Truth For Life

Alistair Begg: You ever wonder what will happen to your soul when you die? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg explores what the Bible teaches about this. The answer should compel all of us to get serious about telling others about Jesus and sharing the gospel.

So, let's open our Bibles to the closing verses in John chapter 8.

There are only two ways to die. Or as probably the proper English would be, there are only two ways in which to die. Because in Jesus' death, the last enemy is destroyed. That's not 2 Corinthians 5, but it's 1 Corinthians 15. 15 and 26.

For Jesus must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death. So, death is a defeated enemy.

However, without a Savior, men and women will die in their sins. Now, you can turn back to John 8. In the previous discussion or in the earlier part of the discussion, Jesus, Jesus says to the group that are pushing in on him.

Verse 21 of John 8. So he said to them again, I'm going away and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I'm going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, will he kill himself? Since he says where I'm going, you cannot come.

He said to them, you're from below, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

Death is not terminal. This afternoon I was reading The Times and I came on an article about a Scottish politician who had been diagnosed with a with a brain tumor, but the headline was essentially, I'm not afraid to die.

Now I read the article carefully because I thought he was going to say because I know that Jesus is the answer to death. He has triumphed over death. He didn't say that at all. Apparently, the man believes that when you're dead, it's all over. That that's all death is. You just come to a crushing halt. You'll never know anything more about it. You don't need to worry about it at all.

Now, if you're a Christian and if you're a Bible-believing Christian, somehow or another, if you end up in conversation with somebody like that discussing these immense matters, you're going to have to say, well, you know, Jesus actually doesn't speak in those terms. You ought to be afraid. The great consequence, says Jesus. See, people don't understand the consequences of their unbelief. They think, well, I can believe or not believe. I mean, it's I know you're very excited about it at church and so on, and you make a, you know, you do all this stuff, but I don't really care. It doesn't really matter.

Well, then we have to press them and say it matters. It matters not only for now, but it matters for eternity. Because unless you believe, unless you trust in Christ, you will die in your sins. That's why I said this morning that we are essentially souls with bodies.

You know, if you think about it, SOS, Save Our Souls. What does that mean, Save Our Souls? Well, an SOS if you're in a lifeboat is, come and get me. It's me. It's not saying, save a bit of me that is unidentifiable, that is spiritual, that is a strange entity. No, it's save me, save our souls. Because the essential nature of who and what we are is embodied.

The separation of the soul and the body in death is temporary. It is not eternal. You get that? The separation of our soul from our bodies is temporary. It is not eternal. Because there will be a reunion of our body and our soul that will be permanent.

But at this point, no. The human body disintegrates for a time, the human soul does not. The Westminster Confession in section 32 is very helpful in this regard, and let me just quote it to you. Chapter 32 of the Westminster Confession and point one.

After death, the bodies of men and women, but it says men here. After death, the bodies of men decay and return to dust. But their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal existence, return immediately to God who gave them. Now you say, well, this is the Westminster Confession. This is not, we're not quoting the Bible here, why are you doing that? Well, I can give you all of the scripture proofs that are under there, and if you go get the confession, you will see that they were there. For example, at the end of Ecclesiastes, although I don't know if they mention, yeah, they do. Ecclesiastes 12, where the soul has a destiny. That's what the writer is saying.

Man the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. So the souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, as they wait for the full redemption of their bodies. What does that mean? It means that their that their immaterial existence or their soul existence is one day going to be reunited with their bodies. This is an amazing thought. I mean, because I think every so often I think about it, and maybe you do too.

I'm glad for the book of Job. I'm glad that Job at one point says, you know, no matter what happens to me, I know that even if my skin should be obliterated, in my flesh I will see God. Well, I'm glad he said that because I want to know that too. But in the time being, waiting the full redemption of their bodies for the Christian, listen, the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness as they are kept for the judgment of the great day. 2 Corinthians 5.

That judgment that the believer need not fear, that will deal with stewardship, but not with our eternal destiny. Kept for the judgment of the great day, scripture recognizes no other place except these two for the souls which have been separated from their bodies. In other words, no purgatory. There is no little stopping off place where you can, you know, get get a kind of refit so that the things that you didn't quite manage in this life will be able to take care of there. That's quite an attractive proposition, depending on where you're coming from, but it's not a biblical proposition.

