Question
All my life I have been taught that when I die, I’ll go straight to heaven, or hell if I reject Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for me. However, I have now heard that the dead stay in the grave until the resurrection, when Jesus returns to earth, and I’m totally confused. What is the truth about death?
Answer
While the Bible never talks about the “immortal soul”, which leaves the body at death, and either goes to God in heaven, or to hell and eternal torment, that is what most Christians believe. The Bible says that God alone is immortal (see the 1 Timothy 6 passage below), but most of Christianity believes that we have an “immortal soul” which goes straight to heaven or hell when we die. Which means that because the soul in hell is immortal, the burning and suffering must go on forever. Which of course makes God a monster, which He is not. This Greek concept that was imported into the church in the early centuries after Christ, has turned more people away from God than any other. And the devil laughs, because he successfully influenced powerful theologians!
1 Timothy 6 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
What the Bible tells us, is that the dead all sleep until the resurrection, in a totally unconscious state. When we die, we know nothing until the resurrection, when Jesus returns to earth to gather all His children to Himself. So the first thing we will see after we die, is Jesus in the sky, surrounded by a cloud of angels. And because we have no concept of time passing when we are dead, it will seem as if we have just closed our eyes, and then opened them again, even though hundreds of years may have passed. Here are some passages from the Bible that tells us what happens when we die.
Job 3 11 “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?
12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
13 For now I would have lain still and been quiet,
I would have been asleep; then I would have been at rest
14 With kings and counselors of the earth, who built ruins for themselves,
15 Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;
16 Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like infants who never saw light?
17 There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners rest together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
Job 14 10 But man dies and is laid away; indeed he breathes his last and where is he?
11 As water disappears from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dries up, 12 so man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, they will not awake nor be roused from their sleep.
21 His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he does not perceive it.
Psalm 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?
Psalm 13:3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Psalm 115:17 The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence.
Ecclesiastes 9 5 For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
Isaiah 57 (NIV) The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. 2 Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.
Daniel 12:13 “But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.”
John 6 40 “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 11 11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”
12 Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.
14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Acts 2 29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.”
34 “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself:
‘ The LORD said to my Lord,“ Sit at My right hand, …”
1 Corinthians 15 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
12 Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.
17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Ephesians 5:14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
1 Thessalonians 4 13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
John 14 1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
John 5 28 “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
It is pretty clear from the passages above, both from the Old and the New Testament, that death is seen by God as a sleep, to be broken only when Jesus comes with His angels to fetch His people. At that time the loud trumpet call will signal those who died in Christ to arise to new life. And because the dead are in a totally unconscious state while dead, they do not know that time has passed, and so the next conscious thought will be Jesus calling them to life. Please note that whenever Jesus brought anyone back from death, not one had anything to say about heaven or hell. Lazarus would have complained if Jesus had called him back from heaven, or thanked Him if he was brought back from hell. Instead, there is nothing like that. The resurrected person merely wakes up and resumes his/her life, as if they had just been asleep for a while.
So we see that nobody goes to heaven or hell at death, but simply into an unconscious sleep state, from which we are only awakened by God’s call in the resurrection.
