Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
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- The NDE & the
Bible
Editor's
Essay:
- Are the Dead
Unconscious?
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There is an Old Testament scripture, Ecclesiastes 9:5 ,
which seems to suggest to some that the dead are fast asleep:
"For the living know that
they will die, but the dead know nothing"
It is a mistake to presume that the Bible
automatically refers to death in physical terms
when it speaks of this subject -- there are
many instances where "death" and "life" are meant to indicate a higher
reality, our final destination, the next life.
One of the near-death experience (NDE) related accounts features a
woman who questioned the meaning of Ecclesiastes 9:5 as it seemed to contradict what her
heart was telling her about her future with God. In her distress, she reports that she
was given a comforting vision which explained to her that the Ecclesiastes verse must be
understood in a spiritual context.
But for those who discount modern visions from God,
there's another way to find evidence for what this lady was told.
Jesus himself, in John 11: 26, states that the godly person "shall never
die," clearly indicating that the saints will not suffer separation from God.
Jesus most definitely does not mean to say that God's
people will continue to live indefinitely in the flesh. In other words, Jesus is using
"death" and "life" in a sense that transcends mortal existence -- a
careful reading of Scripture reveals this to be a not uncommon affair.
And why should this surprise anyone as Scripture often speaks of eternal union with Divinity -- true
"life," the absence of which, separation from God, is ultimate and true
"death" (Romans 6:23).
The meaning of Ecclesiastes 9: 5 becomes this:
The "living," those who
are spiritually alive to God, know that, and act as
if, this life is temporary; that is, they build their
lives
around the principle that their is an AfterLife; that one's permanence rests in God.
The "dead," on the other
hand - those who live this mortal life as if God did not exist, as if there were no
tomorrow, no AfterLife - are, in their spiritual stupor, unconscious of Higher Reality. "The dead know
nothing"; that is, they are unconscious , do not acknowledge the
presence, of God in the world and their final accountability to Divinity!
Some things are too true!
How often I have remarked to myself, when witnessing the power-posturing
politics of demagogues in Washington or tin-star dictators in third-world countries, words
something like the following, a little speech that runs through my mind that I wish I
could deliver to those who think they will live forever in the flesh:
- "Look at what you're doing! Playing God in history,
manipulating the lives of millions of people for your petty, little, ephemeral day in the
sun! And for what? You're 55 or 65 or 75 years old! In a short time you'll be breakfast
for the worms in your back garden! Big deal. Are you brain dead? Look at what you're
doing, not only to others but to yourself! Think man, think! Look at yourself and your
life! God is not impressed, and you will pay, as
shall we all, the last penny of debt
( Matt. 5:26) for what you now
do!"
Impressive rhetoric, eh! yeah, it's a page right out of "Lazarus and the Rich Man
." But let's not hold our collective
breath waiting for a response. No, those flying high on power-trips do not "know that
they will die" -- they never allow inconvenient information like that to invade their consciousness!
Not really.
If they truly allowed messy little details like
death to sink into their craniums, if they admitted to themselves that they have a
rendezvous with God coming up real fast, they'd be living a different life, wouldn't they!
As such, the Scripture is right on when it asserts the dead know
nothing regarding their soon-coming "day of evaluation."
For further discussion regarding the purported soporific state of the
dead see F.F. Bruce's research.
The issues raised in this brief article are not trivial. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her incredibly insightful work, On
Death and Dying, attributes much of the neurotic behavior of humankind to its
inability to accept its own inevitable demise.
She
summarizes: "Finally, we may achieve peace --
our own inner peace as well as peace between nations -- by facing
and accepting the reality of our own death."
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