"IF I WERE to hunger for immortality, it would not be for some vague life in the stratosphere, but rather for the indefinite extension of this present life on earth, and for a permanent reprieve of the death sentence which is our birth-right." Powell, Books in my baggage. Adventures in reading and collecting. Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1960, p81.

This resonates with depictions of life after death in the New Testament: a new earth, without the disasters, suffering or distress that we experience today; life without death, but a better life than the present one, full of joy and delight, good relationships, love and peace; God himself wiping away tears, as he longs to do for us even now.

What is the evidence that this is possible? What about more negative or difficult pictures of what happens after death?

The resurrection of Jesus is a well verified historical fact. Life after death is real. God is real. Jesus' resurrection speaks of the power of God breaking into our world to remake the distortion and disfigurement that so bedevil life.

What then of punishment and hell? Jesus was clear that not all will join God in the new earth (and heaven). Judgement is the picture of separating us into those who join God and those who do (will) not. What happens to the latter is not completely clear beyond separation and loss.

Jesus' focus was to encourage us to enter his new world, enjoy God's partying, revel in his love now, as a foretaste of joy to come.

Dr Alex G Stewart, Coniston Christian Fellowship