LEARNED CHRISTIANS: Please explain the differences of opinion regarding the focus of your faith: THE AFTERLIFE

Question

There is so much diversity of opinion about this, it seems that you're describing things held by different religions. Anything from immediate heaven, to a separation of body & spirit for a while, to total death until Jesus returns, then a big resurrection.

Here's the question I asked mere moments ago. You can review the answers to see what I mean:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ao2.gSyW0c4jEIyVUNpXgF_d7BR.?qid=20070529171448AAewD0P

Yet I thought that nothing was more central to the Christian life than the belief that "whosoever believeth in him should not die, but have everlasting life."

What's up with the variations in the expectations? God wasn't clear about what you were actually looking forward to?

SPIKE: I was a music major. It's more like listening to when John Cage shut his piano lid and the audience spent 4 minutes 33 seconds listening to whatever sound arose. Or alternatively, a cacophanous mish-mash of tuning instruments that have neither a score nor a conductor before them, but simply must make up a piece on the spot.

Answer 1

As a mainline Christian, I'm more interested in living life in the present as a good person that practices tolerance (well maybe not too well with fundamentlists), compassion in my daily life.

I do believe that the Afterlife will be what it will be and I don't worry about it.

Answer 2

The end result is what really matters - getting to point H, Heaven. What we do here on earth, according to God's Will, determines if we even get there at all.

After death, we cannot repent or have the privelege of saying "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to do it that way". We just have a lot of explaining to do (for some excuse-making) after God reads the laundry list of (mis-)deeds accomplished throughout this lifetime. If we've been reborn in Christ while mortal, we are to be treated differently than those who did not know Christ. The bible says that the Christians will rise first. Those not reborn in Christ will await the second judgment. It doesn't matter to me if it is vague. What matters to me now is if I sanctify myself after rebirth in water, spirit, and fire. God is cheering for me, but I have to do the work to become holy so that I can enter Heaven without blemish (2 Peter 3:13-14 NIV).

Answer 3

Opinions! Remember each person has their own ideas of what to expect here is why I have developed my way of thinking: Matthew 24vs 27-31 speaks of the calling and when.
Revelation speaks of death and hell given up the souls inside of them before being cast into eternal damnation. and also speaks of the multitude of souls brought out of the great tribulation for not excepting the mark of the beast and in other parts the grave shall give up the dead the Jew first then the gentiles and even states in which order all shall be called up from the grave. In my way of thinking if we were called up after death than all these people would already be in heaven with god and Jesus Christ waiting for the end times and who would be left for final judgment?? This is again - my way of looking at things and there will always be many different ways so the best thing to do is read and find out which way seems the most correct to YOU. AMEN!

Answer 4

This is the Catholic teaching regarding your question.

After death we must all come into the presence of Christ our judge, 'so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done." (2 Corinthians 5,10)

Those who die without perfect love of God will be purified in love in purgatory. We know that there is a purgatory because those who imperfectly love God when they die do not deserve Hell nor are they worthy enough for heaven; we also know from the Church's constant teaching about the value of prayers for those in purgatory.

Those who die in hatred of God will be judged worthy of the eternal punishment of hell.

Peace and every blessing!

Answer 5

My first thought is that you'd have to go back and eliminate everyone who wasn't a Christian, probably over 50%, out of your question.

Secondly, you didn't ask about anything except "when", but have added on all sorts of stuff to this question.

Answer 6

Different beliefs because of their own interpretation of the bible.

When we die, we undergo what is called the particular, or individual, judgment. Scripture says that "it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). We are judged instantly and receive our reward, for good or ill. We know at once what our final destiny will be. At the end of time, when Jesus returns, there will come the general judgment to which the Bible refers, for example, in Matthew 25:31-32: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." In this general judgment all our sins will be publicly revealed (Luke 12:2–5).

"temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment" . It is between the particular and general judgments, then, that the soul is purified of the remaining consequences of sin: "I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the very last copper" (Luke 12:59).

Some Fundamentalists also charge, as though it actually proved something, "The word purgatory is nowhere found in Scripture." This is true, and yet it does not disprove the existence of purgatory or the fact that belief in it has always been part of Church teaching. The words Trinity and Incarnation aren’t in Scripture either, yet those doctrines are clearly taught in it. Likewise, Scripture teaches that purgatory exists, even if it doesn’t use that word and even if 1 Peter 3:19 refers to a place other than purgatory.

Christ refers to the sinner who "will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (Matt. 12:32), suggesting that one can be freed after death of the consequences of one’s sins. Similarly, Paul tells us that, when we are judged, each man’s work will be tried. And what happens if a righteous man’s work fails the test? "He will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor 3:15). Now this loss, this penalty, can’t refer to consignment to hell, since no one is saved there; and heaven can’t be meant, since there is no suffering ("fire") there. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory alone explains this passage.



Then, of course, there is the Bible’s approval of prayers for the dead: "In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the dead to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin" (2 Macc. 12:43–45). Prayers are not needed by those in heaven, and no one can help those in hell. That means some people must be in a third condition, at least temporarily. This verse so clearly illustrates the existence of purgatory that, at the time of the Reformation, Protestants had to cut the books of the Maccabees out of their Bibles in order to avoid accepting the doctrine.


Why would anyone go to purgatory? To be cleansed, for "nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]" (Rev. 21:27). Anyone who has not been completely freed of sin and its effects is, to some extent, "unclean." Through repentance he may have gained the grace needed to be worthy of heaven, which is to say, he has been forgiven and his soul is spiritually alive. But that’s not sufficient for gaining entrance into heaven. He needs to be cleansed completely.



As this shows that all who die will go to purgatory to be cleansed completely before entrance to heaven

Answer 7

I live my life in the present, too, and try to be as good and as loving a person as I can be. Somehow that doesn't seem to count for much, and how unfair is that?

Answer 8

Different interpretations. And we will all die. That is a given but that death is a physical death not spiritual. By the way I wouldn't call that our "Focus." My focus is to live for and please God. TO show my love for Christ and my fellow man.

Answer 9

i look forward to taking the next step .. i see this life as the small picture, we are in a body thats restricted and corruptable ...

Answer 10

it's as if you're listening to a symphony and worrying about what color socks the french horn player is wearing