Question of the Week: Are there Scripture passages stating or illustrating humans’ inherent immortality?
My Answer: It is said that only two things are inevitable: death and taxes. I don’t know of anyone who has avoided taxes, but the Bible states that both Enoch and Elijah avoided physical death. Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18) states that Christians who are alive at the return of Jesus Christ will not die but will be transported to be with him. For the rest of us, the death rate indeed is one out of one. However, the physical death of a human is not the end of his or her existence. There are a large number of Bible passages that explicitly state the eternality of humans. Here are eight of the best known: Ecclesiastes 3:11, Daniel 12:2, Matthew 22:32, Matthew 25:46, John 5:28–29, Romans 2:7, Romans 6:23, and 2 Corinthians 5:1–10. These and other Bible passages explicitly declare that how we live our lives here on Earth and how we respond to Jesus Christ’s offer of redemption will determine how we spend the rest of eternity.
Our series continues with this report from RTB adjunct scholar Katie Galloway, who served on staff this past summer before starting her postdoctoral research....
During the past two millennia, Christianity has produced many prominent thinkers, but Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) could be considered the most influential outside...
