What Happens After We Die?

I’ve received quite a few emails about last week’s sermon. Seems the sermon sparked some questions and raised a few issues. I thought this might be a good excuse to jump back into my blog. So, I will use this blog to answer some of the most common questions I have received.

One of the more frequent questions is represented by this email:

Pastor Jim, during your sermon on Sunday, you made mention of the mortality of the soul, you stated that there was no mortality of the soul. I thought maybe I misheard or you misspoke, so I listened to the message again. At the 11:42 mark in your sermon, that was what you said, so now it raises the question as what Paul meant by "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." 2 Cor 5:8. Please explain.

Yes, Paul is stating his belief in the resurrection just like he does in Acts 24:15, Rom. 6:5, 1 Cor. 15, et al. Whether he is killed by his enemies or executed by the Romans, Paul says that is not the end. When I die, and my body is limp and absent of life, I will be raised from the dead to be present with the Lord. Verse 8 (and vv. 6&7 before it) recap the theme first introduced in 4:16-18. “At home in the body” means to dwell in “the earthly tent” (5:1), to be outwardly “wasting away” (4:16), to be away from the immediate presence of the Lord.

When we die, we don't stay dead, merely rotting away into all eternity. When this body dies, we will be resurrected into a new body where (as Christians) we will be present with the Lord. God will raise each of us from the dead. As you can see from the context in 2 Cor. 5:1-10, Paul is not contrasting the difference between body and soul, he is contrasting the difference between our earthly bodies and our heavenly bodies. When we die and this earthly body is destroyed, God will raise us up from the dead and give us new bodies.

The belief in the immortality of the soul, (that the soul doesn't die) is a very popular belief but is a dangerous lie first introduced by Satan in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:4). It was made popular by secular Greek philosophers like Plato and Socrates and has infiltrated first the Catholic church and then the Protestant church both to a deep degree. The Hebrew word for soul is ‘nephesh’ ("soul, breathing one, a person's lifesource" used of God giving life to Adam in Gen. 2:7). Using that word ‘nephesh,’ the Bible plainly states in Ezekiel 18:4 "The soul who sins will die." Our soul, that is, our life, has a lifespan, that is, we die, our soul dies. Our soul is mortal, not immortal.

When we die, all of us dies: body, soul, mind, heart, all of it. Again, it was the Greeks who introduced this idea that you can separate us into compartments: body, soul, spirit, mind, etc. The Bible sees each of us as a unity of personhood, not some tripartite or dualistic entity. It’s important that we recognize the Bible as our authority and not Greek philosophy.

It’s also essential that we maintain the centrality of the resurrection. It is the core doctrine of the Christian faith. If the soul does not die, there is no need for a resurrection. By definition, resurrection can only happen after a death. If you teach the immortality of the soul, that the soul never really dies, then you have no need for a resurrection and you have destroyed the foundation of the Christian faith. Read 1 Corinthians 15 where the first Christian theologian argues for the centrality of the doctrine of the resurrection. It might help to read it in a clear translation like the NLT where you can see the brilliance of St. Paul’s argument with more clarity.

If you have any questions (or comments), feel free to comment here.

Marrriage Rhythm

A very cool thing happened Sunday that I just had to blog about. As I was wrapping up the sermon from Mark 10:15, I asked if anyone would like to surrender their life to Christ. Numerous hands went up, two of which were a couple.

I thought to myself, “how cool is this, a man and his wife both surrendering their life to Christ in the same service, what a transformation that home is going to experience.” I couldn’t tell who went first, but it was definitely a decision they made together, husband and wife, to follow Jesus; isn’t that awesome! Later I thought about the only account I know of in the Bible where a couple both came to Christ, Priscilla and Aquila in Acts 18, and the incredible things that God did through that couple as they both surrendered their lives to Christ and served him as a couple.

Then as I was greeting people at the end, another couple came up to me and told me they had both raised their hands way in the back, but here’s the kicker: both of them had their heads bowed and neither one knew at the time that the other was raising their hand! The Holy Spirit was working in each of their hearts independently of each other; they responded in obedience to God, and to their surprise both of them came to Christ in the same moment!

I got thinking about that later. I believe the Holy Spirit is working in each of our lives as individuals but also (for those who are married,) as couples and I wonder how many times couples expect that, recognize that and cooperate with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of unity and He is seeking to unify us with the Father, the Son and with each other. If you are married, I invite you to ask God what is He doing in your marriage as a couple? What's your next step as a couple?

