What is beyond death remains a great mystery. Christianity states that man was not created for death, but for life. “I came so that you may have life and to have it more abundantly,” said the Savior (John 10, 10).
Christ has revealed that beyond physical death there is heaven and hell, where, different from now, people will last in happiness or unhappiness, according to how they have understood to live their historical life. Christ has told us not only that there is life after death, but He has shown us this through His own resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven. Based on the divine revelation, we know that partly – through our soul – we are immortal, that beyond death we could have paradise or hell, depending on how we lived and not as God wanted and ordained. We are the ones who prepare the heaven or the hell, according to the way we understood to live our life here. Knowing that future life is a mystery, the Church did not dogmatize its eschatological doctrine. In its Creed, its symbol of faith, it limited to dogmatizing the faith in resurrection and future life: “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” All the other assumptions and explanations about the life beyond are nothing but speculations and simple personal opinions.
(Vasile Răducă the priest-parisioner of the Kretzulescu church, The Guide of today’s Orthodox Christian, Humanitas Publishing House, pp. 196-197).
Article taken from www.doxologia.ro
