After Life
F. LaGard Smith

This book helped me to sort through some confusion I've had about what happens after we die and at the end of time. LaGard Smith moves through the Scriptures, effectively addressing a range of subjects, including sheol, heaven, resurrection, hades, hell, judgment, purgatory, limbo, and rapture.

In his working hypothesis, Smith suggests that spiritual death, not physical death, is the punishment for our sin. When physical death occurs, a man's earthly body is eliminated forever and his soul sleeps in sheol/hades until the resurrection. When Christ returns to earth, the dead will rise, the current heavens and earth will be destroyed, and Christ will judge the righteous and the wicked. The lost will face the punishment of extermination in hell. The saved will receive immortal bodies prepared for "eternal life," which describes a state of being rather than a length of time. Smith also examines the unbiblical ideas of purgatory, limbo, and the rapture, with its attendent and divergent end times theories.

Smith reminds us of the Scriptural teachings that our view of the after life should affect our current life. "For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Tit. 2:11-14). Some of his conclusions will ruffle feathers, but careful study of the Scripture does that.

(Cotswold Publishing, 2003)