When a close relative dies, what child hasn’t asked his parent if he will see them again? As far back as history is recorded, most parents have euphemistically answered that they will, while secretly harboring the thought that they don’t know for sure. That uncertainty comes from a dearth of evidence that our conscious awareness survives the cessation of our physical body. To compound our doubts, what evidence we do have is also conflicting. Some people believe our awareness returns in a different physical body, perhaps a different species, in proportion to the way we lived our life. Others reject that idea in favor of a cosmic melding of our consciousness which makes us able to observe what goes on in the physical world and, in some cases, to interact with it. From both of these ideas comes the subtle suggestion that we need to behave ourselves in this life if we want to have a happy existence in the next one. But do either of these beliefs claim to have physical evidence of life after death? In the comparison of world religions, only Christianity offers observable proof of conscious awareness after physical death. Granted, that evidence is from antiquity and has survived only in eyewitness accounts that are hotly contested by nonbelievers. But the fact remains, Christianity is the only world religion that claims a bodily resurrection of its founder. Other world religions ask for their teaching on the afterlife to be accepted without any physical proof.

Well, what is the tangible proof of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ? Like other religions, we can point to the actual locations where some recorded events in the life of our founder occurred. We have found names in stone of a few people who interacted with Jesus in Bible accounts, such as Pontius Pilate. But that isn’t enough proof to convince anybody that he rose from the dead and appeared to many people. What about the affidavits of those same people, written to friends and family during the years following his appearances, according to Luke 1:1-2? None of them have been discovered by archeologists. So what is the tangible proof that Jesus was alive after his physical death? That proof lies in the actions taken by his disciples after they saw him alive again. When he told them to go everywhere and tell what they witnessed, they did, in spite of the extreme hardships and dangers of travel in those days. Their actions had no monetary rewards, like the donation-hungry evangelists of our day. As far as we know, none of them ever had a home of their own, except Peter, and all except John were killed for recounting what they witnessed. What group of men would walk their path to death unless what they saw with their own eyes was the miracle of life after death and they trusted Jesus that he would raise them from the dead as well (see John 14:19-20)? Their actions, reflected in their writings and accounts of others about them, are tangible proof of life after death. So, if their claims are believable because of their post-resurrection actions, what else do they record about the hereafter?

For that we look in the Bible. It says every man has a conscious awareness that is separate from his bodily lifeforce (I Corinthians 2:11; Genesis 2:7) and is maintained eternally by God (John 10:28). It is spirit in composition and not matter, in spite of attempts to weigh it as the difference between a person’s body before and after death. Such a measurement is plausible because the Bible indicates the spirit leaves the body after death (2 Corinthians 5:6-8) although the ancient Hebrews thought it could take as much as three days. When the spirit has departed, it has one of two possible destinations, the third heaven, where Christ currently resides (2 Corinthians 12:2; Hebrews 12:25), or Sheol, a place inside the earth that he watches over with faithful angels (Numbers 16:33; Revelation 14:9-10). Before the resurrection of Christ, all spirits went to Sheol, although there was a barrier between God-followers and heathen (Luke 16:26). After the resurrection, the God-followers were relocated to the third heaven (Ephesians 4:8-9). And today, your destination is determined by acceptance or rejection of Christ’s offer to be punished instead of you for your sins, so that you are legally declared blameless (John 5:24; Romans 8:2-4). But regardless of where you are, in either location, you are waiting for a future event.

For believers, that event is the return of Christ to the earth’s surface to reunite their spirit with a recreated body to form a glorified body for life there (I Thessalonians 4:14-17; 1 Corinthians 15:52). All others are waiting inside the earth in Sheol, as many believers think, for an extra thousand years, when their spirit will appear before Christ for judgment (Revelation 20:6-12). That judgment is to determine the degree of punishment they will endure in their eternal home, the Lake of Fire. It doesn’t sound that inviting but it’s what they wanted, a place where God isn’t evident, although he is still there, being omnipresent (Psalms 139:7-10). Their punishment isn’t inflicted by God (Romans 3:5-6; I John 1:5) but by each other in that place, where the prevaling axiom is ‘Me First’. Perhaps locality within the Lake of Fire determines their degree of suffering, akin to slums versus suburbs in our earthly cities.

After the judgment of nonbelievers and fallen angels (Jude 6), they are relocated to the Lake of Fire and the earth will be reformed or recreated into a sin-free paradise (Revelation 20:13; 21:1). This implies that the Lake of Fire isn’t earthly but is in the spirit world, and by extension, that fallen angels are unchanged, and that nonbelievers don’t receive a glorified body with its physical component, for life there. Since unredeemed man was created to be part spirit and part body, yet must endure eternity as only spirit, this might be part of his torturous punishment.

In contrast, glorified believers will spend their eternal life on a new earth with the visible Christ (Revelation 22:4-5). They will call ‘home’, the place he has created for them in his city. The Bible says he will give them a sin-free heart so that they may live with each other and with him in peace there (Hebrews 10:16-17). Whether their lodging is better or worse than others will not cause contention because it was made especially for them by their loving overseer and they will be happy there (John 14:2-3). Presumably, as adopted sons and daughters of God, they will be served by angels delegated to that task.

Although we aren’t given details of each place, their difference is significant, the main discrepancy being the visible presence or absence of a benefactor. It’s hard to believe your eternal destination depends on accepting or rejecting a gift from Christ, but that is the crux of it. His offer has been extended to each one of us since we were able to receive it. So the pertinent question is, what have you done with the gift?

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