Believe it or not, Christians are not unanimous in their beliefs on all subjects relating to God! Sometime they can agree to disagree because there is no impact on the fundamentals regarding salvation (ie. what happens in the end), and sometimes not! It could be argued that often this is because God has not given us all the details so we cannot claim to have been coersed or blackmailed into becoming one of his adherants. After all, we are to grow in grace, love, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, etc, but not in fear!

There are two main beliefs that are held regarding what happens after death, for instance. Below I've set out the main arguments brought to bear for these beliefs, so that you can see them both for yourself.

A. The first belief is that at death the soul, encapsulating everything that comprised that 'person', goes up to God in heaven and is in an aware state as it awaits the resurection, when it will receive a 'spiritual' body in place of the body of flesh it had before. This is the majority belief in Christianity.

B. The second belief is that at death the spirit of the person, encapsulating everything that comprised that 'person', goes back to God in heaven and is in an unconscious state as it awaits the resurection, when it will receive a 'spiritual' body in place of the body of flesh it had before. At that time it will gain awareness also. (This waiting period is sometimes called 'soul sleep'.)

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These beliefs come out of observing and considering the scriptures on the subject of death and the afterlife in the Old and New Testaments, such as those below.

In the old testament people are not only talked about as 'died', or 'expired' (giving up the ghost!), but also as 'sleeping', 'sleeping with their fathers' (Gen 47:30, Deu 31#;16, 2 Sam 7:12), and 'going to their fathers' (Gen 15:15.)

Died and expired, are just other forms of saying dead, so do not help us forward with knowing what happens at death.

Sleeping uses an analogy, which is an interesting one. You can think of sleep as an unconscious state because most people are probably unaware of any activity during the night when sleeping. One minute it's night and they are trying to get to sleep, and the next minute it's morning and the alarm clock is stridently getting them awake!

To some others sleep is not an unconscious state! Their sub-conscious minds are at work and they are aware of dreams and visions and can interact with them mentally and manipulate them mentally as well. 

So if death is like sleep you can think of it being an unconscious state or a conscious one according to your experience, and which one of these possibilities you think the bible writers had in mind!

'Sleeping with our fathers', and 'going to our fathers' are also interesting.

It could be that in the society of the time they created nice euphemisms to not have to say 'died', and God let them to use these in the bible.

One could also argue that if being in the grave dead means total unconsciousness, then why would the phrases have any significance even as a euphemism? On the other hand, if when dead you were aware and in the society of one's spiritual predecessors it would make perfect sense!

King Saul going to seek advice from the dead prophet Samuel suggests that some at least thought the 'dead' could be communicatesd with as can be seen in 1 Sam 28:1-20. Did it work for him? He certainly got answers, but who were they from?

In Job 14:7-10, Job talks of trees being cut down and growing again, but what happens to a man who dies? He seems to think that when a man dies that's the end. He won't rise even till heaven pases away! He asks God in Job 14:13 if he would appoint a time and remember him (like asking God to set aside time in his busy schedule, to consider the short life mankind has). Not living again, and only getting 'four score years and ten' when you are here. is too hard a deal!

Later on though Job asks the question in Job14:14 "If a man dies shall he live again? But he does not answer it. Rather he says he will wait all the days of his appointed time, until his change comes.
Job 14:13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Is this the time when he hopes God will get around to thinking about man's life being as the grass and do something about it? We don't know, but probably not since a quite different term is used in verse 14. What is the change? Job does not say. Does he know? Is the 'appointed time' ('hard service' or 'campaign', and different to verse 13 [not as KJV shows]), this life? Does the change take place at death? It seems that Job expects a change in his status but what this is is hard to determine from Job's statements. Would the term 'hard service' or 'campaign' be applied better to this life of toil, or waiting unconscious for God to act? Or even waiting consciously for God to act?

In death, Job says, one does not know what becomes of one's family, and those dear to one (Job 14:21), but his soul will mourn about what is happening to him in the afterlife (Job 14:22). While David and others tell us that as far as things on the earth are concerned the dead know nothing, Job seems to be telling us that they have a consciousness regarding what is happening to them!

