FACT: Very few believers are aware of what the Bible teaches about life after death.

Key Scripture: "The last enemy that will be abolished is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26).

Are you ready for the Lord's return? What if you die before He returns? Are you ready to face death? Can you say with confidence that after you take your last breath, you will be in the presence of the Lord?

And do you know what happens to people when they die? Do believers go to a place called Purgatory where they are tormented in order to purify them for Heaven? Do unbelievers go straight to Hell? Do believers become angels and unbelievers demons?

The Bible says that most people live in lifelong bondage to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15). Most of the time that fear is suppressed, but it is always there, just below the surface. It normally surfaces when a friend or family member dies, when a person experiences a near-death event like a serious auto accident or when a person begins to reach middle age. And, of course, crouching in a fox hole with bombs exploding all around always gives rise to thoughts of death!

Events at Death

So, what happens when you die? If you are a child of God, your spirit is immediately ushered into the bosom of Jesus by His holy angels. Your spirit remains in Heaven, in the presence of God, until the time of the Rapture.

When Jesus comes for His Church, He brings your spirit with Him, resurrects and glorifies your body, making it eternal in nature (1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4). You reign with Jesus for a thousand years and then live eternally with Him on the new earth (Revelation 20-22).

If you are not a child of God, then your spirit goes to Hades at your death. This is a place of torments where your spirit is held until the resurrection of the unrighteous which takes place at the end of the millennial reign of Jesus.

At that resurrection you are taken before the Great White Throne of God where you are judged by your works and then condemned to the "Second death," which is the "lake of fire" or Hell (Revelation 20:11-15).

The Intermediate State

Some of the greatest confusion about life after death relates to the intermediate state between death and eternity. Some people advocate a concept called "soul sleep." They argue that both the saved and unsaved are unconscious after death until the return of Jesus.

But the Bible makes it crystal clear that our spirit does not lose its consciousness at death. The only thing that "falls asleep" is our body - in a symbolic sense.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:8 that he would prefer to be "absent from the body and at home with the Lord." In Philippians 1:21 he observes, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." He then adds in verse 23 that his desire is "to depart and be with Christ." Paul certainly did not expect to be in a coma after he died!

If then our spirits retain their consciousness after death, where do they go? The Bible teaches that prior to the resurrection of Jesus, the spirits of the dead went to a place called Hades ("Sheol" in the Old Testament). The spirits existed there consciously in one of two compartments, either Paradise or Torments. This concept is pictured graphically in Jesus' Story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).

The reason the saved went to Paradise in Hades instead of Heaven is because their sins were covered by their faith but not forgiven. Therefore, they could not be ushered into the presence of the Holy Father. The Bible teaches that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 9:22 and Leviticus 17:11).

The forgiveness of their sins had to await the sacrifice of a perfect person who would die for their sins and not His own. That person was Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 2:24).

The Bible indicates that after the death of Jesus on the Cross, He descended into Hades to declare the good news that He had shed His blood for the sins of Mankind (1 Peter 3:18-19 and 4:6). The Bible also indicates that after His resurrection, when He ascended into Heaven, Jesus took Paradise with Him, Transferring the spirits of dead saints from Hades to Heaven (Ephesians 4:8-9) and 2 Corinthians 12:1-4). The spirits of dead saints are thereafter pictured as being in Heaven before the throne of God (See Revelation 6:9 and 7:9).

 Our Bodies

After death there will never be a time when we will exist without a body. We will never be ethereal spirits!

Those of us who are saved are destined to have two future bodies. We will first receive an intermediate spirit body - intermediate between our current fleshy body and our future glorified body.

The evidence of such a body is found several places in Scripture:

• 1 Samuel 28 - When Samuel, who was dead, appeared to Saul and the Witch of Endor.
• Matthew 17 - When Moses and Elijah appeared at the Transfiguration of Jesus.
• Luke 16 - When the Rich Man and Lazarus are portrayed in Hades.
• Revelation 7 - When the Tribulation Martyrs are pictured standing before the throne of God in white robes.

Our second future body will be received at the time of our resurrection, which for current day believers will be at the time of the Rapture.

At that time, if we have died Previously, our current bodies will be resurrected and glorified. And if we are alive, our bodies will suddenly be translated from mortal to immortal.

All this is described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where the Apostle Paul describes a series of events that will happen at the time of the Rapture:

• A Trumpet will blow and an archangel will shout.
• Jesus will appear in the heavens, bringing with Him the spirits of the dead Church Age saints.
• He will resurrect their bodies, reunite their spirits with their bodies, and then glorify their bodies.
• He will then catch up all living believers, converting their bodies from mortal to immortal on the way up.

The glorified body we will receive at the time of our resurrection will be our body for eternity. This raises the question, "What is a glorified body?"

The Glorified Body

Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44. He says our bodies are buried as "perishable" and raised as "imperishable." They are "sown in dishonor" and "raised in glory." They are "sown in weakness" and "raised in power." He concludes by saying, "if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." Notice the key words:

• Imperishable - Eternal
• Glorious - Perfected
• Powerful - Victorious over Sin
• Spiritual - Subjected totally to the Holy Spirit

Those who are glorified will never again be subject to disease, pain, suffering and death. Their bodies will be perfected, and therefore, the  lame will walk, the deaf will hear, the blind will see, the mute will speak and those with dementia will have their minds cleared.

Perhaps the best way to think about a glorified body is to think of the body of Jesus after His resurrection. It is described in Philippians 3:

20) . . . We eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

21) who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

So, according to this passage, our glorified body will be like Jesus' resurrection body. It will be tangible and recognizable. But it will have a different dimension to it because the body of Jesus could suddenly appear and disappear and could travel instantly from one place to another.

Questions

One of the most common questions people ask about life after death is, "Will we know each other in Heaven?" The answer is yes. And it can easily be derived through logic. Just think: If you are John or Betty in this life and you are saved, but you become someone else in Heaven, then John and Betty were not saved.

Another common question is whether or not we will eat in our glorified bodies. And again, the answer is yes. We know this for certain because Jesus ate several meals with His disciples in His glorified body after His resurrection (Luke 24:42-43 and John 21:10-15).

A very serious question is whether or not we will be able to sin in our glorified bodies. After all, Heaven's perfection did not prevent Satan from sinning. Jesus promised in Revelation 21:4 that in Heaven "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain . . ." Since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), the promise of no more death is a promise of no more sin.

Our sin nature will be gone, replaced by the righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:19). Yes, it is true that Adam and Eve had no sin nature when they were created, and yet they sinned. But they had not been made righteous by Christ, and those who are now believers have been.

Randy Alcorn, who has written the most exhaustive book about Heaven, has summed up the answer to this vital question with these words:

Once we become what the sovereign God has made us to be in Christ, and once we see Him as He is, then we'll see all things - including sin - for what they are. God won't need to restrain us from it. Sin will have absolutely no appeal. It will be, literally, unthinkable.

Maranatha!

Lamb & Lion Ministries www.lamblion.com