Christ has destroyed death (2 Tm 1:10). Scripture calls the saints in heaven "the souls of just men made perfect" (Heb 12:23), not "dead people".
[Christ has destroyed death (2 Tm 1:10). Scripture calls the saints in heaven “the souls of just men made perfect” (Heb 12:23), not “dead people”.]
2 Tim 1:10 does not mean that people no longer die physically - it’s obvious that we still drop dead. So it must mean that He has taken away the second death spoken of in Rev 20 and 21.
The “just men” spoken of in Hebrews 12:23 are not dead saints, but all saints - God has given every Christian new life, with a new, perfect spirit (some translations use the word soul) upon one’s new birth in Christ. If this were not the case, a child of God would not inherit heaven when he died. Because God is faithful and makes us new in Christ upon our salvation, we are “fit for heaven”.
But all those saints who have physically died - we call them “dead people” - were alive in Christ from the moment of their new birth and are alive in spirit even beyond death. Of course, I exclude Jesus, Enoch, and Elijah from the “dead people” group because He has risen from the dead and they did not experience death. Everyone else who has left planet Earth died first.