Occasionally the news media report the story of someone who supposedly
came back to life after he or she had died and returned to consciousness
to relate the incident. Sometimes these happenings seem truly remarkable
and appear to contradict the many biblical passages describing death. How
can that be?
The basic premise of these accounts is that the people describing their
experiences actually died. True, many of them were declared "clinically
dead." However, as with life itself there is much that medical science
has not grasped about the nature of death. Doctors and scientists do not
agree on exactly what constitutes "death." Some people, for example, may
be brain-dead or comatose while the rest of their body goes on functioning
for years. Others whose hearts or lungs have stopped have been successfully
resuscitated with no permanent ill effects.
In the Bible death is described as a state of total unconsciousness devoid
of awareness, knowledge or perception (see Psalm 6:5; Ecclesiastes 9:5,10). If we accept the Bible's description of death, we realize that those
who returned to consciousness or were medically revived and later related
their experiences were not really dead in the true sense. Some vital organs,
such as the heart, may have temporarily ceased functioning, but not all
brain activity had stopped.
Researchers have found that the human nervous system and brain operate
largely through electrical impulses. The brain requires blood and oxygen
to properly function, and when breathing or blood circulation is impaired
the brain begins to malfunction. If these functions are interrupted long
enough, the brain eventually ceases all activity.
