"Can people in heaven look down and see us?"

[UsagiTsukino]

http://whygodreallyexists.com/archives/ ... g-doctrine

[PaulSacramento]

But why would go resurrection us if we are with God?

The resurrection of the body is what is PROMISED in scripture.

[PaulSacramento]

Paul....

I`m not being obtuse, well not deliberately so

I`m confused... Do we join God in eternity at the moment of death? Or "sleep" until ressurection? Or both?

This is something I really struggle to get my head around.

Annette

Our spirit returns to God and we are at rest with God.
Upon our resurrection, our spirit returns to the resurrected body.

[UsagiTsukino]

Okay so bodies come back to earth than we live in an era of peace.

[Starhunter]

Our spirit returns to God and we are at rest with God.
Upon our resurrection, our spirit returns to the resurrected body.

Acts 2:26 says that the flesh shall rest in hope, not the spirit.
Verse 29,King David is dead and buried and his tomb is still there.
Verse 34, David did not ascend into heaven after death, but will be raised on the day of the resurrection on the basis of Christ's atonement.

Now if 'spirits' ascend to heaven, then David's 'spirit' did not and has not, why is that?

[Starhunter]

Okay so bodies come back to earth than we live in an era of peace.

I think he was saying that the spirit returns to the body?

[Storyteller]

Our spirit returns to God and we are at rest with God.
Upon our resurrection, our spirit returns to the resurrected body.

Acts 2:26 says that the flesh shall rest in hope, not the spirit.
Verse 29,King David is dead and buried and his tomb is still there.
Verse 34, David did not ascend into heaven after death, but will be raised on the day of the resurrection on the basis of Christ's atonement.

Now if 'spirits' ascend to heaven, then David's 'spirit' did not and has not, why is that?

How do you know his spirit didn't ascend to heaven?
His flesh is resting, his mortal remains.
His spirit could well be with God waiting for the day his body will be raised.

Forgive me if I am showing ignorance, I am intensely curious and have only read a little of the Bible.
Annette

[Starhunter]

How do you know his spirit didn't ascend to heaven?
His flesh is resting, his mortal remains.
His spirit could well be with God waiting for the day his body will be raised.

Forgive me if I am showing ignorance, I am intensely curious and have only read a little of the Bible.
Annette

Yes, I agree, it does not say that his spirit did not enter heaven. It just says that David did not ascend into the heavens.
Whether the 'spirit' can be called David or not?

The whole point of the resurrection is to make people live again, not in a ghost form but with real bodies that can eat and drink without things falling to the floor.

Some people believe that the spirits are a part of us, an identity which comes back one day at the resurrection to inhabit the old body again. So they have spirits coming down from heaven to earth, to climb into their bodies.
I have never read that in the Bible and would be interested if someone can come up with a few texts to confirm that belief.

[PaulSacramento]

Okay so bodies come back to earth than we live in an era of peace.

Our bodies are resurrected and our spirits return to them.

[PaulSacramento]

The OT and NT are clear that spirit returns to God, no where clear than:
Eccl. 12:7, "then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it."

The transfiguration event is another example, where the spirits of Moses and Elijah are present with Jesus.

The tricky part for some is how they reconcile soul and spirit and the passages where it states that we sleep until the resurrection.

But that the spirit returns to God is explicitly stated.

Its should be noted that the spirit is not a "ghost" or anything like that.
The words for spirit and ghost are different.

[Starhunter]

Moses, Enoch and Elijah are not ghosts, they are real living people with their own bodies, but glorified.

If 'spirit' is a personal entity and not just the breath of life as declared in the Bible. then we should also consider animals having a spirit which is mentioned in Ecclesiastes.

Then we could have the debate over whether an animal has a soul or not, then we could argue which animals have soul, then if bacteria have a spirit each, or sea anemones have one and so on.

The pagan idea that man has an immortal soul has created a whole lot of farces in religion, from hell to fake deaths and the list goes on.

But if we take God's word without reading pagan ideas into it, we get that life = life from God, and that death = death with decay, and that the resurrection is the answer to the question, which will happen when Jesus returns.

Real life, real death, but a real resurrection, real heaven, and real salvation. Reality.

Why is death called a sleep? because Jesus called it that, that's why. If you had the power of life, is anybody dead to you, as it says in scripture God is the God of the living and not the dead, He calls Himself the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, when they were long dead.

Now if they had immortal spirits, then they would probably be in heaven, with Moses and Elijah who were taken to heaven in their bodies. So Abraham goes to give Moses a hug and floats straight through him, causing Elijah to drop his bowl of fruit, while Isaac tries to tidy it up, he can't because it's real food on a real ground.

If the Bible is true when it says that the dead know anything, that all their works and feelings are gone, then it is like a sleep, where time has no relevance. You could be dead for a thousand years and wake up on the resurrection as if it were one second later.

[Elias]

Many religions teach that the human soul is immortal, and only the physical body actually dies. They see death as the transition from one state of consciousness to another.
According to this doctrine, the soul is a separate entity that only resides in the body of the living. However, the text of Genesis 2:7 clearly states that God breathed into the formed man the "breath of life" and the man became a living soul. He did not receive a living soul; he became one. The New King James Bible states, "man became a living being."

Of the Bible's 1700 references to the soul and the spirit, neither the soul or spirit is ever declared to be immortal or eternal. In fact, 1 Timothy tells us that only God is immortal. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is full of false hope and negates the message of death. If humans continue to live—albeit in an altered state—then there is no need for the atoning death of Christ. Christ died to restore life to those who had forfeited it through sin.

