“There was a certain rich man...And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus...And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in Hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom...” (Luke 16:19-31 KJV).
The rich man and Lazarus in our text were in the afterlife, experiencing an out-of-body state. The rich man was in Hell because of his unbelief, and Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom because of his faith in God. The rich man is still in Hell today, while Lazarus left Abraham’s bosom at Christ’s resurrection and is now in Heaven (Ephesians 4:8).
Their out-of-body experience reveals that death is not annihilation, but another condition of existence in the afterlife. At the time of this story, Hell and Abraham’s bosom or Paradise were within sight and sound of each other but separated by a great gulf.
The personality and identity of each man are intact. They are the exact same person that they were in their previous life on earth, and know and recognize each other. (That the rich man recognized Lazarus means that the psychical or “Soulish” body we receive after death conforms to the earthly body we had while living on earth). They are real, living people, not phantoms. They have all their senses, and can see, hear, feel, speak and, with their intellect, can think and reason.
The rich man, in particular, demonstrates that the dead in the afterlife retain their intellect and rational power. He could think in retrospect and remember his past life (vs. 25). He could think in the present and, by exercising his attention, converse with Abraham. He could think about the future and exercise his imagination, knowing that if his brothers did not repent (vs. 30), they too would end up in Hell. We see a moral agent with his personality intact, with the power of will and emotion, and the immortality of the soul.
There is no such thing as a dead person. There are only dead bodies. Everyone who has ever lived is still alive today in either Heaven or Hell based on what they did with Jesus Christ: accepting Him as Savior and Lord or rejecting Him.