Although much is made by some of 'good' people having to witness their aberrant relatives tormented in Hell, according to Job's statement here this cannot happen as they are only aware of their own surroundings and condition (and maybe those also in the same surroundings - their {spiritual} 'fathers'?).

 In the New Testament 'sleeping' is also used to represent death, so the previous comments on this apply here also.

The NT also uses 'expire', or 'breath out', as the OT does, as in Job, and this is often changed in both testaments by the translators to a colloqual term like 'breathed his last', or 'gave up the ghost'. This term is rather like 'dying' or 'dead' in that it gives no clues as to the state of the 'thinking person' afterwards.

The NT also has a couple of scenarios where the state of the dead is mentioned.

In Rev 6:9-10 we have the souls of those slain for the word of God shown as speaking and asking questions of God and being answered.
Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Now this could be just an allegory and not representing real activity; or it could be real and they are given white robes, etc. Does the internal evidence in Revelation itself prove it either way?

We also have in  Luke 16:19-31. the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

In the story both Lazarus and the rich man die and the poor man is taken by the Angels to be in Abraham's bosom/lap (comparable with 'going to be with the fathers', and used by contempories of Jesus also); and the rich man also died.

The significant part of the story regarding the state of a person after death is that 'in hell where he was in torment' the rich man lifts up his eyes/looks up and sees Abraham and Lazarus afar off.
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Some say that 'lifts up his eyes' is talking about 'opening his eyes' after the millenium when the man is resurected in the second resurection. This is because there is a gulf fixed between them which cannot be bridged (considered to mean 'no place left for repentance').

Perhaps, but there's a problem or two. The man is said to be in hell (the grave) doing this. If he was resurected he would not be 'in hell in torment', which is the place of the dead.  He would be alive and, by definition, not in hell (the grave)!

It's interesting also that the rich man is 'in hell in torment' when he 'lifted up his eyes'; He does not lift up his eyes and realise his situation is a torment! If lifting up his eyes signifies resurection, it appears that he is in torment before he is resurected!

He also asks for help to be sent to his brothers to get them to repent. But Abraham does not say it's too late, they're already in hell with you, or, they are with me don't worry! No, he says that sending Lazarus would not convince them, and they have (present tense) Moses and the Prophets to listen to? Moses and the Prophets spoke of Jesus the coming saviour, of course, as Christ pointed out in Luke 24:44. But the point is they can, it seems, at the time that the rich man is asking, listen to Moses, etc., and potentially change. So is this 'pre-millennial' or 'post-millennial'?

The rich man is said to be in Hell and Lazarus and Abraham are said to be afar off, but neither group is said to be resurected. Abraham says that even if someone went back who was resurected the people would not respond, but that does not say any of the people speaking there was resurected, just that IF someone was resurected and sent back they would not heed!

Of course, just because they are not said to be resurected, does not mean that such is not the case, if you consider the details fit this scenario.

Now Jesus' parables are always (otherwise) based on real (life) situations. Is this the case here, or is this the one case where he made up a fable in order to tell us that we were to live righteously?

One last scripture in this regard is Matt 22:31-32. Here Christ says that concerning the resurection of the 'dead', God is not the God of the dead but of the living! So does 'dead' mean dead in the sense of unconscious, or are the 'dead' still 'living' in a sense (conscious)? Or is it that God thinks of them as being alive, so he says that they are even when they are not?

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So is this life all there was, as Job once thought? Did God hear his plea for more time and make some provision, or did Job's plea get God to explain an already existing provision? In the OT God promises a longer life on earth only, for those who live right. By the time of the NT people are hoping for 'Eternal life' and ask the Rabbi's how to achieve it? The answer is not promising. Keep the commandments! It's not promising because, as Rom 3:12 says, "There is no one that does good, not even one!

Christ though says there is a way for weak ungodly men to have eternal life - Through Him Alone! If you accept his offer and cling only to Him for your salvation, he will grant you eternal life to come and in this era a life lived in him. But, do you wait after death for that immortal spiritual body in a conscious state or are you unconscious?

I'll leave the answer to you, but whatever your choice I hope that this has enabled you to see why others may think differently to you! To me though the most important thing is that for those 'In Christ', after death comes the resurection, when 'this mortal will put on immortality'!

Attlee.