one time accepted the order to curse the Israelites, was killed by them along with the kings of Midian (Isa). In biblical times they talked about death - both one's own and that of others - quite simply, as something natural and ordinary; they did not hide from it, as is customary now, when funeral speeches sometimes sound as if some unthinkable accident had occurred, which no one could have expected. But this is how it begins last speech King David, addressed to his son and heir Solomon: “The time drew near for David to die, and he commanded his son Solomon, saying: Behold, I am going on the journey of all the earth, but you be strong and be courageous and keep the covenant of the Lord your God” ( ). And Solomon does not object, does not tell his father that he still has to live and live; he understands that it is better to go on the “path of the whole earth” prepared, with a clear consciousness of his destiny.
“Death, where is your sting?”
But this, of course, does not mean that people have come to terms with it. Yes, this is probably impossible. And in the prophetic books they talk every now and then about a wonderful time when...
“There will no longer be a child or an old man who will not reach the fullness of his days; For a man who is a hundred years old will die a youth, but a sinner who is a hundred years old will be cursed. And they will build houses and live in them, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof. They will not build for another to live, they will not plant for another to eat” ().
Or maybe something more amazing will happen - and there will be no death at all?
“He will destroy from this mountain the veil that covers all nations, the veil that falls on all nations. Death will be swallowed up forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (). However, with prophecies everything is not simple - and we discussed this in the 10th chapter, citing an example from the prophet Hosea (13:14), whose words are quoted in a completely different sense by the Apostle Paul (), and after him John Chrysostom: “Death ! where is your sting? hell! where is your victory? It cannot be that the Lord, in one and the same short phrase, was simultaneously vehemently threatening the Israelites and giving them the wildest hopes! It can’t... only if we ourselves follow strict laws formal logic, where threat and promise are two different and completely incompatible concepts. But people, times, circumstances are different, and what sounded like a threat to some can easily become a promise to others.
The prophets not only spoke, they also acted. During a famine, Elijah comes to a poor widow awaiting imminent death along with her son, and asks - or rather, orders - to give him the last portion of bread. The widow obeys and the food miraculously multiplies. But the child still dies after some time, no longer from hunger, but from a sudden illness. The widow throws a bitter reproach in the face of the prophet:
“What have you to do with us, man of God? You came to me to remind me of my sins and to kill my son.” Without any high theology, this woman vividly felt the connection between and sin, however, she understood it too straightforwardly: she paid for her sins with the death of her son. Until the prophet was next to her, everything was somehow ordinary, gray, but his arrival highlighted both the white and the black in her life - and now a terrible retribution awaits her for the black. It is very simple to construct such an equation, and many people have since explained illness and death this way... But Elijah does not agree - he turns the reproach to the Lord: “Lord my God! Will You really do evil to the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?” ()
Later, a similar miracle would be performed by Elisha (), and of course, by Christ (Luke 7:11–17). “God has visited His people,” the Jews say when they see the resurrection of a widow’s son in an unremarkable town. It is unlikely that they so quickly recognized Christ as God, why did they say so? And why did Christ resurrect this young man at all?
It is clear that the widow who lost her son was left without any means of support, but he was not the only one who died then in Palestine, and it seems that there was nothing remarkable in this town and in this family.
Where there is God, there is no death. It's like fire and ice: in the same place there can only be one of them, and if Christ meets, death recedes. We see the same thing in the scene of the resurrection of Lazarus (). The amazing confidence of Martha and Mary, who repeat one after another: “Lord! if You had been here, my brother would not have died” - how can you die in the presence of the Lord, really? But in this miracle, which precedes the death and resurrection of Christ himself, we see something else. We see his humility before death. We see him as such a weak and mortal man as, perhaps, nowhere else in the Gospel; even on Calvary there is more firmness and confidence in Him. And here, at the grave of a friend, He is humanly confused: He does not know where they put Lazarus, He grieves to the point of tears and is even indignant, and how can one not be indignant at the omnipotence of death?
These manifestations of human weakness in Christ forced the exegetes to work hard. But the general meaning is apparently simple: this reveals the fullness of His human nature, weak and limited, like ours, and not involved only in sin. Nature subject to death. But it is precisely such a person who says to Lazarus: “Come out!” - and he emerges from the grave, from Sheol, from the kingdom of shadows. And after this it becomes extremely clear: Christ will no longer be left alive; too much strong opponent He challenged.
“trampling death upon death.” Just as in the case of Adam and Eve, the Fall did not mean immediate death, so here the resurrection of Christ did not mean the immediate abolition of death. But her power became temporary, relative, finite. “Hell reigns, but does not reign over the human race forever” - this is how he sings about it on Holy Saturday.
Victory meant for Christ to go through it, survive it and overcome it, so that even on this path, in the “valley of the shadow of death,” we would not feel abandoned and alone. He has already been there, and there we will meet Him so that He can lead us into eternity.
The Bible says that “the dust will return to the earth from where it came, and the spirit will return to the Creator, Who gave it”... Forgive the pun, but today only the dead do not try to find out or find out what happens to the soul when the person dies. So I was puzzled by this question.
Human death - what is it?
From a biological and physical point of view, the death of a person is a complete stop of all processes of his life. This is an irreversible phenomenon that none of us can ignore. At the moment of a person’s death, processes occur that are inversely proportional to his creation. The brain is irreversibly destroyed, losing its functionality. The emotional world is erased.
Where is it - the edge of existence?
The Bible says that "the dust will return to the ground from where it came, and the spirit will return to the Creator, Who gave it." In accordance with this, today some scientists have derived the formula In writing, it will have the following two options:
- dust of the earth + breath of life = living human soul;
- lifeless body + breath of the Creator = living personality.
