It does not necessarily follow from the previous posts’ discussion of physical facts that the soul and spirit of the dead person have ceased to exist and been corrupted along with the physical body. This is the very important distinction that I wish to make, and that the Bible attests in many places. One example is the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:32-44). Lazarus’ soul and spirit were clearly intact. Even though his body had been decaying for four days in the tomb, Lazarus,in his familiar bodily form, responded to the command of Jesus to come forth out of the tomb. Lazarus’ transducers were restored so that his soul and spirit could interact with his family and acquaintances once again.
So again, what is death? Clearly, death is the physical terminus of the earthly body and corruption of its integrity into the dust of the cursed earth. Everyone can see that—skeletons and mummies prove it to be true. Death is the last stage, so far as we can see now from our present moment in time, in the sequence of little deaths and births that characterize the growth and development of the human soul and spirit.
But surely the sequential progression of little deaths and births that we all experience in this life suggests something more than mere physical corruption. Does it not suggest in the birth, development and passage of each person through this life a process of continuation into a larger and more expansive reality at every stage? Who would really want to remain an infant or toddler after being a teenager or mature adult? Why should anyone want to stagnate and live forever at any stage of life and never know the horizons beyond? Who would want to live forever as a decrepit senior? The answers are obvious.
Yet death is frightening to us. We fear to change direction or station or location in life, because changes can be threatening to our personal sense of security in the environment that is familiar to us. Therefore,we fear departing this physical world, even if it is often a vale of tears.
Nevertheless, this time-cursed world is much larger than the maternal womb. Who would want to enter again into their mother’s womb after living in this world? Yet might not this world also be a “womb” of preparation for a still larger and more capable reality? The progressive sequential development that each of us experiences in this present physical life suggests that there is a larger extended reality beyond the physical “terminus” of death. Therefore I would like to suggest looking at death in a second sense, which is death as a “goal”of life.
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