After death: resurrection or immortality?

What happens to me after I die? Man has been asking this ultimate question since the beginning of time and has been able to come up with only a few options. The first one is simply that there is nothing beyond death; this life is all there is. Throughout most of history this option has been a relatively rare opinion; belief in some form of a future life is even more universal than belief in God or the gods. (Jainism, for example, is theoretically atheistic, yet it believes in the transmigration of souls.)

Evidently the Sadducees of New Testament times believed in no future life, for they did not think it was taught in the five books of Moses, their only Bible, but they did believe in the existence of God. Hence Jesus' rebuke to them in Matthew 22:29: " 'You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.'" ^*

From time to time certain anthropologists claim to have discovered a tribe, such as the Arunta tribe of Central Australia, that has no belief in survival after death, but later investigators do not confirm the earlier observations. The denial of an afterlife seems to be mostly limited to relatively sophisticated philosophers or their hearers.

This first option seems to have been characteristic of the late Greco-Roman philosophy, often coupled with hedonism, especially in the case of Epicureanism as it was popularly understood. Despair stands out in the epitaphs that can still be read on the mausoleums of the wealthy along the ancient Roman roads: "I was not, I became; I am not and I care not." "Eat, drink, enjoy yourself, then join us." "While I lived, I lived well; now my little play is ended, soon shall yours be; goodbye and applaud."

These hedonists of despair have their modern counterparts, such as the late Bertrand Russell, who wrote in his autobiography: "What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and the emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness. But it is the voice of one drowning; and in a moment the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful; the unhappiness of many people is very great, and I often wonder how they all endure it. To know people well is to know their tragedy; it is usually the central thing about which their lives are built. And I suppose if they did not live most of the time in the things of the moment, they would not be able to go on." Such bleakness has been intolerable to most people who think about it.

The typical person throughout most of the world and most of history has adopted a second option. It is some variation of the ghost idea, a vague and gloomy half existence continuing on immediately after death. For this reason most people have not looked forward with relish to death. The earliest Greek conception of the existence beyond was that of a life so thin and gloomy that it was thought better to serve as a hireling upon earth than to reign in Hades. The Semites had a similar conception about Sheol, the abode of the dead, as seen in the Gilgamesh Epic, in which the hero traverses land and sea trying to find an escape from death, only to lose the antidote when it is almost in his grasp. Quite possibly this was the notion held by the average Hebrew. One can hardly call it a cheerful hope.

It is true that pagans sometimes felt that the afterlife held something better for a select few fortunate ones. Hesiod sang of the Islands of the Blessed, which were reserved for a few favorites of the gods. Early Egyptians built tombs as dwelling places for kings, nobles, and heroes. The Teutons had a Valhalla for their warrior heroes. But all the rest became only shades.

A third option developed from this vague conception of a shadowy afterlife. Under the impulse of ideas imported from elsewhere came the classical idea of natural immortality. About the seventh century B.C. the ideas of the transmigration of souls (reincarnation) and spiritual monism moved into Greece from the East. These notions became doctrines of the Dionysian cult and the Orphic brotherhood and of the Pythagoreans. These movements in turn powerfully influenced the thinking of Plato, the most influential philosopher of all time. The Platonists taught the preexistence and immortality of the soul, which is temporarily imprisoned in the body until it is liberated by death. The influence of Platonism and the mystery religions greatly popularized the idea of natural immortality in some paradisiacal state, and even penetrated Judaism.

Elsewhere the notion of a blessed existence for a few elite dead became popularized and broadened to include larger groups. For example, in Egypt the Osiris cult opened up this more cheerful immortality to all who lived justly in this life and who knew how to say all the right things when they stood before Osiris, judge and king of the realm of the dead.

