FLOYD ROGERS, TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

What happens to our loved ones after death? Are they “sleeping” until the second coming? For starters I think sleep is an obvious metaphor. The body is no longer functioning. But I would also suggest these questions have an assumption woven into them. They assume we are limited to time and space after we die.

Here are a few things to consider. Scientists say we perceive time, but we only have a vague understanding of it.  They say time and space are relative. It’s hard to imagine two different places where time is not the same, but it’s fact.  It’s also something for which if we couldn’t compensate our GPS system wouldn’t work.

2 Timothy 1:9 says, “… This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,” There are other scriptures that talk about a beginning to time. Given this alone we see that time is not eternal, it was created by God along with the universe. Luke tells us the rich man, after his death, asked God to send Lazarus to warn his family. That was AFTER his death, yet the second coming has not yet happened.  I think this is at least circumstantial evidence that we will not be limited to time after we die.

The science behind of all this is too much for me to understand, and I admit some of this is only an extrapolation from scripture, not scripture itself. So why is any of this important? Because it shows the limitations of our understanding, and how God and His creation are not limited to our understanding. Though we only have an idea of what heaven will be like, and only a glimpse of life after death, the bigger question here is, are you ready?