Question:
When does the soul leave the body of one who is brain dead and is being kept alive with life support? How about those who are in a coma or in a vegetable state of mind?
Answer:
I have to be honest and tell you right up front that I have no idea what the answer is.
These are questions that I’ve often wondered myself and I do not believe that Scripture gives us a definitive answer for each of the circumstances.
As Christians, we are to honor life, protect life and respect life more than any other people on the earth. For me to give any sort of guidelines or opinion would ignore the incredible amount of variables and circumstances that are faced in the situations.
In the situation where a person is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines, I believe that those who have the responsibility of making decisions for that person have to make the best decision they can with a clear conscience having prayed and asked God for wisdom.
As for the person who is in a vegetative state or unresponsive yet otherwise sustaining their own life without machines, I could not support nor can I find any Biblical grounds for ever considering terminating the life of such a person.
Once you start down the slippery path, as many nations have, of deciding who should live or die based on the quality of their existence then you have opened Pandora’s box and humanity will truly move in the direction of “survival of the fittest”.
Matters of life and death are to be approached with the greatest of prayerful care, the utmost extreme caution and done only with the realization that each and every person involved will be accountable to God for the decisions made.