Do you have to wait for Jesus to return before you are resurrected? What about people who are not Christians, do they remain dead in their graves? What is supposed to happen after the body is resurrected from a grave? Where does it go then?
If I may.....this is how I see things....
There is nothing in scripture that tells us that we have any part of us that lives on after the death of our soul. (Ezekiel 18:4) Yes, the Bible says that souls "die".
A "soul" in the Bible is not an invisible "thing" that lives in our body to drive it like some kind of vehicle. The "soul" is the living, breathing entity that is mortal and needs food and water and oxygen to survive. It it the whole person or animal or living thing.
Adam was not "given" a soul, but "became" a soul as soon as God animated him, giving him breath. (spirit)
A soul cannot exist apart from a body and a body is not alive without spirit. The whole "life after death" thing came about for two reasons....
1) Once humans begin to live, they are programmed to go on living indefinitely.
King Solomon wrote...
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Though created as mortals, humans had the opportunity in the beginning to live forever in the flesh. Our perfect bodies were designed to renew themselves perpetually....and God provided the means to ensure this with what is called "the tree of life" in the garden. It was freely available until their disobedience, then access was denied. (Genesis 3:22-24)
Science does not know what happens to cause this process of cell renewal to slow down and eventually cease. They know "how" it happens, but not "why" it ends in a gradual decline into death.Theoretically it should keep on going.
The earth is our home and we were never supposed to live anywhere else. If humans had never disobeyed God, paradise on earth is where they would have spent eternity.....all of them. But disobedience brought death....something as foreign to us now as it has always been. We have an inner desire to go on living, never being able to imagine a time when we will not be....but that is what death is....a return to the dust...."the big sleep".....we fight it.
2)The devil exploited this inner need by suggesting to the woman in Eden that she would NOT die even if she ate the forbidden fruit. To offset the inevitability of death, the devil suggested that life would somehow go on in some other realm. With that thought in mind, people invented places for their 'immortal soul' to go. It is a widely held belief that our loved ones are supposedly able to watch over us from above. But if we think about it, how would that make heaven a happy place if our departed loved ones were watching us make terrible mistakes, or getting some dreadful disease and suffering? What if they saw us heading for a fatal accident or a violent murder and had no way to stop it?
What if they are observing the bombings and the killing in religious wars or political conflicts? Would you be happy observing if that was the case? Heaven would be flooded with tears. That makes no sense.....it's not at all comforting.
The Bible's promise of a resurrection is a full bodily return to one's former life....with everything restored...memories, health, relationships, youth...everything that Adam lost for his children. The main difference on the earth will be the restoration of paradise. Adam lost his paradise home and his children have never lived there. Christ came to get it back for us. That is what makes sense to me.
The Bible was written for another age in history, before people were ready to understand what really awaits us in the afterlife and what the soul is. What was not revealed in the Bible has now been revealed, the many things Jesus spoke of that we could not bear, so we now know that there is an eternal soul that separates from the body upon death, takes on another form, and continues to exist forever in the spiritual world. All humans have eternal souls, no matter what they believe or disbelieve. The state of the soul after death will differ among individuals but all souls can continue to progress after they separate from the body.
Well, that is what some people believe, but it finds no support in the scriptures. Can you show me a single scripture that says that the soul separates from the body at death? There is nothing to continue, no matter how much we want to believe that we will not exist for a time, sleeping in death is what we do. There is no consciousness in death. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) Jesus said that his friend Lazarus was "sleeping" when it was plain that he had died. (John 11:11-14)
Human consciousness needs a brain. The brain is often the part of our anatomy that dies first when breathing stops. Deprived of oxygen, the cells deteriorate very rapidly and once brain death is confirmed, there is no hope of revival. Irreparable brain damage cannot be reversed. Life support is turned off.
Yes, the body dies, but the soul lives on and goes to the spiritual world and takes on another form made up of heavenly elements in the spiritual realm.
Please provide scripture to confirm what you believe.
"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more reward, because all memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they no longer have any share in what is done under the sun......Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave, [sheol] where you are going." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6; 10)
Solomon wrote that and it was what the ancient Jews believed.....resurrection after sleeping peacefully in the grave was their hope. But notice what verse 6 says.....
"their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they no longer have any share in what is done under the sun."
We would understand a persons negative qualities (hate and jealousy) being eliminated by death but why would "love" perish?.....it is the very epitome of everything God is. Who could live with God without love?
Humans are designed for the earth and the earth was designed for us.....one day soon I believe that Jesus will clean up this planet and bring redeemed humanity back to God's original purpose in line with Isaiah 55:11.