There is an illustration from nature which throws some light on this point, for those who die 'in Christ', having received Jesus as their blessed Lord and all-sufficient Saviour before entering into eternity. I once read a story of some larvae at the bottom of a pond holding a discussion as to why from time to time members of their company that had climbed up a water-lily stem to the surface of the pond had never returned. These dwellers at the bottom finally made a solemn compact that the next one to disappear beyond the surface should return to tell his friends all about it. Then one of the chief spokesmen began to feel an irresistable desire to climb up the water-lily stem and, in a few moments, he found himself safe and sound on top of the water-lily pad drying in the sun. Then a wonderful thing happened: he passed through a transformation the possibility of which he had never dreamed, and before long found himself a dragon fly skimming over the surface of the pond, his beautiful gauzy wings iridescent in the sunshine. As he looked down into the dark surface of the pond it came over him how utterly impossible it was that he should ever penetrate its depths again and tell the larvae in the mud at the bottom how glorious was the life above.

"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:
he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live" [John 11:25]