From the formula it is clear that each of us is endowed with a body and a thinking mind. And as long as we breathe (we have the breath of God in us), we are living beings. Our soul is alive. Death is any cessation of life, it is non-existence. The human body becomes dust, the breath (spirit of life) returns back to the Creator - to God. When we leave, our soul slowly dies away, subsequently being reborn. A decaying corpse remains in the ground. More on this later.
What happens to the soul when a person dies?
Our soul is freed from the body over the course of several days, going through several stages of purification:
So, what happens to the soul when a person dies? From all of the above, we can conclude that she returns back to the Creator, and does not go to heaven or hell. However, please! But what about the Bible, which says that ours goes to either heaven or hell? More on this later.
Where do the souls of dead people go?
Today, scientists are trying to prove the existence of heaven and hell by collecting testimonies of people who returned “from the other world.” For those who don’t understand, I’m talking about survivors. Their testimonies coincide down to the smallest details! Non-believers say they saw hell with their own eyes: they were surrounded by snakes, demons and a terrible stench. Those who have “visited” heaven talk about light, fragrance and lightness.
Where are the souls of dead people?
Clergy and doctors who interacted with such people noticed interesting feature: those who “visited” heaven returned to their physical body enlightened and calm, and those who “saw” hell tried for a very long time to recover from the nightmare. Experts summarized all the evidence and memories of “dead” people, after which they concluded that heaven and hell really exist, with the first being at the top and the second at the bottom. Everything is exactly the same as in the description of the afterlife according to the Bible and the Koran. As we see, there is no consensus. And this is absolutely fair. Moreover, the Bible says that “the day of judgment will come, and the dead will rise from their graves.” Friends, we can only hope that the zombie apocalypse will not happen in our century!
It is important!
So, friends, we have looked at some aspects of a person. I tried to present as accurately as possible some of the opinions of modern scientists regarding this problem. Now let's get serious. Do you know what happens to the soul when a person dies? So I don’t know! To be honest, no one knows the answer to this question: neither I, nor you, friends, nor scientists... We can only speculate, based on certain unproven facts clinical death of people. There is no direct evidence of life after death or death after death, so we can only operate with unproven arguments that science provides us. As they say, all the dead take a secret with them to the grave...
Gen 44:9 ...Whichever of your servants has [the cup], he death,..
Exodus 10:17 ...so that He may only turn this away from me death...
Exodus 21:14 ...then And take it from my altar death...
Numbers 35:30 ...but one witness is not enough, to condemn on death...
Deuteronomy 17:6 ...he who is condemned must die death:..
Deuteronomy 19:6 ...while he did not subject to conviction on death,..
Deuteronomy 30:15 ...Behold, today I have set before you life and goods, death and evil...
Deuteronomy 30:19 ...life and death I offered you a blessing and a curse...
Judges 5:18 ...Zebulun is a people who condemned his soul to death,..
Ruth 1:17 ... death one will separate me from you...
1 Samuel 20:31 ...now go and bring him to me, for he is doomed to death...
2 Kings 4:40 ...then they raised a cry and said: death in the cauldron, man of God!..
Ride 7:26 ...on death either to exile or to a fine...
Esther 4:11 ...one judgment - death;..
Job 27:15 ...Those who remain after him death will bring you down to the grave...
Job 28:22 ...Abaddon and death They say: with our ears we heard rumors about her...
Psalm 49:15... death will feed them...
Psalm 54:16 ...Let it come upon them death;..
Psalm 78:11 ...with the might of Your arm preserve those doomed to death...
Psalm 116:6 ...The road is in the sight of the Lord death His saints!..
Proverbs 8:36 ...all those who hate me love me death...
Proverbs 18:22... Death and life is in the power of the tongue...
Proverbs 24:11 ...Rescue those who are taken death,..
Proverbs 26:18 ...As one who pretends to be mad throws fire and arrows and death,..
Song 8:6 ...for she is strong as death, Love;..
Isaiah 25:8 ...will be swallowed up death forever...
Isaiah 38:18 ...not death praises You...
Isaiah 53:12 ...because he gave up his life for death,..
Jeremiah 8:3 ...And they will death prefer everything else to life...
Jeremiah 9:21 ...For death enters our windows...
Jer 15:2 ...who doomed on death, go to death;..
Jer 43:11 ...who doomed on death, That devoted will of death;..
Lamentations 1:20 ...outside the sword has made me sad, but at home death...
Dan 13:22 ...for if I do this, death to me,..
Dan 13:41 ...and they condemned her to death...
Dan 13:45 ...And when she was led to death,..
Os 13:14 ... Death! where is your sting?..
Hab 2:5 ...and how death he is insatiable...
Matthew 10:21 ...But brother betrays brother death,..
Matthew 20:18 ...and they will condemn Him to death;..
Mark 10:33 ...and they will condemn Him to death,..
Mark 13:12 ...But brother betrays brother death,..
Luke 22:33 ...with You I am ready both for prison and for death go...
Luke 23:18 ... death To him! and release Barabbas to us...
Luke 23:32 ...Lead with Him to death and two villains...
Luke 24:20 ...for condemnation death and crucified Him...
Acts 21:36 ...for a multitude of people followed and shouted: death to him!..
Acts 25:16 ...to hand over a person to death,..
James 1:15 ...but the sin that is made gives birth death...
Rom 5:12 ...and sin death,..
Rom 5:12 ...so also death passed on to all people...
Rom 5:14 ...However death reigned from Adam to Moses...