May we be open to everything the Holy Spirit wants to do in our own lives, in our marriages, in our families, in our church and in our world. When the Holy Spirit prompts us, may we respond in obedience. And may those who are married move in the rhythm of the Spirit in such a way that we experience increasing levels of unity as a couple.

Marriage Grace

This past Sunday, I finished preaching a sermon series called “Resurrecting Marriage: Learning Marriage CPR.” My dual goals when preaching are: to be faithful to what the Scripture text actually says, and, communicate relevantly with love and clarity. Some Scripture texts are very difficult to either accept or preach. Mark 10:2-12 is both hard to accept and hard to preach, especially vv. 10-12. My desire was to bring a word of grace to the strong words of vv. 10-12 without watering down what Jesus said. You can watch or listen to the messages here.

Some feel I wasn’t clear enough as to what do you do if you’re divorced (regardless of the reason) and remarried, in other words, “now what?” The way forward for those who are remarried is the same for those who are still in their current marriage: practice Marriage CPR.
Commit (in this new marriage) to God’s Vision for that marriage,
Pay Attention to Your Heart and
Relate with Christlike Love

Keep doing those three steps (as explained in each of the 3 sermons). Especially the last letter/point, “R,” Relate with Christlike love, is how you relate in order to move forward: Love with Christ’s love, which is Compassionate, Forgiving, Initiating, and Sacrificial. But keep doing “C” and “P” too (paying attention to your heart and stay committed to God’s vision for your [new] marriage.)

Some may ask, “If you’re remarried, and are faithful to your spouse, are you therefore “living” in adultery? No. There’s a difference between “living in adultery” and “committing adultery.” If you’re legally divorced, or your spouse is deceased, and then you remarry and are faithful to that spouse, you are not “living in adultery.” Living in adultery is either:
a. living in an ongoing pattern of marriage-divorce-remarriage-divorce-remarriage-divorce-remarriage, etc. or
b. living with/having sex with another person who is not your spouse.

So, if you’re remarried, the past is past, receive God’s grace and move on; you have made a new covenant before God (your new marriage vows), now go back to the “CPR” and
Commit (in this new marriage) to God’s Vision for that marriage,
Pay Attention to Your Heart and
Relate with Christlike Love.

You don’t undo one wrong with another one. It is not God’s will for you to divorce your current spouse to remarry your first (or former) one. Remember, we’ve got to stop treating this area of our lives different from other areas: every single one of us needs God’s grace whether we’ve been divorced or not and God’s grace is available for each of us regardless of our past. Thank God! Grace is the only way to move forward.
Some may ask: if our souls are “glued” together, and we get divorced, can we ever”be free” of that person in our new marriage; will we always be carrying around part of that person in our soul, even into our next relationship?

The answer is to look at divorce for what it is: a death. Divorce isn’t like a death, it is a death. The same question asked in the previous paragraph is asked of people grieving the loss of their spouse through that spouse dying. Can you totally forget the person? Probably not. Can you get past that death and get remarried and have a healthy relationship? Absolutely. Is it easy? No. The longer you were married, truthfully, the harder it will be to “get past” the former marriage. But by God’s grace, it is most definitely possible; and not only possible, again, because God is God of grace, it is what God desires for you.

This is why it is so absolutely critical that we grieve well the death (and/or divorce) of the first marriage; the grieving/healing process is critical for the viability of the new marriage. You need to take at the very least a full year to process/heal the death of that marriage and, depending on the situation, you may need 5 or more years. To the degree that you process well, grieve well and get healed up, your new marriage can be better than the first one, even if the first one was great.

With God’s grace, incredible vistas of fulfillment and joy are waiting to be experienced and explored. God’s grace is not a hack patch job. He is the God who heals the brokenhearted (Psalm 147:3). His grace is healing, restorative, re-creating, and unbelievably satisfying. But we must learn to receive and assimilate that grace into our lives - again, the exact same thing, everyone else must learn to do - regardless of our pasts.
For all of us, an incredible future of joy and fulfillment is available because of God’s grace. Let me give you 2 great verses to meditate on:
2 Corinthians 9:8: And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Peter 3:18: Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

An area of confusion that some have mentioned to me is reconciling the Bible’s strong stance against divorce with the “exception passages” that seem to “allow” divorce. There is a tension there, but it’s the same tension present in the verses that call us to holiness while recognizing that sin happens and providing grace when it does.

