So this is a question I have been thinking about and I would like if someone can share their belief on this.
We have many accounts of people who were dead and were resurrected. Lazarus is a prime example but there are examples of these instances in both the OT and NT.
If when someone dies, they simply live on in another form and are taken to another place, why is it that will all of these people who were dead and then resurrected, that no one has shared their experience of being taken somewhere? if Lazarus would have shared where he was taken for the 3 - 4 days after his death that would really clear up the confusion of what happens after death.
Or is it that death is really death so the dead have nothing to report after they have been resurrected?
Look out for YouTube videos concerning people who have had Near Death experiences. The really fascinating ones are not as numerous as the rest of them, but there seem to be relatively few that are fraudulent, or perhaps, not of God. Let me know If you would like some recommendations.
The NDEers who tell their story come from all walks of life, including doctors, even a neurosurgeon. In the best of them, their body-language, often accompanied by tears, is the most impressive testimony to their veracity. Atheists attribute them to dreams, hallucinations, lack of oxygen, etc - all piffle. Decades later, they will remember every detail as if they had occurred the day before. Often their cure was miraculous, inexplicable in terms of modern medical science. With my 'banana-skin' sense of humour, as my wife called it, one of the high points for me is always when they are told, usually by Jesus, that they have to go back, as it is not yet their time ; and they either point-blank refuse at first, or protest vehemently. Jesus is very persuasive, however, and always wins.
Speaking to Martha, Jesus put it this way : “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.'
The meaning seems to be that, in line with the experiences of NDE'ers, the body dies, but the soul, remaining very much alive, leaves it, without the person realising at first what has happened ; even sometimes looking at their body from a vantage point close to the ceiling and wondering whose body it is.
Catholics believe that most of us are unlikely to go straight to heaven, but will need to be 'cleansed as if by fire,' as Jesus spoke of in the Gospel, in a place that we call Purgatory, which extends from close to hell to the paradise promised to the Good Thief by Jesus from his cross, that very day upon his death. It will be a place where they will be filled of the love of God, but will suffer from a deep remorse for their sins, and will long to be with Him. I'm not sure where the two Judgments come in, but others will surely know. One must be the initial encounter of the chiildren of light with Jesus, when they are said to see a kind of video of their life and are able to get a better understanding of the knock-on effects of their sins causing suffering to others, but also the good acts they had done.