Finally, there is a fourth option, the idea of resurrection. This idea is unique and peculiar to Biblical religion; there is no real parallel in paganism. Similarities in Zoroastrianism, for example, are probably of late origin and reflect influences emanating from Judaism. The resurrection of the body stands in striking contrast to the idea of natural immortality of the soul. Immortality of the soul divides man into parts, and hope is placed in something innate within man. By contrast, resurrection of the body depends on seeing the man as a whole, a unit, and hope is placed in a gracious act of God.

Popular piety, both among the majority of Christians and in much post-Biblical Judaism, tries to combine immortality of the soul and resurrection. The idea is that at the last day a resurrection of the body will reunite it with the soul, which since the person's death has been enjoying heaven (or suffering in hell) and apparently getting along quite nicely without the body. Somehow the two ideas do not quite fit together. They seem foreign to each other, and in fact they are.

This hybrid idea requires us to deal with the question in two parts: (1) the so-called intermediate state and (2) the final state of the dead.

It is in the light of Christ that confusion about these matters becomes clear. In the first centuries B.C. and A.D. , Judaism was confused by a mixture of ideas about human destiny. These ideas came from many sources, each favored by one of the various Jewish sects of the time. But according to 2 Timothy 1:10, Christ Jesus "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

The typical desire in the classical period of Hebrew history was for long life and health (just as it is in classical Chinese thought). The Hebrews used the Semitic term Sheol (see Isa. 14:9-11), but in the Bible this is an ambiguous term simply meaning "the abode of the dead," however conceived. In most places it refers to the grave, but in highly figurative and poetic usage (as in Isaiah 14) it cannot be literal. It is a place of darkness (Job 10:22) and silence (see Ps. 88:11, 12). Yet coupled with that prospect, or in spite of it, was trust in the Lord (see Ps. 16:9-11). In Job 19:25, 26, however it is translated, we see an important new insight coming out of the mist: resurrection of the dead is linked with the expectation of the Messiah.

Especially as the chastisements of the Lord fell upon Israel and Judah, righteous ones were led to look for their hope to a future divine intervention and the setting up of the kingdom of God by the Lord's Anointed, a concept that was attached no longer to a prolonged temporal life, but to the resurrection of the dead. This hope is foreshadowed in Isaiah 25:8; 26:19, and especially in Daniel 12:2. Thus the way was prepared for the New Testament teaching. Coupled with a growing understanding of God's plan revealed through the prophets was an expectation both of the resurrection and of the Messiah.

The New Testament agrees with the Old that this life is short. In the spirit of Psalm 39:4-7, James compares life to the morning mist that is burned off by the rising sun (James 4:14). Only God is immortal (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:15, 16). God has inherent and intrinsic immortality; others must receive it from God (see John 5:26).

The dead are spoken of as sleeping (1 Thess. 4:13), but one of the central affirmations of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In fact, this was the core of the apostolic preaching: " 'This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses'" (Acts 2:32). The assertion that Jesus rose bodily from the dead is neither theory nor philosophical concept, but a claim of historical factuality. It is a claim that depends upon the credibility of the witnesses who announced it. The apostle Paul claimed there were more than five hundred such witnesses (1 Cor. 15:3ff.).

Can they be believed? They do not seem to have been hallucinating. Jesus appeared to them on multiple independent occasions. Some of them were not disposed to believe (Matt. 28:17), but doubters like Thomas (John 20:26-29) were persuaded in spite of stubborn skepticism. Neither do the witnesses seem to have concocted an outlandish hoax. Not many people are willing to die for something they know to be a lie. But these witnesses were willing to die for their belief in Jesus' resurrection, and they did die for it, beginning with the apostle James (Acts 12:2), and including all the apostles, save perhaps one. As Revelation 12:11 puts it, these witnesses overcame the devil "'by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.'" There seems to be no reasonable alternative to confessing that the claim of these witnesses regarding the resurrection is true.

