Hello and warm greetings from Ontario, Canada.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024 to everyone.
I was born in an Agnostic family.
Well, me being an open-minded Agnostic,
I would like to learn from you all about Eternal Holy Soul.
For the believer in Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that after death believers’ souls/spirits are taken to heaven, because their sins were forgiven when they received Christ as Savior (
John 3:16,
18,
36). For believers, death means being “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (
2 Corinthians 5:6–8;
Philippians 1:23). However, passages such as
1 Corinthians 15:50–54 and
1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 describe believers being resurrected and given glorified bodies. If believers go to be with Christ immediately after death, what is the purpose of this resurrection? It seems that, while the souls/spirits of believers go to be with Christ immediately at death, the physical body remains in the grave “sleeping.” At the resurrection of believers, the physical body is resurrected, glorified, and reunited with the soul/spirit. This reunited and glorified body-soul-spirit will be the state of existence for believers for eternity in the new heavens and new earth (
Revelation 21—22).
Luk 23:43 - And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will bewith Me in Paradise.”
www.gotquestions.org
There is abundant evidence in the scriptures that when a child of God dies he goes immediately to be with the Lord. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (
Luke 23:43). This is an amazing display of grace. The man was dying because he was a convicted criminal; he deserved nothing. It was too late to turn over a new leaf, too late to be baptized, too late to join the church — but not too late for Jesus to save him and promise that he would be with him in Paradise. There would be no soul-sleeping, no intermediate state; upon death he would go directly to be with the Lord. We see another beautiful example of this truth in the death of Stephen. He had preached a powerful, convicting message. Yet the response of his listeners was, “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and gnashed on him with their teeth” (
Acts 7:54). Rather than being humbled and brought to repentance, they were angry and decided to kill the messenger. “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (
Acts 7:56). What a way to die! As they were stoning him he looked into heaven and saw Jesus ready to welcome him home.Then we read the words of the Apostle Paul. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (
Philippians 1:21). Paul viewed death not as extinction or soul-sleeping, but as a positive move to something that was better; he considered it gain. And then he said, “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you” (
Philippians 2:23-24). Paul was not depressed or despairing of life. He was willing to remain and minister to the Lord’s people, but his ultimate desire was to be with the Lord. And the reason dying was gain is that it meant being with the Lord. No intermediate state, no purgatory, no soul sleeping, but to be with the Lord.Paul writes at length in his second epistle to the Corinthians about the desire to be with the Lord. He points out that the afflictions of the present are actually light when weighed against the glory that is to come. And then he declares, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (
2 Corinthians 5:8).
For God’s children, death is not a dismal defeat at the end of life but a home-going to be forever with the Lord.
We hear sermons about Heaven, we sing songs about Heaven, we say we believe in Heaven; but to contemplate what it will mean to be in the presence of Jesus Christ forever is beyond our ability to fully grasp. What a blessed hope we have to know that when we breathe out our last we are not going into some dark unknown region, but to be with Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us!