Death has two different meanings that are essential for us to differentiate:
The ACT OF DYING or termination of life.
The STATE OF BEING DEAD.
All humanity will experience "the act of dying," but absolutely no one will ever experience the "state of being dead." And this is because: "For the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything…" (Ecclesiastes 9:5). This may be comforting to some, but scary to others. It all depends on your point of view; your perspective; your emotional stability; your up-bringing; your understanding. What I want to do in this little article is give you an encouraging perspective of death. "How can anything be encouraging when it comes to death?" you are probably asking. Well, let me try and answer that for you. Virtually every time that I have read that verse (dozens of times), it was to prove to someone that we do not have an immortal soul that lives on after death of the body, nor do we have consciousness as is taught in Christendom. But this past year I took another look at this verse and saw something else that I had never contemplated before. Not only is there no consciousness in death, but there is no consciousness OF death either. This is the encouraging part. "The living KNOW that they shall die, but the dead KNOW NOT ANYTHING." Let’s think about that for a few moments and see if this is not quite encouraging. "The living KNOW… the dead know NOTHING." The dead don’t know that they are dead. When you die, you will NOT KNOW THAT YOU ARE DEAD! But it gets better. Not only will you never know that you are dead at some point in the future, but from your perspective YOU NEVER EVEN LOST CONSCIOUSNESS. This to me was a marvelous revelation.
