Title: DId Jesus Say, "Today You Will Be Unconscious with Me in Limbo"?

Topic: Second Coming

Summary: We wrestle with passages in Job and Ecclesiastes that make it sound like there is no consciousness after death, setting them beside passages such as Jesus' saying to the criminal on their death day, "Today you will be with Me in paradise."

Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.

References:
Luke 23:39, 42-43
1 Corinthians 15:35, 45, 50
Psalms 102:25
Matthew 13:36
Job 10:18; 14:1-15
Ecclesiastes 9:1-10
Isaiah 63:16
Psalms 146:2, 4
Daniel 12:1-3
John 5:28-29
1 Samuel 28:14, 19
2 Samuel 12:23
Genesis 37:35
Luke 13:28; 16:22
John 5:24; 11:21; 14:1-3
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
Hosea 6:12
1 Peter 4:1-6
Genesis 3:2-3, 7

In the Word, girdles, belts, or sashes (as in Exodus 28:4) stand for good external goals that link the things in our hearts and minds into a state of cooperation and oneness of purpose. 'And a belt' means a common bond to ensure that everything has the same end in view. (Arcana Coelestia 9828) A second meaning is mentioned in Arcana Coelestia 9944, that belts or girdles can create distinct layers, in a way: "a separation from the outward things is also meant is that the bond gathers and holds together within itself the inward things; and this also separates them from the outward ones." In a way, the whole point of trying to accept the Lord and align ourselves with His love and His leading is so that we can express what is good in life -- actually doing things in the world that really benefit other people. These external acts are the lowest form of goodness, but they are the culmination of the higher forms. This has a bonding effect: a whole chain of desires for good and true ideas come together in external action. In some cases, girdles are used to cover the genitals. Since the genitals represent the love of marriage, these girdles represent the external good things that support marriage on all its levels: the marriage of husbands and wives, the marriage of what is good and what is true in each of us as individuals, and the ultimate marriage between each of us and the Lord.

In Revelation 1:13, as another example, there's a description of "one like unto the son of man", who is "girded about the breasts with a golden girdle," symbolizing the "emanating and conjoining Divinity which is Divine good." (Apocalypse Revealed 46)