The Gates of Death

NLV  Job 38:17

Do you know where the gates of death are located? Have you seen the gates of utter gloom?

Photo by Vadim Babenko on Unsplash

Why is this ponderable?

 The Voice from the Whirlwind poses these questions to Job. The implied answer is no, for these seem to be divine prerogatives. For humans, heaven is a gated community, and we typically can’t even peer through. This is one reason (among many) near-death experiences inspire awe: They seem to give us a “God’s eye” view of what really lies beyond. They take us to the edge of the universe.

According to John Martin Fischer, professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside:

While Near Death Experience [NDE] is not exactly a scientific term, it has common characteristics among all who have had them:

• it takes place in a “near-death context” — a situation in which one’s life is in jeopardy.

•  the experience must occur while the individual is not wakefully conscious

•  include an “out of body” experience in which one seems to be floating above one’s physical form and can see it and its surroundings

•  a life review of significant events--both noble and sinister
  

• guidance by deceased loved ones or revered religious figures toward a “guarded” realm (a light in the darkness, a gated or fenced domain, the other side of a river).

• leaves the person profoundly transformed — less anxious about death, more spiritual, and more concerned with morality.

These sorts of experiences have been reported throughout history and across cultures. Plato described one in “The Republic” — the Myth of Er. They are partly dependent upon the particulars of an individual’s life situation, religion and culture, but there are common elements as well. For instance, the religious figures may be different — a Christian would see Christian figures, a Buddhist would see Buddhist figures, Hindu gods and goddesses would appear in a Hindu’s NDE, and so forth. Yet at a deeper level there is guidance by respected figures, a voyage led by trusted mentors from the known to the unknown. This time it is perhaps the most daunting journey, from life to death. Loving guidance on our last journey, or the last leg of our journey, is deeply resonant.

In popular literature, NDEs are almost always interpreted as supernatural events. They appear to prove that the mind is not the same as the brain and can continue after the brain stops functioning. So our conscious mind may have contact of some sort with a “heavenly” or nonphysical realm. The titles of popular books about NDEs proclaim that “heaven is for real” or that we have a “proof of heaven.” Medical doctors and neuroscientists writing about these issues claim that NDEs offer “evidence for the afterlife” and “consciousness beyond life.”

The proponents of a supernatural interpretation of NDEs insist that they are “real.” The neurosurgeon Eban Alexander’s “Proof of Heaven” even includes a chapter titled “The Ultra-Real.”

I do not deny that people — many people — really have NDEs, with their reported contents. They really have these experiences, just like people really dream. So NDEs are real in the sense of “authentic” — they really occur. No one should deny this; to do so is to disrespect a vast majority of those who sincerely report them.

Psalm 9:13

Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:

Psalm 107:18
Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.

So, what we need to ponder in these clues from the various cultural perspectives is not whether there is an afterlife, rather we need to ponder if this afterlife conforms to any expectations we have about it. While deniers proclaim that no human has ever come back from death to confirm or deny our expectations; that does not mean death is a dead end street. It only means “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love."[1 Corinthians 2:9] Perhaps that is why no human in history has ever returned to share the experience. It is just too awesome!