WHAT HAPPEN WHEN WE DIE?

One of the most important questions, that all religions try to answer, is the question of: “What happens when we die?” In particular, most religions attempt to explain if human beings have any hope of living again, after our bodies die. Most Christian denominations believe that all human beings have “immortal souls”.

According to this belief, the soul is some sort of invisible presence, which is contained inside our bodies while we are alive, but which leaves our bodies – and keeps on living – when our bodies die. In addition, according to that doctrine, the soul is the “real you”; and as a result, people are still conscious after their bodies die – because their souls are still living.

The question is, is the “immortal soul” doctrine listed anywhere in Scripture? This document will discuss what Scripture has to say about the soul – and about what happens when we die. Unless otherwise indicated, all verses are from the King James Version of the Bible.

What is the soul?

To start with, let’s see what the soul is. The Hebrew word which is translated as soul is nephesh, and the Greek equivalent is psuche. The following verse gives us an indication of what, exactly, the soul is.

Genesis 2:7: 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul .

As we can see, two things happened, when God created Adam. First, God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. In other words, God initially created Adam’s physical body. Adam’s body was not alive at that point, though – because his body was dead. In other words, at that point, Adam was a corpse. Then, God breathed the “breath of life” into Adam’s physical body. When God did that, Adam became living soul .

From the above information, we can see that Adam did not have soon as the breath of life is placed into a person’s body, that person becomes From the information found in Scripture, a concise definition of a “soul” is: a conscious being “consciousness ”. Basically, when the breath of life is added to a person’s body, that person becomes living, conscious being – i.e., he becomes a soul.

Some of the verses that support the definition of the soul as “consciousness” are as follows:

Psalms 31:9 (ESV): 9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul (consciousness) and my body also.

Proverbs 16:24 (ESV): 24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul body . (consciousness) and health to the The verse in Psalms indicates that stress causes problems for people – both mental (consciousness)problems, and physical (body) problems. The verse in Proverbs indicates that being nice to people provides both mental and physical benefits to people. (Interestingly, the medical community is finally beginning to verify both of those items – items that David and Solomon wrote about almost 3,000 years ago!) 

In addition, consider this verse, from the apostle Peter: 1 Peter 2:11: 11Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly (body ) lusts, which war against the soul (consciousness); In the above verse, Peter tells us that our bodily desires can affect our consciousness (i.e., our souls). I suspect that everyone can relate to that statement. The apostle Paul echoes that sentiment as follows:

Romans 7:25b (ESV): 25So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind (consciousness,or soul ), but with my flesh (body ) I serve the law of sin. So, it appears that a “soul” is basically a person’s “consciousness”. That is, when the breath of life is added to a person’s body, that person becomes a conscious being – i.e., he becomes a soul.