Well, here is what here is what we're dealing with. It's it's this. And Van Dixon, who's work on the Westminster Confession and Chad came here and preached on the weekend that we had a couples conference, I recall. I wasn't here. But his work on this is very, very good, and I owe some of this to his insights.

But what we're what we're confronted with is something that we don't often ponder, and that is that a fully conscious, a fully conscious part of every one of us never dies. A fully conscious part of every one of us never dies. It is, if you like, an immortal subsistence, which continues to exist and is never annihilated.

You say, well, how do we deal with this? Well, only in the period between death and resurrection does a human being exist temporarily as a soul without a body. You get this? In the period between death and the resurrection, a human being continues in an immaterial subsistence to exist as a soul without a body. Now, parenthetically, let me just say that that ought to stop most of us talking in the three days after the funeral about Uncle Bob up there playing golf.

Wherever you get that stuff from, you didn't get it from reading your Bible. It might make you feel better. It doesn't make me feel better at all. Of course, I don't have an Uncle Bob, but anyway, you understand, this is what is being made clear here. If you want an illustration of it, just look, for example, in in the conversation that takes place between Jesus and the thief on the cross. Luke chapter 23.

Oh, yes, the conversation is going on. The one thief rebuked him and he says, you know, to his to the guy on the other side, don't you fear God? Don't you fear God? That's the point. People don't fear God. Church is a trivial exercise. Anybody mentions anything that's that's somehow threatening. It says, oh, this I need to go to a safe place. Don't you fear God? He says to his friend, since you're under the same sentence of condemnation.

And we indeed justly, he says, for we're receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man, he's done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Now notice, you will be with me in paradise today. How does that work? Jesus is not speaking about an embodied existence. Because the body of the thief is going to be thrown in a pit, and the body of Jesus is going to be placed in a borrowed tomb. Jesus is speaking about the presence of their souls in heaven.

And as that soul may be addressed as both a you and a me. Jesus does not say to him, he doesn't need to say to him, I'll meet your soul later today. No, I will meet you later today. So that immaterial subsistence, that that usness, that soul, that spirit, that entity that is so obviously that animates us in our humanity and is so obviously not present in the experience of physical death.

That then is going to be reunited, the redemption of the bodies on the day of resurrection. Now, there are so many things that remain unknown to us. But we know this, that all people will in some sense live forever.

Either in Christ, like blessed are those who die in the Lord, as Revelation says, or in their sins. You see, loved ones, this is what makes this message so devastating, isn't it? What do we know? We know that what is sown as perishable will be raised imperishable.

Okay, I think I understand that. I know that it's going to be kind of the same, but it's actually going to be different, like Jesus' resurrection body. Okay, I can understand that, but I'm not sure I fully grasp it. Nothing is told us about what age or stage anybody will be in eternity. It's one of the questions people always ask, will I be a wee boy, I died as a 10-year-old? Will I be a wee boy in heaven? I don't know.

But I know this, it'll be better than anything you could ever have imagined. And that is the prospect for the believer. I continually retreat to Richard Baxter in his hymn, you know, Lord, it belongs not to my care whether I live or die.

And then he writes, my knowledge of that life is small. The eye of faith is dim. It is enough that Christ knows all and I shall be with him. I don't regard that as a cop-out. I regard that as the ultimate security. He will hold me fast. That's really about all I know. I got a picture on my phone just in the last 48 hours of a father with a with a little boy going down a ski slope.

And and the kid, as you've done this with your children, I'm sure, the child was just here. He basically could not escape from his father. It was a scary ride, but he held him fast the whole way. Death is a scary ride. The disillusion of our bodies may come in a moment. It may be in a no Our Ward. Who knows what it will be.

But the security that is ours is in the promise of Jesus. If you heed my word, if you trust in me, if you believe in me, you won't actually face the terror of death. Remember when we spoke about this in John 5, we used the illustration of blinking. When you blink, you're blind for a moment. But nobody ever says they're blind, sorry, I was blind there. They just say sorry, I blinked. How many times you blink in a day? 15, 100 times? I don't know, 15,000 times. I blink far more than I would like to. So, but in a blink, in a moment, last breath here, the reality of the presence there.

