The Out of Body Experience
The out of body experience is not biblical. There have been many people who have had experiences where they believe they have died, gone to heaven, and talked to God and others. This has occurred while they had stopped breathing or their heart stopped and they lost consciousness or were declared “clinically dead” for a short period of time.
This does not mean that what they experienced in their mind was an out of body experience. There is much scientific evidence to support that when our minds are deprived of oxygen, we can have hallucinating experiences that seem very real to us.
While the Bible supports that there is life after death, it does not mean that as soon as a person dies that he goes immediately to heaven. The Scriptures teach that a soul is a living being. At Creation, two things combine to make a soul, dust and the breath of life. Until these two things combine, a soul does not exist. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
At death, these two components separate. The body returns to dust, and the breath returns to God. The soul goes nowhere it simply ceases to exist. “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 spirit that returns to God at death is the breath of life and nothing more. So, the soul is the conscious life which resulted when God added the breath or spirit to the body.
The concept of an undying, immortal soul goes against the Bible, which teaches that souls are subject to death (Ezekiel 18:20). Man is mortal (Job 4:17). Only God is immortal (1 Timothy 6:15, 16). In the Bible, except in allegorical usage, the soul does not go in and out of the body; neither does it have an independent existence outside of the body.
Those who have died sleep unconsciously in their graves (John 11:11-14) till the Lord raises them up at the Resurrection Day at the end of time (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-53) to receive their rewards and punishments at the Judgement. “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works” (Matthew 16:27).
Further, there are over 10 individuals mentioned in the Bible who were resurrected by Jesus and the prophets, but none of these individuals ever talked about what they saw in heaven or hell, for the dead sleep unconsciously awaiting the Resurrection Day.
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In His service,
BibleAsk Team
