For the next few weeks, I am preaching on Heaven. There is a lot of interest in our world today about the afterlife. What is it like? Does it even exist? Is there a Heaven and a Hell? What will we do in Heaven? Will we recognize each other? So we will address these and other questions in the next weeks.
Is there a Hereafter? Death is a mystery that men have wrestled with since the beginning of time. Every funeral we attend, we think about our own morality. What is death like. We have to deal with the reality of death.
The Bible tells us in Genesis that God warned Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he would certainly die. When he and Eve ate from that tree, death entered in to our world. We die physically. We are dead in our sins. We die eternally without Christ. We are facing a certain future.
There are three common thoughts about life after death.
First, some believe that we become spirits without bodies. Plato and Aristotle believed this and it became popular among the ancients. Spiritualists, mediums, claim to communicate with the dead. Paranormal investigators search for evidence of ghosts in homes or buildings. However, there is no biblical teaching that spirits exist on earth haunting our world.
Second, some believe in reincarnation. This is the belief that everything you do has consequences either in this life or the next. We call this ‘karma. If you do not live a perfect life, you will be reincarnated into a new body, live life all over again, hopefully, to learn your lessons and escape the cycle of life and death. This is essential to Hindu, Buddhist, and New Age religions. Again, this is not found in the Bible.
And third, people believe in extinction. Basically, there is no God, and no afterlife. You die, and that is it.
But Jesus gave us the real view of life after death. When He died and was buried, three days later He came out of the grave transformed. He was resurrected. His soul was reunited with a body, a spiritual body ready for life with God. The resurrection of Jesus tells us that death does not have the final word. God does.
Life with God is a gift to be received. Our sin separates us from God and our spirits are dead because of our sin. When we ask God’s forgiveness and commit our lives to Him, He gives our spirits everlasting life. It begins now, and continues after physical death, for all eternity.
Next week, I will be preaching on who is going to be in heaven. When we get there, we will be surprised who is and who isn’t at the banquet table.