I think it is the unknownness of it that is the is the challenge. Certainly it is to me. I'd like to have it more buttoned down. I'd like I I just I just wish there was a page that just laid it out. Why isn't God given us that page? Because he wants us to rely entirely on what he said.

And the challenge in living the Christian life for me is, I'm tempted to rely on everything else. And it is a strange thing, it's a wonderful thing when we are inching closer to the reality of actually saying, I'm relying solely on you. I've got no particular way of explaining this. That's why Paul, incidentally, in Philippians, where he says, I don't know whether I should depart and be with Christ or stay and do the work that I'm called to do. He says, I'd actually rather go.

What he's really saying is that he had to choose between embodied service or being in the presence of Jesus. So let's stop. Death is inescapable. Jesus has conquered it. There are two ways to die, either in our sins or in the Lord. I've been referring to this Revelation verse, I better just quote it. Make sure it's there.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. Jesus says, I want to tell you guys that if you refuse the only shelter that the God whom you claim to be your Father has provided, you will die in your sins.

There is no other alternative. Either we die in Christ, or we die in our sins. Remember when you took exams at school? You had that what do you call that guy? The invigilator? I don't know, scary. This So they they gave you the thing, you sit down, and the paper is like that, and then then at the appointed hour they say, you can turn your paper over. You turn it over, oh, well, oh, no, no. And then you get a good stab at it, and then eventually eventually you hear these words.

Complete the sentence that you are presently writing and put your pen down. That's it. But actually, with exams, if you flunk it, you could have another crack at it. But in this test, no. Put down your pen. How did these Jews respond to Jesus?

Well, we read on. They said, make him a king. Why don't we kill him? They killed him. That's why only God opens blind eyes and only God softens hard hearts. And if you believe tonight, it's a testimony to the loving compassion of Almighty God, that he reaches down into our stubborn, resistant wills and convinces us.

Of our need of a Savior. And when we know that, then everything doesn't just go smoothly. Everything doesn't then all fall into line. I'm not a fan of the people who got a kind of high-ground view of death, or it doesn't matter, you know, in Christ. Yes, it matters. Of course, it matters. It matters dramatically it matters. We sorrow but not as those who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so he will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in him.

Well, Lloyd Jones when he would tackle things like this, he would say, you know, if I cannot, if I cannot allure you to trust in Christ, let me try and scare you. I want you to be in the kingdom. I want you to know the reality of a forgiven life. I want you to know your sins forgiven. I want you to be able to say, hallelujah, what a Savior.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. Alistair returns shortly. As we learn about God's eternal plans and Jesus' power, even over death, it's clear that we're not here by chance. God made us and provides a way for us to live with him forever. Now, there are those who dispute this and assert that science somehow disproves God's existence. And that's why we're excited to offer you a free audiobook today that unpacks this claim and shows how scientific explanations generally align with what we find in the Bible. The book is called Can Science Explain Everything? And it's written by Oxford mathematician John Lennox. He asserts that science and Christianity are not opposed. In fact, it is by combining these two that we gain a fuller understanding of the universe and the meaning of our existence. John Lennox is a renowned scholar, but he lays out the evidence in this book in an understandable fashion and takes you through his logic like he's sitting across the table from you having a friendly conversation. Again, the book is titled Can Science Explain Everything? This is the last week it's available as a free audiobook. You can download your copy at truthforlife.org/science. And feel free to share that link with others. Now here's Alistair.

Alistair Begg: Father, we are on our earthly pilgrimage. Every breath we take is a gift from you. All our days are numbered. Our times are in your hands as we began the day. We don't know what a day brings. But we do know that you are the Lord of day and the Lord of night, that you have gone to immense lengths in order that we would not be lost, in order that we might be found, in order that we might be saved, in order that we might be secure in Christ. Lord, take away any props that we are using to keep us from casting ourselves entirely upon Christ. For we ask it in his name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening. Who do you say Jesus is? Your answer will have eternal consequences. Tomorrow we'll consider the claims of Jesus. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.