How about, nothing because you will no longer exist? If that is your answer, you have lots of company. In at least a dozen developed countries, including America, between twenty five and sixty five percent of the population reject the concept of life after death. But what if this belief is false? What if you, as a person, continue to exist in a conscious, sentient state after the death of your physical body? Consider the additional possibility that this existence may be either meaningful or meaningless depending on what’s in your heart when you die. Would you think, “Oops, I made a mistake; I want a second chance to reconsider my beliefs on death.” But, according to Scripture, there is no second chance: it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment (Heb 9:27). Can you afford the risk of a false belief having such enormous consequences?
The Bible teaches that your soul continues to exist after the death of your body. Your soul is the sum total of you as a person comprising your heart, your intellect and your will. The teaching of the immortality of the soul permeates the entire Bible per the following verses and more.
And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last He will take His stand on the earth even after my skin is destroyed yet from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25-26).
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we fly away (Psalm 90:10).
And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Mat 10:28).
And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire (Mat 18:8).
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mat 22:32).
Then He will also say to those on His left: ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ (Mat 25:41).
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life (Mat 25:46).
And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).
And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).
Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal (John 6:27).
And they went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ (Acts 7:59).
We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8).
For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal 6:8).
That being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7).
And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Heb 9:15).
For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you (2 Pet 1:11).
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name (Rev 14:11).
(See also Sections 1.6, 1.12 and 7.14 of Theology Corner)