Rom 5:17 ... death reigned through one...
Rom 6:3 ...those who were baptized into Christ Jesus death Was he baptized?..
Rom 6:4 ...Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism in death,..
Rom 6:9 ... death no longer has power over Him...
Rom 6:21 ...for their end is death...
Rom 6:23 ...For the wages of sin is death,..
Rom 7:13 ...does good to me death,..
Rom 8:6 ...The mind of the flesh is death,..
Rom 8:38 ...For I am confident that neither death,..
1 Cor 3:22 ...Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,..
1 Cor 11:26 ... death You proclaim the Lord until He comes...
1 Cor 15:21 ...For, as death through a person...
1 Cor 15:26 ...But the last enemy will be destroyed - death,..
1 Corinthians 15:54 ...then the word that is written will be fulfilled: swallowed up death victory...
1 Cor 15:55 ... Death! where is your sting?..
2 Cor 2:16 ...to some the smell of death is upon death,..
2 Cor 4:11 ...For we who are alive continually give ourselves up to death for Jesus' sake...
2 Cor 4:12 ...so death works in us, and life in you...
2 Cor 7:10 ...but the sorrow of the world produces death...
Phil 1:21 ...and death– acquisition...
2 Tim 1:10 ...destroyed death and who brought to light life and incorruption through the gospel...
Hebrews 2:9 ...so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone...
Hebrews 7:23 ...because death didn't allow me to be alone...
Hebrews 9:16 ...there it is necessary that it be followed death testator...
Rev 6:8 ...and there was a rider on him, whose name was death;..
Rev 9:6 ...will wish to die, but death will run away from them...
Rev 18:8 ... death and crying and hunger...
Rev 20:6 ...over them death the second has no power...
Rev 20:13 ...and death and they gave up to hell the dead that were in them;...
Rev 20:14 ...And death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire...
Rev 20:14 ...This death second...
Rev 21:8 ...This death second...
2Mac 4:47 ...would have been released uncondemned, condemned to death...
2Mac 6:19 ...Preferring the glorious death disgraced life...
2Mac 6:28 ...receive willingly and valiantly death...
2Mac 7:5 ...endure with courage death, saying:..
2Mac 7:18 ...who, preparing for death, said:..
2Mac 7:29 ...but be worthy of your brothers and accept death,..
2Mac 13:8 ...this is what I received death in the ashes...
3Mac 1:3 ...who had to accept the appointed Ptolemy death...
3Mac 5:1 ...bring them out against the Jews, doomed to meet death...
3Ezra 3:7 ...and You condemned him to death and his generation and those who came from him...
3Ez 3:10 ...as on Adam death, so there’s a flood for now...
3Ezra 15:5 ...the circle of the earth is plagued by sword and famine and death and ruin...
3Ez 15:26 ...therefore he delivered them up death and to kill...
Jude 11:11 ...and that it might come upon them death, - sin took possession of them...
Jude 14:5 ...and sent him to us as if to death...
PosIer 1:17 ...when he is assigned to death,..
Wis 1:15 ...Righteousness is immortal, but unrighteousness causes death:..
Wis 2:20 ...let us condemn him to dishonor death,..
Wis 2:24 ...but through the envy of the devil the devil entered into the world death,..
Wisdom 19:5 ...and they found themselves an extraordinary death...
Sir 11:14 ...Good and bad, life and death,..
Sir 14:12 ...Remember that death don't hesitate...
Sir 15:17 ...Before man is life and death,..
Sir 26:6 ...slanders on death, - all this is terrible...
Sir 28:6 ...remember decay and death and keep the commandments...
Sir 28:24 ... death fierce - death him, and hell itself is better than him...
Sir 30:17 ...better death,..
Sir 37:21 ...life and death,..
Sir 38:18 ...for sorrow comes death, and heartfelt sadness will deplete strength...
Sir 39:36 ...Fire and hail, famine and death- all this was created for revenge;..
Sir 40:9 ... Death,..
Sir 41:1 ...Oh, death! How bitter is the memory of you for a person...
Sir 41:3 ...Oh, death! Your sentence is a joy for man...
Sir 46:23 ...and he foretold to the king death his,..
Tob 3:4 ...and You gave us up to plunder and captivity and death,
Does life continue after physical death? human personality? The Bible is very contradictory in its answer to this difficult and ever-present question.
What the Bible says against the existence of the individual after the death of the body
Based on an excerpt from the book of archaeologist A. A. Oparin, author of books on creationist biblical archeology and the sacred history of Christianity. "And the stones will cry out"
Questions life asks
When visiting some cathedral, church or monastery, people, sometimes without even realizing it, buy candles and light them for the repose of the souls of their deceased loved ones and relatives. Often people give a list of the names of their deceased loved ones to church ministers so that the priest from the pulpit will remember them before God. Many, visiting cemeteries, talk at the graves of loved ones about their experiences and joys, believing that the souls of their relatives will definitely hear them. Every now and then you hear stories about how in a dream their dead relatives appear to the living and give them some advice, or talk about their lives in other worlds. Once on TV, a famous opera singer said that he communicates with God through his deceased mother, who supports him even after death in the same way as she did during life. Others go to special séances to meet and communicate with the souls of their deceased loved ones. We read stories of people who were once in a state of clinical death, in which they recall the journey of their soul, their meeting with God. Many people today are fond of reading books, of which there are a great many, about the journey of souls and reincarnation. Often these books are written by people who have nothing to do with Eastern religions. Several years ago, a correspondent for the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” asked a priest a question about what happens to the soul of a person who has just died, to which he replied that at first the soul, accompanied by angels, travels the earth, comes to its family, and then goes to God, who determines her fate - she is destined to stay in heaven or hell (which supposedly happens on the 9th day after death), and on the 40th day the soul ascends from the earth.
