“God’s Glorious Promise of Life After Death”

Recently several people in this area received a 40-page booklet touted as “A Guideposts Exclusive.” For those unfamiliar with the publication, Wikipedia provides the following information:

Guideposts is a spiritual non-profit organization that encourages wellness through inspirational content creation. Founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Raymond Thornburg, and Peale's wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, with just one inaugural magazine, Guideposts has since grown to publish annual devotionals, books about faith, Christian fiction novels, five spiritual magazines, prayer content, as well as a content-rich website for daily inspiration…. The Guideposts organization, which also maintains an outreach ministry service, is currently headquartered in Danbury, Connecticut, with additional offices in New York City.

Guideposts is nonsectarian and welcomes Protestant, Catholic, Jewish writers, and more.

If this “Life After Death” issue has a publication date, it is exceedingly difficult to find. In the middle of the front page is an invitation: “Discover the heavenly mysteries and joys that await you in the hereafter.” Who could resist that? But there’s more! Just below the initial “tease” is a further one: “Your questions finally answered by real-life people who died and went to heaven…and returned.” Listed below are six questions designed to get one’s spiritual blood pumping.

What happens to me when I die?

Is heaven a real place?

What does heaven look like?

Will I see Jesus?

Will my loved ones be waiting for me?

Will knowing the truth about heaven change my life on earth?

What Happens?

Nobody likes to rain on someone else’s parade, but these questions are scarcely new; they were answered nearly 2,000 years ago in the Bible. Below are the answers the Scriptures provide.

When a person dies: “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7). Solomon taught that the physical body returns to dust, out of which God made man (Gen. 2:7); He promised Adam after he sinned that his body would return to the dust from which he came (Gen. 3:19). His spirit returns to God Who gave it to him (Zech. 12:1).

”Well, what does God do with the spirit?” He assigns it one of two places. A beggar named Lazarus, when he died, was taken by angels “to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22). Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in Paradise that very day in which they both died (Luke 23:43). Thus, both names can be legitimately used to describe this part of the Hadean realm. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter affirmed that Jesus’ soul did not remain in Hades because He arose from the dead (Acts 2:31).

However, there is another part of the Hadean world, and the rich man woke up there—“in torments” (Luke 16:23). All souls were assigned one of the two dwelling places in the Hadean realm—one called Paradise (or Abraham’s bosom) or one called torments. In the latter section, the rich man’s tongue longed for a drop of water, so bad was the flame there (v. 24). Any kind of relief or mitigation was denied (v. 25).

So, do people just remain in one of those two places forever? No. Solomon wrote: “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecc. 12:14). Paul affirmed that God “has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness, by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). So, those in Hades will leave that realm to receive judgment, after which they will enjoy heaven or suffer severely in hell. Paul once “reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come” to Felix the governor, but said he would discuss it at a more convenient time (Acts 24:25). So far as we know, he entered into eternity still a sinner.

Paul also wrote that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rom. 14:11-12). John saw a great white throne, with the dead, small and great, standing before it. God judged the dead at that time (cf. John 5:27).

Heaven’s Reality and Appearance

Yes, heaven is a real place. Jesus came down from there (John 3:31; 6:38), and His apostles saw Him return (Acts 1:9-11; Mark 16:19; John 3:13). Jesus taught His disciples to pray to the Father who is in Heaven (Matt. 6:9; cf. 7:21) and assured the faithful that great would be their reward in Heaven (Matt. 5:12).

Heaven is described in Revelation 21:1-2 as a new heaven and a new earth (cf. 2 Peter 3:13)—also a new Jerusalem. There will be an absence of sorrow, tears, pain, and death. This great city is further described in Revelation 21:10-21. It is huge. Each gate is a pearl; the walls are of jasper, and the city is pure gold, like clear glass, adorned with all kinds of precious stones. Although these descriptions may symbolically represent heaven, nevertheless, it is a real place.

Seeing Jesus and Loved Ones

Anyone who is invited into Heaven will most assuredly see Jesus. He told His disciples that His Father’s house had many dwellings [mansions is not the best choice of words] (John 14:2)—and that they would get to live there: “I will receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (v. 3). Paul wrote that those who are saved will rise up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. “And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17). All the saved shall be with Jesus; the important issue to consider is, “Are we saved or not?”

