Many people equate religion with belief in the afterlife and some might even expect that to be the driving force behind most religions. When it comes to the Bible, most people understand the afterlife in fairly clear categories of heaven and hell.
The truth is that what most people think the Bible says about the afterlife is actually centuries worth of tradition. It might surprise you what the Bible actually says about the afterlife.
Most often, the Old Testament refers to the experience after death as Sheol. This is not hell, as the KJV mistakenly translates it. It is more accurately the grave. When considering and kind of existence in Sheol, it is as a shade and not nothing life we normally think of as an afterlife.
Daniel 12:2 is the only clear description of the resurrection of the dead found in the Old Testament. While there are one or two other possible passages, the Daniel passage is the only unambiguous resurrection passage.
The Bible never explicitly says that we go to a place called ‘heaven’ when we die. Passages in Matthew that refer to ‘the kingdom of heaven’ are sometimes mistaken for this but that is Matthew’s way of speaking of the kingdom of God which is not the same thing as heaven.
There are only a few passages in the New Testament that talk about what happens immediately after we die and even then very few details are given. It is simply described as being present with the Lord.
The New Testament teaching on the afterlife is really about the resurrection of the dead. When Jesus returns, those who have already died will be given resurrection bodies and those still alive will be transformed into similar bodies.
How much of this surprised you?
If you are interested in what the Bible says about the resurrection, you might want to read this article I wrote.
The post 5 Things You Might Not Know About the Bible and the Afterlife appeared first on Stephen J Bedard.
Leave a Reply