I am with those who believe in the conscious existence of our spiritual body after our physical death:
"Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years (175 years) and was gathered to his people." Genesis 25:8
"And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered to his people." Genesis 35:29
"And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people." Genesis 49:33
In each case of these patriarchs, the deceased was “gathered unto his people.” This suggests a homecoming with departed spirits of our ancestors — indeed, a recognizing and rejoining with loved ones who had died previously or “gone on before”. If at death there is a knowing of each other, there must be consciousness after death, or why bother to record that God’s chosen, when deceased, were gathered unto their people?
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:7
The average man on the street today has come to believe that there is no reality except what is going on in the earth. Most do not know about the heavens nor the celestial people in which the Spirit of God does already reign. We know that dead people are gathered in vast realms of the unseen. Some are in the highest spiritual states of loving kindness, dwelling in the merciful mind of Jesus, yet countless numbers of people simply dismiss His invitations of spiritual opportunity.
We pray God uses our life as witness to what is true and strengthens us to expose what is false. May God root out our foolishness and plant lasting wisdom in our being, causing us to see and understand Him:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24
We can pass from death to life RIGHT NOW, in our inner spiritual person, to an enlightenment that can change our thinking. It enables us to see and know the God life that is in Jesus. Jesus Christ has life in Himself, and that life is now sent by the spirit to all who believe to follow Him. Yes, God life is being sent to our inner spiritual being, so we too are alive at our center. Wonderful realizations about Jesus firmly appear to now abide in our inner spiritual person. These now make us to know that we are well positioned and prepared to grasp hold of the truth that will make us pass from death to be alive to God spiritually now:
“If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” I Corinthians 15:44 NAS
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” John 5:25
The dead are dead UNTIL they can hear a certain voice that makes them alive too. We are surrounded by a great cloud of true heavenly witnesses. When a man’s natural body dies there is something else, a spiritual part, a lasting essence of our person, that continues to exist in another dimension. I do not hesitate to say that it is true. Dreadful denials and lies have covered the spiritual understandings of men with the teachings of those greedy for gain as men get taken up with the earthly concerns of natural life.
Christ has been instructing us Christians to overcome by the word of our testimony. The truth is a wellspring of life that appears first and foremost within our spirit, then works to put off our own reasoning mind, then to quicken even our physical body:
"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." Romans 8:10
Man has an existence of natural matter and an existence of spiritual matter, although most people are ignorant of their own spiritual being. Man is three parts: his spirit, his soul, and his natural body. All have fallen into a realm that is “dying unto death” in each of our three parts, just as God told Adam it would be. The soulish mind of Adam blinded him to God’s own truth, deadening him to become unaware of spiritual matters by falling into a slumber caused by trespasses and sin.
Yet we can receive a full quickening in our every part by hearing Christ now! Our spirit is alive because Christ is alive, alive and right minded with a life that also quickens our mortal body to do the right things. Thus, we rejoice for the reality that the King sends the sevenfold spirit of Christ to dwell within us. The spirit of Christ is giving us ears to hear good news and eyes of understanding to believe what God wants to write wonderfully upon the hearts of His sons and daughters.
GOOD NEWS HAS BEEN WRITTEN UPON OUR HEARTS BY OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. God grants access to the SPIRIT OF CHRIST in our inner person. By His Spirit, we are BORN of an incorruptible seed, a Word that lives and abides within us forever. So, we have in fact PASSED from death unto life, as the scriptures say:
"You who were dead hath He quickened," Ephesians 2:1
"He has made us alive and raised us up and made us sit together in the heavenly places with Christ." Ephesians 2:6
"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness," II Peter 1:3
"He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life." I John 5:12
"If any man be in Christ there is a new creation: the primitive passed by. Lo! there has come new!” II Corinthians 5:17 concordant
Now, the dead can be quickened, made alive spiritually, born of incorruptible seed, passing from death to life. Christians should be raised up way before the point of physical death. Our spiritual body is not then in an unconscious state — TOTALLY DEAD — but rather alive to God. What then do we Christians have above and beyond any unregenerate earthly man? What godliness is formed in our life that is profitable?