If so, there can be no more important event in history and no more sensational news to announce to the world. If He can live again, so may we! Christ's resurrection opens up eternal life to believers in Him. Such is the bold claim He made: '"Because I live, you will live also'" (John 14:19). " 'I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades'" (Rev. 1:18; cf. 1 Cor. 15:12-20).

This eternal life does not belong to unbelievers (John 3:16, 36), for it is received only as the gift of God (Rom. 6:23). There are conditions to living eternally: "To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life" (chap. 2:7). "'Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die'" (John 11:26). " 'He who does the will of God abides for ever'" (1 John 2:17).

Above all, life in Christ depends upon a mystical union with Him; those united in such a relationship with Him have eternal life in principle and in earnest. "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:3, 4). The gift of eternal life belongs to believers as a heritage as soon as they believe, but they do not enjoy the inheritance until their resurrection. That is the paradoxical insight of the fourth Gospel's phrase " The hour is coming, and now is. . .'" (chap. 5:25-29; cf. verses 21, 24; 6:47; 11:25, 26; 1 John 5:13).

While awaiting the resurrection, the sleeping dead are not in heaven, but in Hades, which must (like Sheol in nonfigurative passages) mean the grave. Peter declared: " 'Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . . For David did not ascend into the heavens'" (Acts 2:29-34).

The destiny of the righteous, those who believe in the Lord, is resurrection and transformation, as the apostle Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 15:49-54 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. Their resurrection is on the model of Christ's resurrection, and He is corporeal (Luke 24:36-43). We must not suppose that the resurrection body is of the same order as the weak and corruptible one we all now possess. Christ "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (Phil. 3:21). "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2).

There will, however, be two resurrections, and the second one will be temporary. " 'The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment'" (John 5:28, 29). "There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust'" (Acts 24:15). The first resurrection results in immortality; the second resurrection is terminated by the second death (read Rev. 20:4-15).

The Apocalypse refers to this second death as a lake of fire (verses 10, 14), elsewhere in the New Testament called gehenna (Greek gehenna, found in Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47). It is called "'"the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels"'" (Matt. 25:41), but we need not suppose that eternal always means "unending," for the Biblical meaning of that word is relative, not absolute. Thus Jude 7 speaks of the fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah as "a punishment of eternal fire." Actually the term gehenna comes from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom ("Valley of Hinnom") a literal valley to the south and southwest of Jerusalem. There in times of national apostasy the people made human sacrifices of their children to the heathen god Molech. Reforming kings desecrated the site by making it into a city dump where malodorous fires were constantly burning, fueled by refuse and the corpses of criminals. On the farther wall of the valley were sepulchres and burial caves, still to be seen. Thus Ge Hinnom became an apt metaphor to describe the indescribable destruction that will ultimately put an end to sin and sinners.

Such is the vision of the twofold final destiny of human beings developed in Scripture. Though it is unique in the history of religion, it is far more satisfying than any of its rivals. It resolves theological, religious, and scientific difficulties.

One theological difficulty that troubled many of the ancients was the ethical question, Why should the body be punished for the sins of the spirit, and vice versa? Those who held to a dualistic view of the nature of man never could arrive at a satisfactory solution to this conundrum. The Biblical view explains still another difficulty: the origin of the soul. Is it somehow infused into the developing body sometime between conception and birth, or is it generated by the parents along with the body? The Biblical view of man as a psychosomatic unity avoids all such puzzles.

The dualistic view of man has historically created such religious problems as an unhealthy asceticism leading to abuse of the body, Gnostic depreciation of the material body, morbid dread of an endless hell, and vulnerability to spirit ism and other cults (see Isa. 8:19, 20). Again the Biblical view eliminates such problems.

The Biblical view even resolves mod em scientific difficulties. Brain research has confirmed the unity of mind and body, a result that holds no threat for the Biblical view. As one recent writer has pointed out: "Discoveries in biopsychology raise to new levels of credibility an ancient but underappreciated aspect of Christian thought—the holistic view of human nature assumed by the Hebrew people."—David C. Myers, The Human Puzzle, p. 42. "The holistic image implied by the resurrection doctrine is deeply consistent with the holistic anthropology of the Old and New Testaments—and with the emerging scientific picture as well"—Ibid., p. 86.

