What Is the Condition of the Dead?

What Is the Condition of the Dead?

FEAR of the dead rests on one premise​—that the deceased has a soul or spirit that lives on after death. If the Bible plainly teaches that this concept is false, then the question of whether the dead can harm you is laid to rest. So, then, what does the Bible say?

Concerning the condition of the dead, God’s Word says: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6.

In view of that, can the dead help or harm you? No, say the Scriptures. The dead are unconscious and in silence. They are incapable of communicating with the living or of expressing any emotion​—love or hate—​or of carrying out any action. You need not have any fear of them.

‘Well, yes, that may be true if you refer to death of the physical body,’ some may say. ‘But a physical death is not the end of life; it just releases the spirit from the body. That spirit could help or harm the living.’ Millions of people earth wide feel that way.

For example, in Madagascar life is considered a mere transition, so a funeral and an exhumation are considered more important than a wedding. It is thought that the person came from his ancestors and returns to them at death. Hence, houses for the living are made of wood and adobe, materials that disintegrate in time, whereas tombs, the “homes” for the dead, are generally more elaborate and durable. At an exhumation, family and friends feel that they will be blessed, and women believe that if they touch the bones of the dead relative, they will become fertile. But, again, what does God’s Word say?