God’s original plan never included divorce, but he recognizes that it happens. The key word is “recognize.” That doesn’t mean he “approves” it or “endorses” it. When we talk about the Bible “allowing” divorce or when we talk about “valid” biblical divorces, (e.g. Matt. 5:32, 1 Cor. 7, etc.) we are using language that recognizes that divorce does happen, but its not as if God is saying “I approve of/endorse divorce.” That puts words in God’s mouth he never intends to say. We must live with the tension that “recognize” and “allow” do not mean “approve” and “endorse.”

We must also recognize that the Bible never intends to answer the question “what are all the circumstances in which a divorce is allowed?” The Bible declares God’s original desire and then in different places recognizes circumstances where divorce might happen. Taking these exception occurrences and recognizing that the Bible doesn’t intend to speak comprehensively or exhaustively on the issue of each of the individual circumstances that lead to divorce, wise counsel calls us to examine each situation in the light of the Scriptures and seek the best path forward for that relationship. Combing the Bible to look for exceptions and loopholes is a distortion of the purpose of the Bible. Seeking wise counsel in light of Biblical truth honors God’s Word and the purpose for which it was given.

Because this is an area that is fraught with so many questions and issues, our Church Life Board (of which I am a part) has written a brief position paper on Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage that I believe will be helpful. I urge you to read it carefully.

May God’s great grace be upon you and your family as you seek to live your life in a way that honors Him.

Recalibrate

I got a ton of comments about my message this past week. I think one of the things that struck a chord with so many of us is how self-oriented we all are. I know I am. (I’ve already used the I/my word 5 times in 2 sentences!)

One of my favorite meetings each week is our SAT (Strategic Advisory Team). We start off the meeting with a Life Group type section where we share life with each other, laugh, pray, laugh, share how God is speaking to us through His Word, share struggles, laugh and generally practice healthy team relationships. This past week we got talking about how rampant self-orientation is in our society. Everywhere you turn, you are trained, tempted and taught to believe that “it’s all about you.” Each of us admitted that our default mode is to look at life through self-oriented glasses. American society is known for its individualism and it has infected all our life including our marriages in very ugly ways. We actually are offended when God doesn’t make everything work out the way we think it should be. This may be our biggest struggle in becoming like Christ. Jesus lived a thorougly God-oriented life; everything revolved around the Father. Our self-orientation is so deeply ingrained that living a thoroughly God-oriented life seems strange if not impossible.

Try this experiment. Monitor how you react to people and situations the next couple of days. Listen to your thoughts; notice how often you receive and interpret life around you from a self-oriented perspective. Don’t do it any longer than a couple of days as it only reinforces self-orientation. Then begin an experiment where you seek to intentionally see life, what happens to you, how you interact with people, everything, from a God-oriented perspective. Throughout the day, ask God to recalibrate your thinking to a God-oriented way of thinking. Ask him, point blank, “how do you see this, Lord; what’s your perspective on this; what do you think about this?” When you get hurt, or something happens you don’t like, immediately ask him for the grace to see this from his perspective; how can he use this for his purposes. Tell him you belong to him and you want to live surrendered to him. Tell him “it’s not about me, its all about you, Lord.”

Then write me and tell me how it went!

Fire of God

I've had enough people ask me to post the words to my song that we did this past week to cause me to assent. The song is called Fire of God.

I actually started the song years ago, but it just sat dormant and felt unfinished. I picked it up again 3 or 4 weeks ago when I began studying Mark 9:49 and meditating on what it might mean. I was really wrestling with the whole idea of the purifying fires of God and how the Holy Spirit uses this part of the sanctification process to to purify our love.

I thought I had finished the song again but as I was singing it for Chad, our worship pastor, it just didn't feel right. He said he liked it, and we were going to do it a couple of Sundays ago and then again the 28th, but something just didn't feel right about it, so I yanked it. The next week, I wrote a completely new melody and changed some of the words to how we did it this past Sunday.

I thought Chad and the band did a great job with it in the Auditorium services and I heard Terry Adkins and the band who were leading worship in our video venue in the RNC, did a great job with it too. (Thanks guys!)

I wanted simple words and a simple melody so the song could be learned quickly and sung as an expression of a heart crying out to God.

Fill me Lord, with Your holy love;
Come Wind of God, blow through my life.
Fire of God, ignite my heart to love.
Spirit come.
I want to love like You.
I want to be more like You.

So, fill me Lord, with Your holy love;
Come Wind of God, blow through my life.
Fire of God, ignite my heart to love.
Spirit come.

Let the Fire fall!
I give You my life, I give You my all.
I dare to draw near to Your Holy Flame
Fire of God, purify my love
Fire of God, purify my love
I surrender all.

“Fire of God”/Words and music by Jim Mindling/© 2010 CrossWinds Music