50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

Life
Bible-Presbyterian
Church
Page 210
used at certain seasons of the year in Palestine
by shepherds when obliged to live
far from home in order to find pasture for
their flocks. What happens to the real us,
when we must lay aside our physical tents
in the day of death
There are six different answers to this
question:
(1) Some say that our soul will
go into a coma or profound sleep and remain
in that unconscious state until the
future judgment day. At that time we will
be totally unaware of anything that’s going
on until the resurrection day comes at
last. This is the theory of “soul sleep”.
(2) Others say
that after the unrepentant
sinner dies, he will be punished
briefly as his sins deserve.
Then he will be totally
annihilated—blotted
out of existence. He will be
as though he has never been
while only those who are
righteous will continue to
live on and on after death
in a state of bliss.
“What happens to
the real us, when we
must lay aside our
physical tents in the
day of death”
(3) Still others say that only those
who lived like saints in this life have any
hope of going directly to heaven when they
die. Most people will first go to purgatory,
a place of pain and suffering that is not
punitive but only corrective. In that place
of suffering, their personal sins will be
slowly purged away, particularly so if the
living relatives remember them and have
masses said for them. Only after this purging
process has been completed will they
be permitted to pass from purgatory into
heaven. However, according to this teaching,
certain sinners, who die unrepentant
or outside the church, will go directly to
hell with no hope of ever escaping.
(4) Some say that, when we die,
the real self inhabiting our bodies becomes
a ghost and has the power to wander about
at will in this world, helping living relatives
who offer sacrifices to it and who
continue to do honour to the departed, but
bringing much trouble upon the family if
this spirit of the departed relative is neglected
and not properly cared for. Many
claim to have been visited by the ghost of
a dead husband or a dead wife. Parents of
young men claim that the ghost of the deceased
son has returned to them and has
spoken to them, or made his presence felt
in some startling way. So, many believe
that when our bodies die, the soul that departs
from the body becomes a mobile and
very powerful ghost who must be treated
with great fear and respect or there will be
bad trouble in the home.
(5) Others again believe that,
when a person dies, his soul appears on
earth in another visible form; it may be in
the form of a cow, or of a
fowl or fish, depending
upon the amount of merit he
accumulated during his particular
existence on earth.
Some may come back as
human beings, belonging to
a higher or lower caste in
society, again depending on
the holiness of their previous
existence. This process
goes on and on until he reaches his final
bliss, the extinction of all desires or perfect
nothingness! That is why some people
in India sweep the path in front of them
as they walk, lest they accidentally crush
underfoot some insect which may be the
reincarnation of a naughty grandfather
whose soul has come back into this world
as an ant because he did not live a holy life
when he had a chance in this world as a
human being.
(6) There are the skeptical intellectuals
who try to tell themselves that the
soul of man has no real future existence,
for the simple reason that man has no soul
as a separate and different entity. All he
has that may be called spiritual is his intellect,
his emotional life, and his power of
choice. All that will live on after he dies is
the impact he may have made upon the
world while living. All that will live on are
the benefits that his life has imparted to
mankind and the contributions he has made
to human progress. That is all that will live
on after he dies, according to this belief.
For example, what has lived on after Shake-