In misfortunes, people are consoled by the fact that now our loved ones are in paradise, where they are not threatened by troubles and sorrows. It has become traditional to celebrate the remembrance of the soul on the 9th and 40th days.
Many are afraid of hell, where, according to the teachings of many religions, the souls of sinners are forever destined to suffer in unquenchable flames. Often it is this fear, not fully realized, that draws even an unbeliever to church, especially on holidays, to perform certain rituals, make donations to the temple, give alms, and stand in the service. By similar actions we try to protect the souls of our deceased loved ones from eternal torment. Sometimes, scrupulously observing burial rituals, commemoration on the 9th and 40th days after death, on holidays lighting candles for the repose of the soul in the church, people do not know that God Himself in His Word - the Bible speaks about the soul, about whether there is life after death, while relying on the opinions, ideas and knowledge of other people. But how much more important it is to know the opinion of God than the opinions of other people, even if they are very wise and have, perhaps, a high spiritual rank, but, nevertheless, just people, just like you and me.
What does God say on the pages of the Bible about the immortality of the soul?
Biblical answer
1. First, let's look at how the Bible explains what the soul is.
The soul is life.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:1).
“And they killed everything that was breathing that was in it with the sword, consigning it to the curse; not a single soul remained..." (Joshua 11:11).
“For I will not fight forever, nor will I be angry to the end; Otherwise the spirit and every breath that I have made will fail before Me” (Isa. 57:16).
As we see, in these texts the soul is presented as a symbol of life, as a symbol of a living human organism.
Soul is individual, Human.
“Say to the children of Israel, If a man or a woman commits any sin against another, and thereby commits an offense against the Lord, that soul will be guilty...” (Numbers 5:6).
“...in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by the water” (1 Peter 3:20).
“So those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added” (Acts 2:41).
“Now all of us were in the ship two hundred and seventy-six souls” (Acts 27:37).
From these texts we see that the soul is equivalent to the concept Human.
Soul - as a symbol of feelings, thinking, mood.
“When David finished talking with Saul, Jonathan’s soul clung to his soul, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1).
“When she came... to the mountain... And Gehazi came up to take her away; but the man of God said, “Leave her; her soul is sorrowful...” (2 Kings 4:27).
“My soul faints with sorrow: strengthen me according to Your word” (Ps. 119:28).
“My soul remembers this firmly, and falls within me” (Lamentations 3:20).
The soul in the Bible refers not only to people, but also to animals.
“And God created the great fish and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind...” (Gen. 1:21).
The word "nefesh", translated into Russian as "soul", means in literal translation the word "breathe". In the books of the New Testament, originally written in Greek, the word “nephesh” corresponds to the word “psiukhe,” which is also literally translated into Russian as the verb “to breathe.” It is in this understanding that the concept of “soul” is mentioned in the Bible, in other words, as a symbol of life. In no place in the Bible will we find any mention of the fact that the human soul is immortal and continues to live after death. According to the Bible, only God has immortality. We often hear that angels are immortal - yes, if God gives them eternal life. But God has the right to take away this life, and in this case the angels may lose immortality. The Bible clearly says that at the end of time God will destroy Satan forever - the founder of sin, but everyone knows that he was originally created as the angel Lucifer.
“...one mighty King of kings and Lord of lords, the only one who has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light...” (1 Tim. 6:15-16).
2. Unity of spirit, soul and body:
“May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved without blemish...” (1 Thess. 5:23).
3. The Bible about the state of man after death:
“The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any reward for them, because the memory of them is consigned to oblivion; And their love and their hatred and their jealousy have already disappeared, and they will no longer have a share forever in anything that is done under the sun” (Eccl. 9:5-6).
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your strength; for in the grave, where you are going, there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom” (Eccl. 9:10).
“And man dies and disintegrates; left, and where is he? ... So a person will lie down and not get up; until the end of heaven he will not awaken, and will not rise from his sleep... Whether his children are honored, he does not know; whether they are humiliated, he does not notice” (Job 14:10, 12, 21).
“His spirit goes out, and he returns to his land; on that day all his thoughts disappear” (Ps. 146:4).
As we see, contrary to the teaching of many churches that speak about life after death and the immortality of the soul, about the joy of souls in heaven, about their suffering in hell, about their experiences about loved ones left on earth, the Lord completely rejects all this from the pages of the Bible. With the death of a person, as we saw in the Holy Scriptures, all his thoughts, attachments, love, hatred disappear. What is death, and what happens to a person when he dies? This is how Christ Himself explained to His disciples what death is: “Having said this, he then said to them: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up.” His disciples said: “Lord! If he falls asleep, he will recover.” Jesus spoke of his death; but they thought that He was talking about an ordinary dream. Then Jesus told them directly: “Lazarus is dead...” (John 11:11-14).
The Bible tells us that after the Fall the Lord deprived man of eternal life, immortality: “And the Lord God said: “Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and also take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever... And he drove out Adam, and placed a cherubim in the east of the garden of Eden... to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gen. 3:22-24).
The resurrection will occur only at the Second Coming of Christ, and not of a disembodied soul, but of the whole person, in the flesh: “And I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day He will raise from the dust this decaying skin of mine; And I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; My eyes, not the eyes of another, will see Him..." (Job 19:25-27).
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, some to everlasting life, others to everlasting contempt and disgrace” (Dan. 12:2).
“So a man will lie down and not get up; Until the end of heaven he will not awaken, neither will he arise from his sleep” (Job 14:12).
