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QUESTION 16
In John 3:36, we are told that an unbeliever will "not see life." Does this not teach extinction of being?

ANSWER:
There are many ideas about people when they die. Many Eastern religions teach reincarnation (come back in another form for better or for worse) The atheist says. "When you die that is it" Many say when you die you know nothing. You cease to exist.

The Bible says, "if they speak not according to this word there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20. The Bible is likewise clear that man exists after physical death. Jesus told about two men that died in Luke 16:19-31. One went to Abraham's bosom a place of bliss and comfort, the other went to hell, a place of torment. Their bodies yet lay in their tombs.

The Sadducees did not believers in a hereafter. They questioned the Lord one day asking about a woman that had seven husbands, "Whose wife will she in the resurrection" He tells them that in the resurrection they do not marry. He further says that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. He said, "I am the God of Abraham." Abraham was alive (dead physically, but not otherwise). A verse often quoted from Ecclesiastes 9:5, "The dead know not anything.", is perverted by some, to mean they cease to exist. The context show that they are not in contact with "things under the sun." Job 14:14-22 teaches the same; that the dead man does not know when his son (who is alive) comes to honour or dishonour- Job 14:21. The verse in question simply says that the unbeliever will not have eternal life. They will exist forever but will never have the "kind" of life believers have, which is eternal life.

What about you, dear reader? Do you have that life? Have you trusted Christ as Saviour from sin?

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

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Updated July 2009, by Shelly Allen