What Happens When We Die? (Part 1)

One question put to this blog by our readers is “what happens when we die?” Now, I personally lack any experience of being dead, so I cannot give an authoritative answer in a practical regard. As a biblical scholar, I can only offer a survey of what perspectives the biblical text offers us—which by no means clarifies the subject! Since the Bible is a library rather than a book and written over hundreds of years by many authors, we naturally find many different “biblical” understandings about what happens after a person dies.

Here, we will look at a couple Old Testament perspectives on the afterlife. Over the next few blog posts, we will consider other views in the Old Testament and then in the New. Not only does breaking up the question into two posts give us space to consider different responses to the question, but it also allows us to see how the ideas about the afterlife developed over time in communities of faith.

Go To Sleep

Much of the Old Testament describes being dead as “sleeping with the ancestors.” This expression understands death to be a natural and expected occurrence as death gestures toward the pattern of birth and death. The metaphor of sleeping suggests rest and not being aware or cognizant of anything. We see this inGod’s promises to Abram: “As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age” (Gen 15:15). There is no mention of an afterlife of any kind, just an “after death.” And rather than are ward once Abram dies, the good death itself is the reward.

Consider how the psalmist begs God for deliverance from death because, “In death, there is no remembrance of you (God), and who in Sheol can give you praise?” (Ps6:5). The writer doesn’t imagine dead faithful worshippers being with God but being…well, dead. In this view, being dead—even as a good person—is being as far removed from God as can be.

Furthermore, this view of “after death” eschews any idea of judgment beyond death—either punishment or reward. The writer of Ecclesiastes states: “The dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost”(Ecc 9:5).

God’s Inescapable Presence (Even in Death)

Another—albeit infrequent—vision we are offered by the Old Testament is similar to the previous one in that it imagines being dead as sleeping and not being aware of anything, but God’s presence remains with the dead. Another psalmist exclaims:“Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?...If I make my bed in the underworld, you are there” (Ps 139: 7-8). While death is still decidedly final, and no afterlife is to be had or resurrection imagined, we do see a comforting expectation of God’s presence even with those who sleep eternally.

What Should We Keep In Mind?

Just as I began the post by stating that since I have never died, I cannot know what happens afterwards. This statement is also true for the biblical writers! At the time they put down these songs and stories and wise sayings, each of them had yet to taste death. So, we must keep in mind that the views of after death/afterlife (these and the ones we will cover in the next several weeks) are always and only imagined by the living.