Posted on 11/21/2025 6:18:59 AM PST by ViLaLuz
Question: What happens after death?
Answer: Within the Christian faith, there is a significant amount of confusion regarding what happens after death. Some hold that after death everyone “sleeps” until the final judgment, after which everyone will be sent to heaven or hell. Others believe that at the moment of death people are instantly judged and sent to their eternal destinations. Still others claim that, when people die, their souls/spirits are sent to a “temporary” heaven or hell to await the final resurrection, the final judgment, and the finality of their eternal destination. So, what exactly does the Bible say happens after death?
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Within the Christian faith, there is a significant amount of confusion regarding what happens after death. Some hold that after death everyone “sleeps” until the final judgment, after which everyone will be sent to heaven or hell. Others believe that at the moment of death people are instantly judged and sent to their eternal destinations. Still others claim that, when people die, their souls/spirits are sent to a “temporary” heaven or hell to await the final resurrection, the final judgment, and the finality of their eternal destination. So, what exactly does the Bible say happens after death?
First, for the believer in Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that after death believers’ souls/spirits are taken to heaven, because their sins were forgiven when they received Christ as Savior (John 3:16, 18, 36). For believers, death means being “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6–8; Philippians 1:23). However, passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:50–54 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 describe believers being resurrected and given glorified bodies. If believers go to be with Christ immediately after death, what is the purpose of this resurrection? It seems that, while the souls/spirits of believers go to be with Christ immediately at death, the physical body remains in the grave “sleeping.” At the resurrection of believers, the physical body is resurrected, glorified, and reunited with the soul/spirit. This reunited and glorified body-soul-spirit will be the state of existence for believers for eternity in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21—22).
Second, for those who do not receive Jesus Christ as Savior, death means everlasting punishment. However, similar to the destiny of believers, it seems that unbelievers also go to a temporary holding place to await their final resurrection, judgment, and eternal destiny. Luke 16:22–23 describes a rich man being tormented immediately after death. Revelation 20:11–15 describes all the unbelieving dead being resurrected, judged at the great white throne, and cast into the lake of fire. Unbelievers, then, are not sent to the final “hell” (the lake of fire) immediately after death; rather, they are sent to a temporary realm of fiery judgment and anguish. The rich man cried out, “I am in agony in this fire” (Luke 16:24).
After death, a person resides in either a place of comfort or a place of torment. These realms act as a temporary “heaven” and a temporary “hell” until the resurrection. At that point, the soul is reunited with the body, but no one’s eternal destiny will change. The first resurrection is for the “blessed and holy” (Revelation 20:6)—everyone who is in Christ—and those who are part of the first resurrection will enter the millennial kingdom and, ultimately, the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1). The other resurrection happens after Christ’s millennial kingdom, and it involves a judgment on the wicked and unbelieving “according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:13). These, whose names are not in the book of life, will be sent to the lake of fire to experience the “second death” (Revelation 20:14–15). The new earth and the lake of fire—these two destinations are final and eternal. People go to one or the other, based entirely on whether they have trusted Jesus Christ for salvation (Matthew 25:46; John 3:36).
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Hair and nails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off.
-Johnny Carson.
-Ronaldus Magnus
😁👍
CC
5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
You start leaking fluids and other people take all your stuff.
You begin to smell like boiled cabbage, urine and farts. So I’ve been told.
I have heard this passage from Ecclesiastes 9:5 imply that you are in some sort of oblivion after death, and remain their until judgment day upon which you go north or south.
“”For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even their memory is forgotten”.
You start voting Democrat.
The truth is NO MAN knows with 100% certainty, its a blessed mystery from God
....if the Ex Didn’t already!
Ecclesiastes, the Debby-Downer of Bible books.
Very difficult to take excerpts of Ecclesiastes out of their poetic context.
For all the citations, I believe the one that Jesus told the repentent thief on the cross next to him - ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’.
Seems to settle the issue, afaik.
On the cross, Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Today.
Sounds pretty straightforward.
But to add further confusion to the whole thing...Jesus was not supposed to go to heaven until after his resurrection not he third day...so what is this “Paradise”?
This is where faith and trust in Lord Jesus Christ the Savior comes in.
LOL
Billions become martyrs with 72 virgins.
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