What dies at death and wehat is resurrected?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

I've just never heard anyone say anything about why we see our bodies restored to immortal physical life, and have never heard you address this..

So, are you saying that after the resurrection, we do not stay in heaven but come to earth and continue as Ada was meant to continue on the earth, as I do? You said something about the PERSON dies, not just the body. So, do you mean the SOUL dies at death to not exist, let alone depart the body and go to heaven?

My understanding is the Lord returns to earth and church is resurrected. I never read where we then go to heaven. Although I assume it's possible for folks to go visit there, heaven isn't our predestined home, earth is, and always was.

I mean "the soul" is the person, a uniting a flesh and spirit. At death the person is dead. Or, you could say the soul has died. Dead people in scripture are sometimes called dead souls. I would hesitate to say "not exist", because to me that implies annihilation which occurs at the judgment of the wicked. The dead do not exist as conscious living persons, but they do exist to God. For "all live unto Him, He is not the God of the dead but of the living" - which was said by Christ in reference to the resurrection, not an intermediate state.

You ask about how the personality continues. Technically, it doesn't continue as a self existing thing in the intermediate state, because the individual person is dead. In the resurrection, you will be the same person, albeit resurrected. There may be some changes to your personality (mportant experiences usually produce changes to personality) but not to the extent you won't be the same person.

I used to say "God keeps you in His memory banks so when you resurrect it's really you and not another" (using a weak Star Trek transporter analogy). But I am tending nowadays to ask "what determines the individual person-ness of a person? Why are we not all clones of each other?"

We all have our own unique genetic database or DNA ingredients. We can clearly see numerous mental traits are inherited (as studies of twins separated at birth have shown), yet even identical twins are still different from one another in some (or many ways). Our experiences shape who we are as well. God's interventions do so as well (eg. Bezaleel Ex 36:2). It may also be that each person's spirit is not just a generic "human spirit", but an individualised spirit "custom made by God" for each person. But observation proves that personality operates within the brain (a physical organ of the body) so is clearly connected to the flesh.

So when the body is raised miraculously by the power of God, as the spirit and flesh reunite, it seems obvious to me the personhood will return to life as a matter of course. Ordinary death does not obliterate the person into nonexistence. That is the role and purpose of the SECOND death.

How can the soul SLEEP, if the spirit leaves the body to see the soul non-existent, if you are saying it is non-existent? I need more clarity from you on that.

Sleep is a metaphor. The PERSON is said to be asleep, because physical death is only a temporary cessation of life, like sleep is a temporary cessation of wakefulness. "Soul sleep" isn't a Bible term, although it expresses a Bible concept (like Oneness, baptismal regeneration (rightly explained), soteriology, theology, church service, debt-free, etc etc). The Bible does say the dead are "asleep" or that they "sleep", and identifies the soul not simply as a mere component of a person, but as the person themself. Phrases like "your soul" are equivalent to "your life, your self" etc.