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“The body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26).
This is a very simple statement, yet it is one that men cannot really understand. Doctors have various ways of deciding when someone is really dead, but none of them is exact as to the time the person died. The person really dies when the spirit leaves the body, and only the Lord knows the exact time of that.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 tells us that “the dust [will] return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Doctors may say that the person stopped breathing, or his heart stopped, or perhaps the person was found to be “brain dead,” but none of these are exact. The body does exhibit all these clear signs of death, but all are the result of the spirit’s leaving the body.
As we saw back in August, there is a day coming when God will unite the spirit and body again. For believers this will happen when the Lord comes to call us home, but for those who have died without Christ, it will happen at the great white throne of God’s judgment.
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