“...all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29).
“Your dead will live, your dead bodies will arise! Rise up and rejoice, you cast down in the dust: ... for ... the earth will cast out the dead” (Is. 26:19).
“But those who are worthy to achieve... the resurrection... can no longer die... for they... are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. And Moses showed that the dead will rise again at the bush...” (Luke 20:5-37).
So, let's make generalizations about what the soul and death are in the light of the Bible:
1. Soul (breath) is a symbol of life, a living person, human thoughts, feelings, desires.
2. There is unity of spirit, soul and body. The body dies, and the soul dies with it, in other words, the feelings, desires, memory, and intellect of a person die along with the body. After death, nothing remains of a person (!).
3. Death is a dream that will be interrupted at the Second Coming of Christ, when the dead righteous will be resurrected and receive a gift from God eternal life.
4. People will be resurrected in the flesh, it will be themselves, their memories, thoughts, feelings, etc. will return.
5. Man lost the gift of eternal life after the Fall.
6. Only God has immortality.
7. At the Second Coming of Christ, everyone will receive reward - both the righteous and sinners.
Thus, God on the pages of the Bible refutes the false teaching of many churches about the immortality of the soul. How did this false teaching creep into Christianity?
History of the retreat
As evidenced Holy Bible, Jews for hundreds of years adhered to the biblical understanding of the death of soul and body. "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted from the Mosaic Law... although... It would seem that a principle so essential to religion could be taught by revelation to the chosen people of Palestine in the clearest terms, and that it could be safely entrusted to the hereditary priestly race of Aaron."
However, the situation began to change after the Babylonian captivity and the approval of the canon (list of Old Testament books) under Ezra, after the last Old Testament prophet Malachi (about 400 BC). Then “in Jerusalem, little by little, two famous sects were formed - the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The first of them, consisting of the wealthiest and most prominent members of society, strictly adhered to the literal meaning of the Mosaic Law and, out of a sense of piety, rejected the immortality of the soul as a doctrine that had no support in the contents of the sacred books, which they considered to be the only basis of faith. And the Pharisees added to the authority of the Holy Scriptures the authority of traditions, and under the name of traditions they accepted certain speculative propositions borrowed from the philosophy or religion of eastern peoples... since the Pharisees, thanks to the severity of their morals, managed to win over the majority of the Jewish people to their side, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing belief of the synagogue." So, the concept of the immortality of the soul came to the Old Testament church from the philosophy and religion of the pagan peoples who surrounded it. But thanks to the appearance and activity of Christ and the apostles, the young New Testament Christian church rejected this pagan teaching, which had no basis in the Old Testament. However, as the preaching of the Gospel spread, many Greeks came to the church, through whom the devil begins to act, who promised to the first people Adam and Eve in Eden: “... no, you will not die... but... you will be like gods, those who know good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5). Since then, the false teaching about the immortality of the soul has continued to be propagated by the enemy of the human race with incredible persistence. The concept of the immortality of the soul was strongly developed in Greek philosophy, whose followers wanted to teach people not to be afraid of death, which they called “the fatal blow that ends our lives and saves us from everyday hardships.” “They came to the conviction that since none of the properties of matter can be applied to the activities of the mind, then, therefore, the human soul is the same substance, which is different from the body, pure, simple and spiritual, that it cannot degradable and accessible to much more high degree virtue and happiness after she is freed from her bodily prison... philosophers following in the footsteps of Plato drew a very unfounded conclusion: they began to assert not only that human soul immortal in the future, but also that she existed forever, and they began to look at her as part of that infinite and self-existing spirit that fills and supports the universe.” The Greeks, brought up on this philosophy, adopted Christianity and introduced into it the concept of an immortal soul. And if in the first 100-200 years this caused many protests, then by the 4th century AD. This doctrine finally entered the church. This was also made easier by the fact that, except for the Greeks, all peoples - from the population of Africa to the Slavs - believed in the immortality of the soul as one of the integral elements of paganism. Each people had their own concepts about the kingdom of the dead, hell: among the Egyptians - the Duat, among the Babylonians - “The Land of No Return”, among the Greeks - the kingdom of Hades; heaven: among the Hittites - Cummiya, among the Scandinavians - Valhalla, etc. The myths of the peoples of the world describe the concepts of hell and heaven in such a way that they are difficult to distinguish from Christian ones. The doctrine of hell was finally established in 533 AD. at a church council in Byzantium under the leadership of Emperor Justinian the First. Later, the Catholic Church develops the doctrine of purgatory, which we have already written about. One could write a lot about the pagan roots of the dogma about the immortality of the soul different nations, but we will focus on the Russians. Moreover, I think this is of greater interest than, say, the Angles or the Franks.
Ancient Rus' adopted Christianity from Byzantium, and with it the position on the immortality of the soul, already established in Christian religion. This concept not only did not raise any questions, but, on the contrary, was accepted with joy as quite familiar to pagan Rus'. Soon this doctrine acquired features inherent in Russian customs. This is what the largest researcher of the Slavs, archaeologist Academician B. A. Rybakov writes about Russian paganism in his book “The Paganism of the Ancient Slavs”: “One of such burials was observed on the Volga by the medieval Slavs in 922 by the Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan. He left very detailed description of this... ritual and recorded a dialogue between an Arab translator and one of the Russian merchants, revealing the ideological justification for the burning of the dead... The Russian turned to the Arab translator: “You, oh, Arabs, are stupid! Truly, you take the person most beloved to you and the most respected by you and throw him into the ground, and his ashes and vile creatures and worms eat him up... And we burn him in the twinkling of an eye, so that he enters heaven immediately and immediately.” The Russian paradise, the abode of the souls of the dead... somewhere high, high... Paradise (kriy, vyriy) is a wonderful garden located somewhere in the distant sunny country... Once in paradise, the souls of the dead can fly from there, invisible to people, to friends and enemies and remind them of themselves.” “The rituals associated with the cult of ancestors and the commemoration of the deceased on the rainbow are well known. They solemnly prepare for the reception of the souls of their ancestors: they heat a bathhouse for them (this was noted by sources from the 12th century), wash the hut, prepare ritual dishes and remember the dead... Part of the ritual food is set aside for the souls of the ancestors.” “On the other hand... the idea of the souls of the dead, which can circle over loved ones, over the burial place (until the fortieth day after death).”