All this is now well known to Christian psychologists, Biblical scholars, and theologians. Among themselves they freely accept it and take it for granted, but it is not as well known by the people in the pews. Thirty years ago when New Testament scholar Oscar Cullmann published his little book, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, the reaction in Europe was typified by one letter writer who complained that "the French people, dying for lack of the bread of life, have been offered instead of bread, stones, if not serpents.

The writer had it wrong. Courageous scholars like Cullmann offer what the Christ of the New Testament offers—bread instead of air!

Prominent Christians in support of conditionalism

Conditionalism is the belief that man is not immortal by nature, but that immortality is granted as a gift conditional upon the acceptance of God's grace granted through the sacrifice of Christ. Conditiohalists deny that there is an eternally burning hell, although generally they do not deny the existence of a literal heaven and hell. According to Scripture, the reward of the righteous is eternal life, and the reward of the wicked is eternal death, or extinction (John 5:28, 29; Rom. 6:23).

The following selected names have been excerpted from among the many given in LeRoy Edwin Froom's The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1966). Information for ordering this two-volume set can be found on the opposite page.

First and second centuries

Apostolic Fathers: Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Barnabas, Hermas, Polycarp of Smyrna.

Ante-Nicene Fathers: Justin Martyr (partly conditionalist), Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis, Irenaeus.

Fourteenth century

John Wycliffe. Called the Morning Star of the Reformation; translator of Scripture into English.

Sixteenth century

Martin Luther. Some of his statements clearly conditionalist, others not so clearly.

William Tyndale. Graduate of Oxford and Cambridge, translator of Scripture.

Michael Servetus. Martyred in 1553 in Geneva because of his rejection of the Trinity, infant baptism, and immortality of the soul.

Seventeenth century

John Milton. Blind poet, author of Paradise Lost.

John Canne. First to introduce marginal notes into the English Bible.

John Locke. Christian philosopher in England.

Eighteenth century

Joseph Priestley. Devout chemist, discoverer of the element oxygen.

Edmund Law. Bishop of Carlisle, wrote Considerations on the State of the World With Regard to the Theory of Religion (1745).

Nineteenth century

Richard Watson. Secretary of Wesleyan Missionary Society, and systematizer of Wesleyan theology in his two-volume Theological Institutes (1824).

Robert Hall. Famous Baptist preacher and author of six-volume Works.

Richard Whately. Anglican arch bishop of Dublin. His conditionalist work A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State (1829) had eight editions.

F. W. Farrar. Anglican dean of Canterbury, prolific author. His Sermon III of Eternal Hope (1878) advocates conditionalism.

H. L. Hastings. Advent Christian author.

John H. Pettingell. Congregatlonalist, his The Life Everlasting (1882) being a landmark volume on conditionalism.

Henry Ward Beecher. Noted Congregationalist preacher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who also was a conditionalist.

Lyman Abbott. Congregationalist who took the place of Henry Ward Beecher.

John Darby. Plymouth Brethren expounder on prophecy.

Charles H. Parkhurst. Pastor of Madison Square Presbyterian church, New York City.

Emmanuel Petavel. Swiss theologian, author of The Problem of Immortality (1891-1892).

William E. Gladstone. Prime minister of Great Britain.

Twentieth century

William Temple. Archbishop of Canterbury.

James Moffatt. Translator of Moffatt's Bible, Free Church of Scotland.

Emil Brunner. Some conditionalist thoughts expressed in his The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption.

Oscar Cullmann. Professor at University of Basel. Author of one of the most significant conditionalist works of the twentieth century, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?

David Elton Trueblood. Quaker professor of philosophy. See chapter 20 of his Philosophy of Religion (1957).