The Race is Run http://www.raceisrun.typepad.com/weblog/

stacy, of course you are not being rude. It requires such a mountain of scriptural evidence to support my view that I despair of ever getting my thoughts across in just a few sentences but, here goes…

When I quoted those verses I was not referring to the ‘general resurrection at the last days’ or speculating on what may happen after the ‘judgement’. I was referring to the situation as it exists now, and has done for at least the last two millennia.

Simply, if you or I were to die tomorrow, and if God so chose, he can recreate us the next day, or the day after that, or in a thousand years time - born with a new body, as a baby.

As the agent of every birth, God is able to do this, indeed has done this, as in the case of Elijah-John the Baptist.

We are told that we are all ‘alive’ in the mind of the God who is a god of the living, not the dead. That concept leads me to wonder if ‘eternal’ life really means being brought into existence again and again, for specific purposes, as Elijah was…and that leads me to wonder what physical death really means…is it a sort of ‘time-out’ from earthly cares as the Old Testament says?

I have argued elsewhere on this site that there is no reward or punishment after death; that when Jesus talked about ‘hell’ he meant spiritual isolation from the God of Israel; and that the grave is merely sleep. This argument ties in with the above.

Yes, I realise that these are extremely radical views. But I also realise that Christianity needs a radical rethink.