If we have received the light of life that conforms our spirit to Christ, now being birthed to see our spiritual person as a spiritual body that can grow into honorable, lasting places in Him. God’s resurrection LIFE will form Christ within our inner spiritual person. Christ within is supplying our conscious personality with insight to see and understand how people can become filled with God life. God grants that insight into our spirit DAILY. Our spirit is alive to God!
Our Father has groomed reapers who are given power to gather His people to become part of His lasting kingdom. God has made a city with priests, His sons and daughters, who can identify the workings of Christ within their inner being. Like a new-born baby possesses some of the personality and consciousness of its parents, so babes in Christ possess a knowing quality of our heavenly Father. But we are counseled to allow growth to FULL STATURE in knowing God’s personality and consciousness. God is fathering Christ life within each of His sons and daughters.
The testimony of scripture is that man is three parts: spirit, soul, and body. When a man’s body dies, the body returns to the earth, to ashes, from whence it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. When our physical body is dead, it is our end on earth, the end of that which is done “under the sun” in the natural. This is where the dead are dead and there is no remembrance in the grave, nor do the dead praise God. Attend any funeral and you will see the death of a body, yet the state of that person’s spiritual body is a completely different matter altogether:
"If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” I Corinthians 15:44 NAS
“For we are aware that, if our terrestrial tabernacle house should be demolished, we have a building of God, a house not made by hands, eonian, in the heavens. For in this also we are groaning, longing to be dressed in our habitation which is out of heaven, if so be that, being dressed also, we shall not be found naked. For we also, who are in the tabernacle, are groaning, being burdened, on which we are not wanting to be stripped, but to be dressed, that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Now He Who produces us for this same longing is God, Who is also giving us the earnest of the spirit. Being, then, courageous always, and aware that, being at home in the body, we are away from home from the Lord (for by faith are we walking, not by perception), yet we are encouraged, and are delighting rather to be away from home out of the body and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore we are ambitious also, whether at home or away from home, to be well pleasing to Him.” II Corinthians 5:1-9 concordant
This scripture clearly speaks of our being in the natural body as being absent from the Lord — at least for Paul — and being absent from the body would mean being present with the Lord. Our inner spiritual body would have to be “dressed” or be “undressed” in this matter of our spiritual union with God and His Word. I, with Paul, state, "Wherefore we are ambitious, whether present or absent, TO BE WELL PLEASING TO HIM."
"I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and to be with Christ, and this is by far the stronger desire — and yet for your sake to stay alive in this body is a more urgent need. This much I know for certain, that I shall stay and stand by you all, to encourage your advance and your joy in the faith, so that my return to be among you may increase to overflowing your pride in Jesus Christ on my account..." Philippians 1:23-26 NJB
Paul did stay to serve the saints for a number of years by writing inspired guidelines for all Christians. Paul clearly taught that if we have a quickened spirit that is alive IT WILL BE MORE CONSCIOUS of the Lord after the physical body dies. All people have a spiritual body that becomes apparent when the natural body dies. When the natural body is dead and gone to ashes, into non-existence, we are dead unless our spiritual bodies have come to life. Our spiritual bodies are meant to live and overcome every lie outside the city of God, being free from those who are held under the blindness of their carnal minds.
Our inner spiritual body is being quickened to perfectly form Christ within us. Our own vessel contains oneness with Christ. God predestined for us all to attain to a full stature, complete victory over death, making us lights of the resurrection now shining as stars of heaven. Now we understand and recognize the resurrection life of Christ working within the followers of Jesus. We comprehend the glad truth and grasp the spiritual reality that our inner man is renewed day by day, and shall never pass away.
Wonderful engravings of the principles of God are available in the scripture when taught by the Spirit. Christ quickens us to be rapidly freed, to now see and to hear what the spirit says. He raises us now to see how CHRIST IS COMING SWIFTLY to teach within us the glad tidings of HIS NEW TESTAMENT. He is giving the LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF HIS LIFE every day to guide us into God’s anointed purposes in gathering His people to Mount Zion, the throne of the King.