The same is true of loved ones. Very few in number are those whose relatives are all saved. Many people think that everyone (practically) is saved—including themselves and all their families. The rich man of Luke 16 was evidently surprised to wake up “in torments,” but he knew that his brothers were lost at that point and in need of salvation (Luke 16:23-28). How many are likewise going to be surprised to receive the same punishment as the rich man (Matt. 7:21-23)? It is the case, however, that every family member who has obeyed the gospel as taught in the New Testament (Acts 2:38)—and remained faithful—will be in Heaven and awaiting the arrival of others.

Knowing the Truth

This question is superfluous because we already know the truth about Heaven from the Word of God (John 8:31-32). If people have not responded to the truth God has revealed, they will not respond though a person came back from the dead to testify concerning it. The rich man wanted Lazarus to return from the dead and warn his brothers to repent. Abraham refused permission; they already had Moses and the prophets. If they did not believe them, they would not believe Lazarus if he returned from the dead, either.

“True Eyewitness Accounts”

When one opens the Guideposts’ booklet to page 2, he finds an incredibly long heading: “True Eyewitness Accounts of the Love, Joy, Peace and Sweet Family Reunions You’ll Find in Heaven.” The first question that ought to come to mind is, “How do we know these are ‘true eyewitness accounts’”?

We do not. And not much of an attempt is made to establish any proof. An interview with Dr. Raymond Moody does contain some actual truth about near death experiences (NDEs). Although everyone’s account varies, they all have “striking commonalities.”

Most people say they seem to leave their bodies and watch from above while their body is resuscitated. They pass down a dark tunnel and come out into a brilliant, warm and loving light. They meet deceased friends and loved ones in spirit form. And they undergo a panoramic or holographic review of their lives in which they witness everything they’ve done from an eternal point of view. Often, this life review happens in the presence of a being of love and light (10).

That thousands of people have had these NDEs no one could deny. Men and women actually experience these; the question is, “How valid are they?” Are they all meeting ancestors while basking in love and light? How much is imagination, and how much is real? And how would anybody go about proving the legitimacy of the NDEs?

According to Moody, people who have never been religious return “with some kind of assurance that there is a world beyond this one and that God exists.” They could have known this from the natural world God created (Rom. 1:18-20).

This declaration that non-religious people experience NDEs poses a severe problem. Theoretically, these afterlife adventures are of a heavenly nature. How many declare that, upon dying, they went to torments, like the rich man? Only on rare occasions. The vast majority of descriptions are all of a heavenly nature, involving light, love, the meeting of friends and loved ones. But those who do not belong to God do not get to go there. Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel receive everlasting destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

“But, wait. You don’t understand. God grants them this view of what heaven is like in order to change their minds.” Wouldn’t that be giving them a second chance at salvation? What else could it be if God returns them to earth with a direct knowledge and experience of heaven? All doctrines of a second chance are false. Neither reincarnation, nor an alleged “thousand-year reign,” nor purgatory, nor a near-death experience (or any other false teaching of man on the subject) will occur, which is one of the points of Luke 16:19-31. This life is the one chance God grants us to get things right.

What happens to the NDE folks when they return from death? They “come back and say that the most important thing we can do is learn how to love” (10). Of course, that is important (Matt. 22:37-40), but Jesus also stressed the importance of truth (Matt. 16:5, 12; John 8:31-32; 14:6; 17:17). In fact, Paul writes that people will “perish because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10).

The Guideposts’ booklet, along with the other materials they offer are full of unsubstantiated and subjective stories of incredible NDEs. They will not help anyone go to Heaven—especially if they don’t return with a determination to seek out the truth (Pr. 23:23). They can learn all that is required by reading and studying the Bible, which has been established as true by many proofs.

Paul does not call it a near-death experience, but he was caught up to the third heaven, where he heard inexpressible words not lawful for a man to utter (2 Cor. 12:1-4). When others return, they seem to be quite chatty.