What The Bible Says About Death

(Text: Hebrews 9:27; II Corinthians 5:1-10)
By: Barry L. Cameron


What happens to your spirit immediately upon death?

II Corinthians 5:1-10 explains what happens when the “spirit” of a man leaves his body.

Nine Principles:
1. When the old body gives out, we get a new, indestructible one from God (vs. 1; I Cor. 15:42-57)
2. This present body is continually decaying and dying. We long to have real life (vs. 2-4).
3. This is part of God’s plan and the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing what God has in store for us when we die (vs. 5).
4. Our bodies (flesh) keep us from being completely with the Lord and like the Lord (vs. 6)
5. The only way we can exist like we do is by faith—if we lived by sight, we’d be miserable and without hope (vs. 7).
6. Every true believer wants to get rid of this earthly body and get on to the glories of Heaven (vs. 8).
7. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (vs. 8).
8. Our goal should be to glorify God no matter where we are (vs. 9).
9. We will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged for the things we did while we were here in our bodies (vs. 10).

Consider I Thessalonians 4:16:
(1) Christ’s coming will be announced from Heaven by three dramatic phenomena:
a. A loud command
b. The voice of the archangel
c. The trumpet call of God

(2) The dead in Christ will rise first.
- To those who are still living, these folks have been gone awhile. To them, however, it seems as if they just left.

Note: Since there is no time element in the spirit realm, they don’t know if they’ve been gone 15 milliseconds or 15 million years.

(3) We who are still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
- It will seem like they rose first.

(4) The important point is that we will be with the Lord forever.
- That’s something to encourage each other with (I Thessalonians 4:17-18).
* There is no such thing as “soul sleep.” The Bible clearly teaches that immediately, upon death, we go to be with the Lord. (II Corinthians 5:7)

There Are Conditions That We Must Meet In Order For Our Prayers To Be Answered:
(1) We must confess our sin and repent of it (I John 3:21; Psalm 66:18; I Peter 3:7)
- We’re not informing God of our sin. We’re affirming our awareness of our sin and our desire to conform to God’s will for our lives.

(2) We must obey God and remain in His will (John 15:7)

(3) We must ask according to His will (I John 5:14)
- “This is what YOU want for my life, therefore, I’m asking for it.”

How Can You Know God’s Will For Your Life?
The Bible reveals that God’s will for us is that we be:
a. SAVED (II Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:3-4)
b. SPIRIT-FILLED (Ephesians 5:17-18)
c. SANCTIFIED (I Thessalonians 4:3-8)
d. SUBMISSIVE (I Peter 2:13-15)
e. Willing to SUFFER for the name of Christ (II Timothy 3:12)

* If those five major areas are a part of your life, then you are in God’s will (Psalm 37:4). We must understand that God only answers prayer in accordance with His will.
- That’s the point John is making in this text.

Now, in verses 16-17, John refers to a “sin that leads to death” and says we shouldn’t pray about that.

What Is The Sin That Leads To Death?

Four interpretations:
1. It refers to unbelievers who commit apostasy (Hebrews 6, Matthew 12 & Hebrews 10).
- If they haven’t committed apostasy yet, pray for them and God will give them spiritual life.
- James 5:19 is often used as a reference for this view.
(The conclusion is that it is God’s will to save all those except the ones who commit apostasy.)

Apostasy is the act of a professed Christian who knowingly and deliberately rejects truth regarding the deity of Christ and redemption through His atoning sacrifice on the cross. (Ungers)

There are several problems with this interpretation:
a. The word “brother” (vs. 16) can’t refer to an unbeliever. Nowhere does John refer to an unbeliever as a “brother.”
b. I John is written to the family of God and deals with the family of God.
c. Unbelievers are already “spiritually dead” so how could they commit a sin that leads them to where they already are?

2. It refers to specific sins that are so terrible they are unforgivable.
- Suicide, murder, idolatry, even adultery are sometimes named as these sins.
- This view gave rise to the Catholic theology of mortal sins (sins which can’t be forgiven) and Venial sins (those which can be forgiven).

3. It refers to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
- This is the flagrant rejection of the testimony of the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ.
- That sin could never be committed by a committed Christian. Verse 16 says, “brother.”

4. It refers to an act of God’s discipline—in taking a believer home in physical death because of a sin they commit. - This verse tells us if a Christian sees his brother sinning—pray for him. God will move in unless that person has gone too far. And then, your prayers are useless.

There are TWO KINDS of sin:
(a) Passion – against the will. Not planned. (Romans 7, “I do what I don’t want to do.”)
(b) Deliberate – planned, premeditated, worked out ahead of time.

* It’s the second type of sin that leads to death.

Here Are Some Biblical Examples:
1. Nadab & Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-7)
- They plotted out their disobedience to God. They offered strange fire on the altar and dropped dead on the spot! 2. Korah & His Friends (Numbers 16)
- They decided to play like priests. And they plotted out to steal what belonged to God. The ground opened and swallowed them up! 3. Ananias & Sapphira (Acts 5)
- They plotted to keep part of the money from God that they publicly professed to be giving. God killed both of them! 4. The Corinthian Church (I Corinthians 11:30)
- They planned and premeditated a willful hypocrisy against God. Some died and many others became sick!

* All sins that resulted in disciplined death were: (1) Planned, (2) Flagrantly disobedient and (3) Premeditated sins.

* All of them involved an open hypocrisy toward God.

So, the sin that leads to death isn’t a specific sin—it is more a certain “type” of sin.
- A sin that is deliberate, premeditated, decided before hand, willfully defying and flagrantly disobeying God.
- A sin of passion (in a weak moment) can lead to being a sin that leads to death if it is continued.

Conclusion:
* Avoid sin at all costs because all sin will cost you.