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above (in that higher realm of the spirit, where lasting life is), where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Colossians 3:1
"If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (make alive) your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Romans 8:11
The thing our spirit cries out is “ABBA, Father.” We recognize God is Fathering a life in us. Our spirit is alive to Him because being raised in spiritual consciousness is being ALIVE to God. Being alive meant keeping the ten commandments in the Old Testament’s history. The New Testament Messiah, however, did bring a spiritual life to light, revealing hope of immortality through the gospel.
Yet it is no wonder our fathers often spoke of physical death as their end. We Christians know that our body is subject to die. The grave can hold the natural body but not the spiritual body unless some carnal mindedness holds that spiritual body to bondages that torment with death’s sting. No wonder most men emphasized the hopelessness of death, as the finality of our physical body:
"If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the (our) spirit is alive because of righteousness." Romans 8:10 NAS
God delivers quickening life to our spirit. Now we are made FREE FROM EVERY FEAR, including the terror and fear of death. We are made free of all the bondages of the carnal mind. Faith in Jesus Christ brought our spirit to life, so that we never again have to be subject to fear. Our inner spiritual being (spiritual body) is not dying, it’s alive, even shining brightly if the death of our carnal mind is removed from us.
Christ brings truth to share with us, so we really do come to know that "we have passed from death unto life!" We have been made alive to spiritual thinking, as one being quickened by His Spirit. Christians should know more than a little about the spiritual baptism of Christ. To be clothed with Christ, we must grow to find our inner spiritual person being clothed with His life:
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." II Timothy 1:9-10
This is true, death has been abolished in Jesus Christ. Now His Spirit is promised to do the same in us. It is not a silly fairy tale or a superstitious myth. It is not a lie. Men are liars. God is true.
"…he that believes not God hath made Him a liar..." I John 5:10
We are being made fit for heaven now by believing in Christ Jesus to abolish our death. We cease consent to any of our old thinking that makes God a liar. We are believing the truth when we believe Jesus has abolished death for us also. Christ within us reveals the power to stand upright. We are made to be peaceful and alive to Christ in a spiritual life that is truly wonderful:
"…when we were dead...He hath quickened us together with Christ...and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:5- 6
Those Christians who equate death only with the body in a coffin know not death as God knows it. You who were dead has He quickened. You were not lying in a coffin at the funeral home nor in a six foot hole in the ground when you were quickened, yet God considered you dead. Death is not only working to take our body to a coffin, death is working in our soul to keep our carnal mind active and under bondage of the carnal minded. Man is so carnal, much of his spiritual body and right mind stays undiscovered.
WHAT MEN CALL DEATH IS NOT WHAT GOD CALLS DEATH, AND WHAT MEN CALL LIFE IS NOT WHAT GOD CALLS LIFE! The Holy Spirit certainly does teach us to correctly understand the mysteries of life and death. By the grace of God, one man, a Messiah, came to taste death FOR EVERY MAN. Mark carefully, He only “tasted” it. He remained in a flesh and blood body, in death, for thirty-three and one half years, culminating in the death of the cross. He merely sampled death. He sampled it while on earth and before He was resurrected. He actually went to the lowest hell to taste death FOR EVERY MAN.
Jesus died to save the whole human race. When He arose from death, hell and the grave to the right hand of God, He was empowered to inject a new life force into the human spirit. There now is a quality of God Life available to man that transcends the natural life and releases light into our inner spiritual being, where His Word severs us from holding on to sins done in death’s darkness.
"In the beginning was the word, and the word was toward God, and God was the word. In it was life, and the life was the ‘light’ of men. It was the true light which is enlightening every man coming into the world." John 1:1,4,9 concordant
No life beyond the grave? God has light which lights every man who comes into the world. It may take time, but God will enlighten the inner spirit of each and every person. Enlightenment in our inner spiritual part is a gift that has already come upon ALL MEN — when they receive it — unto justification of life.
