What the Bible Teaches About Life After Death

What the Bible Teaches About Life After Death

Prepared on June 21, 1941 By W.H. Wood

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21

My message this afternoon will be on “What the Bible says about life after death.” Every normal person wants to know what the Bible teaches about life after death.  My text found in Philippians 1:21 contains four strange words, words hard to believe, seemly contradictory words, and yet true.  Comforting words for every child of God, “to die is gain”.  These words correct our false conception of death.  We have thought of death as being a loss, but it is not for the saved. 

To die is to gain what?

In death, we gain a fuller life existence. Many think death is the cessation of life, but it is not.  Death is not a terminus; it is a train, a thru train to glory or despair.  Death is not an end; it is merely an episode in the ever flowing river of life.  In Luke 16, we read about Lazarus and the rich man.  Lazarus died and lifted his eyes in Abraham’s bosom meaning Heaven.  The rich man died and found himself in conscious torment.  That souls have memory, reasoning power and other faculties of life is proven by the fact that God represented by Abraham appealed to the memory, reasoning power of the rich man.  These truths are taught in many passages among them Revelation 6:9-10 - When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

Illustration:  Dr. Moody attending the funeral of his little granddaughter.  He said she is not dead, but lives on in another realm. 

I used to dread death because I thought it meant I would go into a casket and be buried under the cold soil for many centuries, but one day I learned the truths from the Bible and now a fear death no more. 

To die is to gain a new temple for our souls.  These bodies are vehicles of expression for our souls.  They are but tabernacles in which the inner man lives.  Death is the giving away of these earthly houses.  We love these bodies, and it is but natural that we should dread to leave them.  But…thank God, when these bodies do die, our souls are not left homeless to wander in space.  For 2 Corinthians 5:1-11 teaches clearly that God provides another house for our souls when our bodies die. 

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.  For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing 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 confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.  Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. 2 Corinthians 5:1-11

These passages teach that when our bodies leave this tabernacle of clay, they will go to be in a sure enough house not made with hands.  I don’t know what this body will be like, but I know that it is much better than this present body as a house is better than a tabernacle.  I know it will be some vehicle fit for my soul’s new surrounding and activities. 

To die is to gain a new home in Heaven, where we are to stay when we leave these bodies and get our new temples for the soul.  The Bible answers clearly:  Absent from the body, at home with the Lord.  You remember the souls of the slain saints of Revelation 6:10, 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 says our “house not made with hands is eternal in the heavens.”  Philippians 1:23 says for the saints to depart or die is to be with Christ.  Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, I go to prepare a place.”

Illustration:  Dr. E.J. Daniel’s father was sick and near death for 3 weeks, but got better.  They sought to make his last days happy by deciding to remodel the old home, but God wanted to give him a better home. 

To die is to gain everlasting fellowship with loved ones gone on before.  The thing that makes life happy is its fellowship with loved ones and friends.  Death is no respecter of these sacred fellowships for it separates mothers and babies.  Jesus tell us in Matthew 8:11 that we will fellowship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Heaven.  Thus they are to retain their identity in Heaven or else we could not sit with them and know them.