What Does Death Do to the Body?

When life ceases, the body as an individual organization is said to be dead; that is to say, death is the cessation of organic life. Matter, however, is indestructible; when it loses one form it appears in another. The matter of which the body is composed does not perish on the death of an organized being; it undergoes various changes which are known by the names of decay and putrefaction and which are the preparation for its becoming subservient to new forms of life. What becomes of the mind or thinking principle in man, otherwise the soul, is altogether a matter of religious faith or philosophic conjecture on which science has been unable to throw the slightest light. But it should not be forgotten that "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body" (I Cor. 15:44). God has revealed the truth in the Bible, and particularly in the historic fact of Christ's resurrection, that the soul which is in harmony with himself will live forever. For the Scripture teaching concerning the resurrection of the body read I Cor. 15, which has been recognized from the earliest Christian times as the expression of the Christian's faith about the future life. Note particularly verses 35-44 and 50-54.

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