"…through the obedience of the One, the many shall be constituted just." Romans 5:19 concordant
One day a poor man, a heartbroken father, came to the Master. His little daughter had passed on. He said,
"My daughter is dead." Matthew 9:18
He was thinking like most men think about dead bodies: she was dead. He did not comprehend that his daughter existed in a spiritual form that could be called back and that the One who stood before him was able to call her living spirit back to her dead body. But what does the record say of the Master?
"When Jesus came into the official's house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, He said, ‘Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.’ And they began laughing at Him. But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. This news spread throughout all that land." Matthew 9:23-26 NAS
He said on another occasion:
"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awaken him out of sleep." John 11:11
A little later, because the disciples misunderstood Him, He also said that sleeping Lazarus was dead. This death of the physical body is the death that dispatches men to the unknown depths. A sleeping person HAS AN EXISTING BODY THOUGH THEY ARE NOT FULLY CONSCIOUS OF WHAT SURROUNDS IT. Many Christians are like sleeping persons who are not physically dead, yet the world’s wisdom keeps them EXISTING ON ANOTHER PLANE OF CONSCIOUSNESS that God calls death.
God is a spirit and He neither slumbers nor sleeps. Should the spirit of a Christian be found sleeping? Paul stated “we shall not all sleep”. If soulish thinking reigns in Christian people, they are certainly considered asleep, and when the body dies, may be thought of as rising from sleep. Yet a free spirit is quickened and made alive BY CHRIST. It is joined to the spirit of the Lord as one spirit and has been declared as passed from death unto life. They are awake, BORN OF AND ALIVE TO to GOD forever!
"…everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:26
So too, evidently, there are quite a few people whose bodies are in the grave. However, God considers them ALIVE to Him, having gathered those spirits of upright just persons and made them citizens of Mount Zion in the heavenly Jerusalem!
"But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church of firstborn sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel's. Make sure that you never refuse to listen when he speaks.
If the people who on earth refused to listen to a warning could not escape their punishment, how shall we possibly escape if we turn away from a voice that warns us from heaven? " Hebrews 12:22-25 NJB
If our spirit has been warned and awakened, Christ forms sonship within us. As sons, we are introduced to the activity our Father is doing in the unseen dimensions of heaven. Sons are meant to soon know the ways of truth as His Word grants us understanding of the keys to the Kingdom. Our spirit is awakened so that we are not ignorant of our connection with Christ. Godliness is profitable for this life — earthly life — AND THE LIFE TO COME: our spiritual life.
Paul states it is better to depart (die) and be with the Lord because he had come to recognize the heavenly dimensions of his gain that go way beyond his place in physical life. Paul describes death as merely putting off the natural body that covers our inner spiritual body. Hopefully our spirit is awake and found in the power of Christ’s resurrection, raised out from every bondage to death. His provisions of true insight into scripture bid us join with just men being made perfect in the unseen heavenlies of Zion. We are destined to be with those who have daily laid up TREASURES IN HEAVEN, like Paul who wrote of his own destiny:
"For me, to live is Christ - His life in me; and to die is gain. If, however, it is to be life in the flesh and I am to live on here, that means fruitful service for me; so I can say nothing as to my personal preference - I cannot choose, but I am hard pressed between the two. My yearning desire is to depart - to be free of this world, to set forth and be with Christ, for that is far, far better;" Philippians 1:21-24, Amplified
Paul knew the importance of his inner spiritual life had transcended the importance of his physical life. No morbid tale here of the finality of death, of being unconscious and non-existent, of going out to darkness and nothingness, of being in torment or hell. Paul knew that his physical body was just his outer tabernacle, a tent, a house. It is a covering for the inner spiritual body that had been Fathered by God, birthed by Word and Spirit in conformity to Christ.
We are perfectly formed to be lasting members of a heavenly host in the New Jerusalem order. We are predestined to now be receiving the glory of God! We shall not all sleep when God fully indwells the inner spiritual person who He forms for Himself.
A new Feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, brings a new spiritual consciousness as the third heaven is born within us. It was planted by His incorruptible Word and has been watered by the Spirit to form a true light within our spirit, now coming alive to be dead no more. Praise the Lord!