Doesn't death end everything?
What Jesus told His disciples and the Sadducees, and the raising of all the dead.
The short answer Settled
No. Death ends the body's life, not the person. Men can kill the body but not the soul, and those who have died still live to God. All the dead will be raised, the just and the unjust, some to life and some to condemnation, and after death comes the judgment.
The soul outlives the body
Jesus told His disciples, "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (). Men can end a life. They cannot reach the soul.
The Sadducees, "who deny that there is a resurrection" (), came to Jesus to argue against it. He answered from the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God still called Himself their God: "For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him" ().
Jesus also told of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. The rich man "died and was buried" (), and then, "being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off" (). He speaks, he is told to "remember" (), and he pleads for his "five brothers" (), who are still alive on earth. His body was in the grave. He was not gone.
All the dead will be raised
Daniel wrote that "many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt" (). Paul spoke of "a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust" (). Being raised is not a reward kept for the good.
Jesus said that "all who are in the graves will hear His voice" () and will "come forth" (): "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation" (). No one in the grave is left out, and there are two ends.
What follows death is not nothing: "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (). John saw it: "the dead, small and great, standing before God" (), and "they were judged, each one according to his works" (). Death is not a wall at the end of the road. It is a door.
The usual objection
Many people hold that when the body dies the person is gone, and no one is left to raise or to judge. Some point to the Bible itself: "as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath" (), and "all are from the dust, and all return to dust" (). Others grant that something survives but think only the righteous are raised, while the wicked simply stay dead. Either way, death settles everything.
Ecclesiastes 3 is describing what people and animals share in dying: the body returns to dust. The very next verse sets the spirit of man apart, "which goes upward" (), and the same book says where it goes: "the spirit will return to God who gave it" (). As for the wicked staying dead, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus all say that the unjust will be raised as well as the just. Death does not end a person's accountability to God. It comes before it.
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι mē dynamenōn apokteinai, "cannot kill" (Strong's 1410, 615) | Present participle, negated; aorist infinitive | The soul is beyond what any killer is able to do. | |
| ζῶσιν zōsin, "live" (2198) | Present active indicative, third plural | Present tense: those long dead live to God now. | |
| ὑπάρχων ἐν βασάνοις hyparchōn en basanois, "being in torments" (5225, 931) | Present participle with noun | The rich man is in Hades, and in torment, while his brothers are still living (). | |
| הָעֹלָה ha'olah, "which goes upward" (5927) | Qal participle with the article | Said of the spirit of man, set apart from the spirit of the animal. | |
| δικαίων τε καὶ ἀδίκων dikaiōn te kai adikōn, "both of the just and the unjust" (1342, 94) | Adjectives, genitive plural | Both groups are raised. | |
| ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς … ἀνάστασιν κρίσεως anastasin zōēs … anastasin kriseōs, "the resurrection of life … the resurrection of condemnation" (386, 2222, 2920) | Nouns | One word for being raised, and two ends. | |
| μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο κρίσις meta de touto krisis, "but after this the judgment" (2920) | Preposition with "this"; noun | What comes after death is judgment. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.