Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Death Complete Cessation of Existence
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Genesis 3:1-4
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent told Eve that she could disobey God, and she would not die. Even as that initial deception of mankind concerned death, modern conceptions about death and the afterlife commonly contradict the Bible. Most professing Christians believe in an immortal soul that lives on beyond death. They believe that if one professed Christ then his soul goes to heaven, but if the dearly-departed did not “get saved” before dying, then his soul goes to an ever-burning hell to be tortured for eternity. This belief, rooted in Gnosticism and even further back in Egyptian and Babylonian mystery religions, proclaims that death really is not death but just part of a mystical journey. What the Bible teaches is different. The Bible shows that man does not have a soul, but that man is a soul. Man has a spirit, and has a body, but only when God breathed life into Adam did he become a living soul (nephesh; Genesis 2:7, KJV). Moreover, the Bible states clearly that the soul who sins will die (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). It says that God alone has immortality (I Timothy 6:16), unlike man who must seek it because he does not have it (Romans 2:7). Scripture asserts that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Death is not a shedding of the body and a freeing of the soul, as is commonly held, but a complete cessation of existence.
David C. Grabbe
What Is the Second Death?
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Ecclesiastes 3:18-19
This is quite a cynical perspective of death. Solomon penned Ecclesiastes in his old age, when he could look back on his wearisome years of searching for answers and experimenting and come to a few conclusions about life. An inference about death appears in Ecclesiastes 3:20-21: "All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animals, which goes down to the earth?" Again, his outlook seems negative. He concludes that in many ways human beings are no better than animals, which is certainly the case when they try to live without God. Men simply die like beasts. Like animals, people are air-breathing, fleshly creatures, and when we can no longer breathe or our flesh is starved, diseased, wounded, or exhausted, we die like them. When we die, our bodies decompose, returning to dust just as their bodies do. Yet, in Ecclesiastes 3:21, Solomon raises a question (paraphrased): "What do we really know about the human spirit as opposed to the spirit of a beast?" Do we actually know that a man's spirit goes upward and a beast's spirit returns to the earth? What can we observe? If we use scientific methods, what can we really find out? Nothing, because such a question involving spiritual matters is beyond science, beyond man's ability to measure or record. Previously, in Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon had written that God has put eternity in man's heart—a yearning to live forever—so he has already conceded that God gives man the edge over beasts. He realizes that man is a special creation of God, made after the God-kind, who has been given dominion over the earth and all in it (Genesis 1:26), so his skeptical question conceals the fact that he believes that man's chances for life after death are far better than an animal's. Ecclesiastes 12:7 reveals that, by the time he reaches the end of the book, Solomon has made up his mind on this question. He writes, "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." His conclusion is that, yes, there is a possibility of life after death for humanity. A person's spirit returns to God for safekeeping, yet that is as far as his understanding can take him. He does not know what happens next. However, he is wise enough to know that his conclusion leads to a truth: Since we do have a chance to live again, depending on God's judgment of our works, we had better fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)
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Luke 23:46
Because of the widespread (and unbiblical) assumption that mankind possesses an immortal soul and that even in death the consciousness of a person lives on absent his or her body, many will take Luke 23:46 to mean that Jesus was with the Father that day in spirit form. Subsequently, they will assume that the criminal next to Him could have been as well. However, the larger issue is what the Bible consistently shows happens at—and after—death. Yes, the spirits of both Jesus and the criminal returned to God the Father, as do the spirits of all people (Ecclesiastes 3:21; 12:7). Yet, at the same time, their consciousness ended, such that it could not be said that they—their complete persons—were with the Father. Jesus committed His spirit to the Father, yet He clearly told Mary after His resurrection, "I have not yet ascended to My Father" (John 20:17). What does it mean that His spirit was with the Father, but not His body or soul (see Acts 2:31)? Was His spirit conscious of being in Paradise? Notice what the Word of God says: -
"For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?" (Psalm 6:5). Thus, there is no praise of God or even contemplation of Him when a person goes into the grave—yet the spirit is with God! -
"Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction? Shall Your wonders be known in the dark? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psalm 88:11-12). The psalmist calls the grave "the place of destruction," "the dark," and "the land of forgetfulness." Consequently, death is a definite stopping point, and consciousness and experience do not continue in the grave. -
"The dead do not praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence" (Psalm 115:17). If the dead are automatically taken to the presence of God, why would they not praise Him? How could any being remain silent in the presence of the most awesome Person in the universe? -
"His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish" (Psalm 146:4; our emphasis throughout). A person's spirit departs (and returns to God, as Ecclesiastes 3:21 and 12:7 show), yet at that point all of his plans (thoughts, KJV) perish. This is because the human spirit does not have consciousness inherent within it. -
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10). It could not be any clearer: The condition of death means a total cessation of consciousness and awareness. In biblical usage, death is pictured as sleeping—there is no knowledge, no comprehension of the passage of time, no recognition of God, etc. There is no consciousness. The spirit in man allows understanding (Job 32:8; I Corinthians 2:11), but it depends on a living body for consciousness. The idea that some eternal consciousness continues after death comes from paganism, not the Holy Scriptures! The spirit in man, in its most basic definition, is a person's mind (heart, attitudes, etc.), not a separate sentient being. As a result, even though all the spirits of all the dead throughout human history have returned to the Father, Jesus' statement, "No one has ever gone into heaven" (John 3:13), demonstrates that the "spirit in man" is not the entire person, just a component. Yet, that component, absent a body (physical or spiritual) that can sustain life, has no consciousness of its own. The spirit is given or returned to a body—physical or spiritual—at the time of a resurrection (Luke 8:55). Jesus' spirit returned to the Father, yet He—the Man, the Son of God, the whole Being—did not ascend to the Father until after He was resurrected three days and three nights later.
David C. Grabbe
What Happened to the Thief on the Cross? (Part Two)
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