In Eden, God said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). God did not say, "Your body will die, and you will enter a new state of consciousness."
It was the serpent who lied to Eve, saying, "You will not die." The idea that our soul is immortal is a lie that originated in Eden to convince us that we are immortal like God.
We are not immortal, but it's true that we were never meant to die. Death entered the world as a consequence of sin (Romans 6:23). Only when Adam and Eve chose to ignore God's good plan and choose death did it become a reality.
When someone dies, their spirit, or breath of life, returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7). God takes back the life (ruach, spirit, breath) that He granted on condition of obedience, and the person ceases to live. When God said that humans would surely die if we transgressed His requirements (Genesis 2:17), He meant that we would cease to live, and would return to dust.

Martin Luther puts it this way:
We should learn to view our death in the right light, so that we need not become alarmed on account of it, as unbelief does; because in Christ it is indeed not death, but a fine, sweet and brief sleep, which brings us release from this vale of tears, from sin and from the fear and extremity of real death and from all the misfortunes of this life, and we shall be secure and without care, rest sweetly and gently for a brief moment, as on a sofa, until the time when He shall awaken us together with all His dear children to His eternal glory and joy...For since we call it a sleep, we know that we shall not remain in it, but be again awakened and live, and that the time during which we sleep, shall seem no longer than if we had just fallen asleep... Hence we shall censure ourselves that we were surprised or alarmed at such a sleep in the hour of death, and suddenly come alive out of the grave and from decomposition, and entirely well, fresh, with a pure, clear, glorified life, meet our Lord and savior Jesus Christ in the clouds...Scripture everywhere affords such consolation, which speaks of the death of the saints, as if they fell asleep and were gathered to their fathers, that is had overcome death through this faith and comfort in Christ, and awaited the resurrection, together with the saints who preceeded them in death.

Far from being a conscious state, death is the ultimate state of non-being or unconsciousness, and is described as such in the Scriptures:
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish (Psalm 146:4).

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6).

For in death there is no remembrance of You (Psalm 6:5 NKJV).

The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence (Psalm 115:17).

So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep (Job 14:12).

Humans lie in the sleep of death until the resurrection at the end of time. Then, and only then, will we awake and be raised out of what David called the "sleep of death" (Psalm 13:3).

[PaulSacramento]

It is important to understand that the term soul meant something in the OT with its Hebrew cultural context and meant something else in the NT with its Hellenistic cultural context.
In the OT the soul was typically used to refer to being alive, while in the NT it often got "intermixed" with the OT concept of "spirit".
It is clear, however, that even in the NT there is the view that upon death we "sleep" until the resurrection ( Case in point the death of Lazarus in the GOJ).
BUT it is also clear, according to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, that something goes to an area of the after life know as "Abraham's bosom".

Of course sometimes we fail to realize simple things in the terms used, like sleep for example.
Some, like the JW's, believe that "soul sleep" is a very deep and undisturbed state in which the dead are aware of nothing, typically Ecclesiastics is references to justify this view.
Of course we must reconcile what is mentioned ONCE with what is said by Christ and if the parable of Lazarus is any indication then the spirit is aware of SOMETHINGS at least.

Very few passages in the bible deal DIRECTLY with what happens after we dye, BUT from the parable of Lazarus AND the account of the transfiguration, it certainly seems that the spirit of at least some dead, do more than just sleep, THAT said, lets also remember that the analogy of sleeping IS an analogy and just as we living ave different types of sleep ( heavy, light, etc) then so too may the dead.

[Kurieuo]

Can our loved ones see us from heaven? I feel terrible I have always felt that because of some of the things I have done they are disappoint in me .

Well now you've done it. No more baby making for me.
I'll feel like I have lots of eyes staring at me.

[Starhunter]

It is important to understand that the term soul meant something in the OT with its Hebrew cultural context and meant something else in the NT with its Hellenistic cultural context.
In the OT the soul was typically used to refer to being alive, while in the NT it often got "intermixed" with the OT concept of "spirit".
It is clear, however, that even in the NT there is the view that upon death we "sleep" until the resurrection ( Case in point the death of Lazarus in the GOJ).
BUT it is also clear, according to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, that something goes to an area of the after life know as "Abraham's bosom".

Of course sometimes we fail to realize simple things in the terms used, like sleep for example.
Some, like the JW's, believe that "soul sleep" is a very deep and undisturbed state in which the dead are aware of nothing, typically Ecclesiastics is references to justify this view.
Of course we must reconcile what is mentioned ONCE with what is said by Christ and if the parable of Lazarus is any indication then the spirit is aware of SOMETHINGS at least.

Very few passages in the bible deal DIRECTLY with what happens after we dye, BUT from the parable of Lazarus AND the account of the transfiguration, it certainly seems that the spirit of at least some dead, do more than just sleep, THAT said, lets also remember that the analogy of sleeping IS an analogy and just as we living ave different types of sleep ( heavy, light, etc) then so too may the dead.

The parable was directed at the Pharisees which held many pagan views as taught in their education by the Alexandrian schools. Abraham's bosom will not be filled with millions of beggars, neither is there a telegram service for hell.
The Pharisees believed in the idea that being rich is righteous, and beggarly is sinful. Jesus was hitting at all their stupidities at once in that parable, I am fairly sure, by weighing up the whole tenor of scripture on this subject that He was not supporting their beliefs in any way.