“No Ghost Stories”

Friday, March 22, 2019

     I thought that when you die in the flesh, you enter into rest.  So how is it that people are visited by spirits or deceased family members?  If the dead are all raised together, and no one sees the Father until Christ’s return, how are these things possible?

Sincerely,
Casper

Dear Casper,

The idea of ghosts cannot be found in the Bible, and they aren’t real, no matter how many stories people come up with, thinking they have been visited by dead ancestors.  Ghosts are supposedly the souls or spirits of those who have died.  These dead souls are presumed to be wandering the Earth, interacting with the living from time to time.  The Bible tells us what happens when we die, and there is no Halloween-ish spiriting involved.  Jesus told the story of a wicked, rich man and a faithful, poor man named Lazarus in Lk 16:19-31.  When these two men died, the rich man immediately woke up in torment, and Lazarus was escorted to Paradise (Lk 16:22-23).  This is what happens when the righteous and the wicked die.  There is no wandering or ghostly haunting.  In fact, the rich man was specifically told that the dead aren’t sent back to the earth to preach or affect the course of events here (Lk 16:27-31).  We die, and then we wait to face the judgment (Heb 9:27).

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