Pawel Czerwinski via Unsplash
A mainstay, of both traditional Judaism and Christianity, is the firm belief in the future resurrection of the dead. But what happens to people in the time between death and resurrection? Do people somehow go into absolute unconsciousness, only to then be somehow recreated? Is the death of a human being little different than the death of an animal? Or, is the death of a human being quite different than the death of an animal, with the consciousness of mind, memory, experience, and creativity—often called to be a “soul”—temporarily held in another dimension until the resurrection? This is a debate presently taking place throughout the broad Messianic community.
A much more vigorous debate takes place regarding what is going to occur to unrepentant, unrighteous sinners. Will these people experience a never-ending, ongoing eternal punishment? Or, will these people experience an obliteration from existence? Strong and firm disagreements between those who affirm some sort of ongoing eternal punishment, versus those who believe in annihilationism, have been present in Christian theology for the past century. These debates have been taken up by many people within the Messianic sphere of influence, with more than a few not quite knowing how to sort through it.
This resource, Messianics and the Afterlife, thoroughly discusses the issues of the intermediate state between death and resurrection, and the different dimensions of eternal punishment. It also offers some Q & A on the afterlife, and a preliminary analysis on where much of the subject matter currently stands for our faith community, in the 2020s.
398 pages
$23.99 paperback
(Each paperback title written by Outreach Israel Ministries/Messianic Apologetics is produced print on demand from CreateSpace/Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.)