As we see, commemorating the dead on the fortieth day, leaving food on the graves for their souls, stories about meetings with the souls of deceased loved ones - all this came to us from paganism and has nothing in common with the Bible. We also know that when performing the rite of burial of the dead, “a crown with the image of Christ, the Mother of God and John the Baptist with the inscription “Holy God” is placed on the forehead of the deceased as a sign that the deceased as a Christian... died with the hope... to receive a crown in heaven... in his arms he is entitled to a cross or some kind of icon...” In addition, a prayer to the Mother of God is placed in the coffin. This rite, although considered purely Christian, also came from paganism, from Egypt.” The body thus prepared was carefully bandaged crosswise with incredibly long bandages made of royal linen. Magical inscriptions and amulets were placed on them, as well as on hoods and shrouds made of ceramic thread, to prevent the body from following the soul.” “Magic papyrus scrolls were placed on the forehead of the deceased.”
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul opened wide doors to spiritualism, magic, and witchcraft, which, at first glance, have nothing to do with church apostasy. How many people were deceived by demons who appeared to them under the guise of their dead loved ones! How many false miracles have been and are being performed with the help of this! The deviation from the Gospel truth about the soul and death led many churches from the teachings of Christ to spiritualism. Today they often try to provide a biblical basis for the false teaching about the immortality of the soul, referring to the case described in the Bible when King Saul, who had departed from God, comes to a witch at night: “And Saul asked the Lord; but the Lord did not answer him... then Saul said to his servants: Find me a woman sorceress, and I will go to her and ask her. And his servants answered him: here in Endor there is... a sorceress” (see 1 Kings chapter 28). Saul went secretly to the sorceress and asked to bring out the shadow of Samuel to ask him what would happen to him, to Saul. And further described seance: A spirit similar to Samuel appeared and predicted death for Saul and his sons. If we take this text out of the general context of the Bible, then indeed, it seems that the soul of Samuel appeared to Saul. What does the Bible say about this, and how should we understand this incident? Revelation 21:8 records that God will destroy “...sorcerers and idolaters... in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone...”. Sorcerers, that is, sorcerers, wizards, magicians who have nothing in common with God and cannot have anything in common, and who are representatives of the power of Satan.
“Blessed are those who keep His commandments, so that... they may enter into the city... But without are dogs and sorcerers...” (Rev. 22:14-15).
Who appeared to Saul under the guise of Samuel? The answer follows from the entire context of the Bible - a demon, an agent of Satan. The same thing happens in modern spiritualistic seances, when people, contrary to the will of God, so clearly expressed in His Word, voluntarily go into someone else's territory - the territory of the devil, and receive consolation in the thought that they are talking with their dead relatives or with God, Whom on these There are no sessions and there cannot be.
And one more place in the Bible is used by supporters of the false teaching about the immortality of the soul, hell and heaven: a parable recorded in the Gospel of Luke 16:19-31. Read it, dear readers. We will explain that the genre of the parable itself is an allegory, and not a historical real narrative, for example, it presents heaven and hell in such a way that people on both sides can communicate and make a request not to God, but to Abraham. Also mentioned in the parable is the request of the tormented rich man to Lazarus to “cool his tongue.” According to the teachings of a number of denominations, souls are tormented in hell, as is known, without physical body, therefore, language. Why did Christ tell a parable with such a situation? Maybe He wanted to emphasize that hell and heaven exist, and immortal souls suffer in hell? But, as has already been emphasized, disembodied souls cannot burn and suffer. Jesus told this parable to show, as is clear from the entire context of the chapter, that after a person’s death, his fate can no longer be changed, and that no miracle will force a person to accept the Savior into his life if he does not have faith.
Archeology of dead cities
As history and archeology show us, at the dawn of mankind, the peoples of the earth followed the biblical teaching about death and the soul. And only over time, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, together with paganism, triumphed among the peoples of the world. From huge amount We will provide evidence on this issue from excavations in Mesopotamia and Russia.
“Crouched burials appear back in Mousterian times and are common throughout the Stone and Bronze Ages... Cropped bones (skeletons. - A.O.) in ancient burials has long been associated with the position of the embryo in the mother’s womb... I think this is correct... The idea of transforming a deceased person into an unborn embryo is obviously connected with the idea that a deceased person can be born a second time...”
“Here you can guess the idea of a dream, a sleeping (deceased) person, temporarily motionless and lifeless. But, judging by the numerous... things accompanying the deceased (food, weapons, jewelry), the person himself must wake up and precisely in the guise in which he “fell asleep.”
“It is interesting to note the position of the body. If in the El Obeid graves the dead were laid on their backs, and in the tombs of the royal cemetery on their sides, in a sleeping position with their legs slightly bent at the knees, here the skeletons were literally twisted: the head hung on the chest, the legs were bent so that the hips formed a straight line with the body angle, in some cases the knees are pulled straight up to the face, and the heels touch the sacrum: before us is the embryonic position, and as a person came out of his mother’s womb, so let him go back to the world from which he came. This position of the deceased is associated with a solemn ritual dictated by religion."
