Last week, my brother-in-law, Rusty Morris, died. It was not unexpected, as he battled brain cancer for nineteen years. But it is undoubtedly painful. The sobering separation that death brings between us and our loved ones is hard to capture in words. Suzy compared it to feeling like something is just not right, like wearing a shoe on the wrong foot. As we stood over Rusty’s grave, I told my sister, “This is not the way it’s supposed to be.”
But death is part of life. It comes for us all. Death takes those we love from us and then takes us from those we love. Death is tragic and disorienting and painful.
It is also something our culture does not quite know how to address. There are three dominant views about life after death in our culture. The first view is annihilationism, or the idea that when we die, we cease to exist. This is the end result of a secular worldview: we came from nothing so we return to nothing. The second view is the Eastern view, which could be reincarnation (Hinduism) or absorption back into the cosmos (Buddhism). There are many varieties of these beliefs, but they are all impersonal. We don’t exist as persons after we die. Rather, we are either reborn into something else, or we disappear like a drop in the ocean. Either way, we lose our identity. The third view is the spiritual or mystical view that we will exist in a disembodied state in a place of eternal bliss. It is a vague and hazy existence where we float in the clouds and essentially enjoy a never-ending family reunion or worship service. Millions of Christians believe this.
The problem is that none of these views inspire hope. Rather, they inspire despair, fear, and boredom. Is there another option? There is, and unfortunately many Christians do not know what it is. Here is my summary of what the Bible teaches about life after death for those who are in Christ:
When a believer dies, their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus where they will be until Jesus returns to the earth and their spirit is united with a new body at the resurrection of the dead, with which they will live forever in a resurrected universe with the resurrected Christ.
The Christian hope is resurrection! Our ultimate goal is resurrection, but what happens when we die? Are we resurrected immediately?
As I said in my summary statement, when a believer dies their body goes into the ground and their spirit goes to Jesus. Upon our death, our bodies die but our spirits live on. We don’t cease to exist or go to sleep until the resurrection. Our spirit continues to exist.
The Bible does not give us all the details we may want, but it does say this in Ecclesiastes 12:7, “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” And John says in Revelation 6:9, “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.”
From these passages (and others) we learn that when our bodies die, our spirits go back to God (Eccl. 12:7), that our bodies can be killed but our souls cannot die (Matt. 10:23; Rev. 6:9, 20:4), believers will always be with the Lord (Jn. 12:26; cf. 1 Thess. 4:17), there is a place called “Paradise” where believers go when they die (Lk. 23:43, 2 Cor. 12:2-4), and that when we die, we will be “away from the body” but “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), and that this is “far better” than life on this earth (Phil. 1:23). To summarize: in the intermediate heaven, we will see Jesus, interact with him, and enjoy his presence in ways we cannot enjoy him now.
But this intermediate state is not our ultimate hope or our final destination. The intermediate state does not actually solve the problem of death. If eternity is us living in a disembodied state, then death, or the separation of our spirit from our bodies, wins. But death will not win for the people of God (Jn. 5:28-29). The ultimate hope for believers is resurrection, or what N. T. Wright called, “Life after life after death.” Paradise will be wonderful, but living with new bodies in the New Heavens and New Earth will far exceed the glory and sweetness of Paradise.
So when a believer dies, their body goes into the ground, and their spirit goes to Jesus where they will be until Jesus returns to the earth. At the second coming of Jesus, Paradise will come to earth, and the resurrection will happen (1 Thess. 4:13-18). As Paul says, when Jesus returns, he will “bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (v. 14). When Jesus returns, he will bring his sons and daughters with him, all the souls who have been with him in Paradise waiting for the redemption of their bodies (Rom. 8:23).
What happens then? When Jesus returns, bringing “those who have fallen asleep” with him, their spirits will be united with a new body. In other words, resurrection is what happens! As Paul says, “The dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16; cf. 1 Cor. 15:50-57). The dead will be raised to life, meaning that their spirit will unite once again with their body, but this time it will be an imperishable and immortal body (cf. vv. 42-44, 49). John says that “when (Jesus) appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn. 3:2). And Paul says, “(The Lord Jesus Christ) will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
When believers die, they go to be with Jesus in Paradise where they wait for his return and the resurrection. This is the biblical view of life after death for those who are in Christ. This truth sweetens the sour taste of death. It means that Rusty is with Jesus right now, and that Rusty will one day rise again in a cancer-free body to live in a sin and Satan and suffering-free world. What about you?
Grieving, with Hope,
Pastor John