Is There Life After Death?

The Bible leaves no doubt about whether there is life after death. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ demonstrated this reality. He stunned his friends by appearing three days after they saw him bleed to death. The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) all describe his death and resurrection along with the reaction of the disciples after he came back to life.

Various belief systems have expressed a vision of life after death: Dante’s Inferno, Alysian fields of Roman mythology, heaven of the New Testament. What they all have in common is a belief that something awaits us on the other side of death. Human testimonies of death experiences also provide details although they can be sketchy and contradictory. Other people even suggest that death stops all existence; nothingness awaits. Deep inside humanity doesn’t really believe this. God “has put eternity into man’s heart,” says the Bible in Ecclesiastes 3:11, and even if we don’t know what awaits, intuitively we believe life will continue in some way.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ not only provided the certainty of life after death, but it provided us with a new vision of “eternal life,” a life of blissful communion with God. Though he assured us that there would be a resurrection, it came with a price tag. He said, “…for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, 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. We can have this life of bliss only if we do good and not evil.

The beginning point for the hope of a better afterlife begins with faith in Jesus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” John 3:16. An eternal dwelling awaits all who follow him faithfully.

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