Consequences of retreat
The false teaching about the immortality of the soul became the reason:
1. The appearance of the doctrine of hell and heaven, where, respectively, the souls of the dead are eternally tormented or eternally rejoicing.
The dogma of heaven and hell deprives the meaning of the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, for each of the people after death receives reward and his fate has already been determined (hell or heaven). It is appropriate to explain here that paradise in the Bible is called Eden, in which Adam and Eve lived before their fall; therefore, paradise is a lost sinless world, but which God will return to the saved at the Second Coming of Christ. Let us emphasize once again that nowhere in the Bible does it say that the souls of the dead are in heaven. Hell in the Bible refers to the grave, as well as the oppressive and difficult circumstances in people’s lives: “...and death and hell delivered up the dead...” (Rev. 20:13).
“...The chains of hell are upon me...” says David under difficult circumstances (2 Samuel 22:6). But nowhere is it said that hell is the eternal torment of the souls of dead sinners.
2. The concepts of the immortality of sin in the world and the immortality of the sinner.
No matter how you live, you will never die, but will be immortal, again contrary to the Word of God, which states that “the wages of sin is death.” This position seems to say: well, why change your life and give up your favorite sins, you won’t die anyway.
3. Rescue for money.
In the West in catholic church the dogma of purgatory was adopted, where the souls of those who have hope for heaven are located, but are not yet ready for it, and only after undergoing a certain amount of torment can they get there. The relatives of the deceased can contribute to a faster transition of the soul to heaven by donating some money. Pay, and your deceased loved ones will immediately find themselves in heaven.
4. Basics of spiritualism.
Today, many churches are trying to claim that they have nothing in common with spiritualism, but it was they who, by accepting the position of the immortality of the soul, contributed to its prosperity. As a result, people, thinking that at these sessions they will meet the souls of loved ones, actually meet Satan and his demons and communicate with them. If people who expose themselves to such terrible deception knew that the soul dies with the body, they would never expose themselves to such a risk and come to the territory of the enemy of Jesus Christ.
5. Perversions of God's character.
By misinterpreting the concepts of hell and heaven, many churches discredit the character of God, presenting him as cruel and bloodthirsty. Will God, who is love, as the Bible says, allow someone, even a very sinner, to burn forever, and moreover, those who will be in paradise will see the torment of their loved ones? Would you like to go to a paradise from which you can watch the eternal torment of your mother or children? Or even just to know that somewhere right now your loved ones are suffering unbearably, and their suffering will continue endlessly? Hardly! And would you trust a God who was willing to torture people forever? Fortunately, our Lord is all-merciful and humane! But how long will the suffering of people in the fire last, and is there an example of this in history? Yes, there is such an example: the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: “Like Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities... being subjected to the punishment of eternal fire, they were set up as an example...” (Epistle of the Apostle Jude 1:7). “Eternal Fire,” which is mentioned here, what does it mean? Is it really eternal? But today everyone knows well that the Dead Sea was formed on the site of these cities, and the excavations that archaeologists tried to carry out underwater with the help of divers helped find charred bricks and burnt houses. The cities were destroyed very quickly, once and for all. But are they burning today along with the residents? No! Why then is fire called eternal? Translated from Hebrew, the word “eternal” means “eternal, that is, while the process is ongoing,” in other words, the cities were destroyed by eternal fire, that is, once and for all! They are destroyed forever, they will never exist, but this does not mean that they are still burning today. How long will the punishment of the wicked last, who, as the Bible indicates, will be destroyed by eternal fire? Very quickly, and also once and for all, they will never exist again, which is why the punishment is called eternal. “For behold, the day will come, burning like an oven; Then all the arrogant and those who do wickedly will be like stubble, and the coming day will burn them up... so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1). How long does straw need to burn to burn completely? Very few. Likewise, people will quickly be destroyed, like dry straw. This is what the Bible says, contrary to what people say.
Babylonian wine
Among the many Babylonian wines that Satan offers to people today, the wine of the “immortality of the soul” brand is the strongest and most attractive, affecting the delicate strings of the human soul. People drink this wine if:
1. Participate in seances.
2. They come into contact with the souls of deceased relatives who allegedly appeared to them.
3. They pray for the dead, light candles for the repose of their souls, and commemorate them in church.
4. Recognize the existence of hell, purgatory and heaven.
5. The 9th and 40th days are celebrated as days of determining the fate and farewell of the souls of the dead.
6. Execute pagan rituals, burying loved ones with an icon and aureole, in the hope that this will provide them with a “pass” to heaven.
(End of excerpt from Oparin’s book)
What the Bible says in favor of the existence of the person after the death of the body
Alexey Anatolyevich, like members of the so-called group. "Jehovah's Witnesses" is very convincing, however, we cannot dismiss the words in the Bible of a completely opposite sense. Let's start with the story of the summoning of the spirit of Samuel by the disgraced King Saul:
… And Samuel said to Saul: Why do you trouble me so that I should go out? And Saul answered: It is very hard for me; The Philistines are fighting against me, but God has retreated from me and no longer answers me either through the prophets or in dreams; That's why I called you to teach me what to do. And Samuel said: Why do you ask me, when the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy? The Lord will do what he spoke through me; The Lord will take the kingdom out of your hands and give it to your neighbor, David. (1 Samuel 28:15-17)
How did King Saul summon the dead personality of Samuel, which simply disappeared along with the death of the body, and why did Yahweh God strictly forbid sorcery? Supporters of the undying soul believe that it was not God at all through the mouth of the resurrected priest Samuel, but a demon who uttered prophecies regarding the future of Saul. It is extremely doubtful that anyone before Christianity would have interpreted this passage in such a rather extravagant manner.
Blazh. Theodoret (interpretation of 1 Samuel, issue 63) regards the incident with the summoning of the spirit of Samuel as a “divine miracle”:
"...1 Samuel 28:11. Samuel's menacing, incriminating appearance told the woman that before her was none other than the implacable enemy of the prophet - the Jewish king Saul.
…1 Samuel 28:12-14. Contrary to the expectations of the sorceress herself, not a ghostly, but a real miracle happened: God clothed Samuel’s disembodied soul with the likeness of a body, in order to once again express to the apostate his indispensable will about him and his house.”(quoted from " Explanatory Bible Lopukhin")
The ordeals of a sinful soul are described even more expressively in the book of the prophet Jonah:
...And the Lord commanded the great whale to swallow Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the whale and said: I cried to the Lord in my affliction, and He heard me; from the belly of hell I cried, and You heard my voice. You cast me into the depths, into the heart of the sea, and the streams surrounded me, all Your waters and Your waves passed over me. And I said: I have been cast away from Thy eyes, yet again I will see Thy holy temple. The waters embraced me to my soul, the abyss shut me in; My head was entwined with sea grass. I descended to the base of the mountains, the earth blocked me with its barriers forever; but You, Lord my God, will bring my soul out of hell. (Jonah 2:1-7)
The book of the prophet Jonah was so revered and popular in the religious circles of Israel, and was especially authoritative among the first Christians (followers of the “Nazarene heresy”) that it formed the basis of the myth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his descent into the kingdom of the dead to preach the Good News there, its the author mentions as a prototype of this gospel plot Gospel of Matthew:
... just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40)
The Psalm of David, identified by Christians with the “resurrection of Christ,” is commented in the Acts of the Apostles as follows:
... Being a prophet and knowing that God promised him with an oath from the fruit of his loins to raise up Christ in the flesh and seat him on his throne, He first said about the resurrection of Christ that His soul was not left in hell, and His flesh did not see corruption. (Acts 2:30-31)
Thus, the Bible gives completely contradictory interpretations about the state of the human personality after the death of the physical body, which provides food for a believer of any denomination or direction - both sextant and traditional. The overwhelming majority of Christians choose “life after death.” Attitudes towards death changed with the advent of Christianity. In Christianity, the understanding of the meaning of life, death and immortality comes from the Old Testament position: " The day of death is better than the day of birth" and the New Testament commandment of Christ "... I have the keys to hell and heaven"On the one hand, death is the eternal punishment that each of us is forced to bear for a sin once committed. But on the other hand, death is the liberation of a person from the shackles of a mortal body, from the vale of earthly sorrows, releasing his eternal soul. “Let us begin to tremble not before death, but before sin; death did not give birth to sin, but sin produced death, and death became the healing of sin"(36, 739). According to Christian doctrine, a person becomes immortal - the path to immortality is opened by the atoning sacrifice of Christ through the cross and resurrection.
Archbishop of Tauride and Kherson Innocent writes: “ those who were at the death of righteous people saw that they did not die, but seemed to fall asleep and leave in peace somewhere from us. On the contrary, the death of sinners is painful. The righteous have faith and hope, the sinners have fear and despair.”. In the figurative expression of one of the hierarchs: " A dying man is a setting star, the dawn of which is already shining over another world.".
After death, the soul leaves the body, without interrupting its existence for a second, and continues to live the fullness of life that it began to live on earth. But already without a body. But with all the thoughts and feelings, with all the virtues and vices, advantages and disadvantages that were characteristic of her on earth. “The life of the soul beyond the grave is a natural continuation and consequence of its life on earth", writes Archbishop Anthony of Geneva. “If a person was a true Christian during his life (kept the commandments, attended Church, prayed), then the soul will feel the presence of God and find peace. If the person was a great sinner, then his soul will yearn for God, it will be tormented by the desires to which it is accustomed the flesh, since it will be impossible to satisfy them, will suffer from the proximity of evil spirits".
The soul, having left the body, is capable of reasoning, perceiving, realizing, but it is deprived of a shell and therefore cannot perform actions, it will no longer be able to change something, acquire something that it did not have while in the body. " There is no repentance beyond the grave. The soul lives there and develops in the direction it began on earth", writes Anthony of Geneva.
Archimandrite Cyprian writes: " Besides the torment and power of hell, something else confuses us in death: this is the uncertainty of our life. There will be no break for the soul at the moment of physical death: the soul, as it lived until the last minute of earthly life, will continue to live until the Last Judgment. (...) There is no death in Orthodoxy, for death is only a narrow boundary between life here and death in the next century, death is only a temporary separation of soul and body. There is no death for anyone, for Christ has risen for everyone. There is eternity, eternal peace and everlasting memory with God and in God".
According to Catholic doctrine, the souls of some sinners on their way to heaven end up in Purgatory because they did not receive remission of punishment for their sins during their lifetime (they did not perform penance). The period of stay in purgatory can be shortened by the prayers of loved ones, as well as good deeds performed in memory of the deceased. Ideas about purgatory began to take shape in the 1st century AD. e, and the doctrine of purgatory was developed in detail in the works of Thomas Aquinas. The dogma of purgatory was adopted at the Council of Florence in 1439 and confirmed in 1562 by the Council of Trent.
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