Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-148 (Topical Sermon)

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? 1 Cor 15:41-57; 2 Cor 5:1-10

by Rod Benson

“When death separates us from someone we love,” writes Billy Graham in Facing Death and the Life After, “there is a time when we think no one has suffered as we have. But grief is universal.”

Grief is universal because death is universal: “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement” (Hebrews 9:27). And death is universal because of human sin: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Why do people die? People die for all kinds of reasons.

Theologically speaking, they die because Adam sinned, and since we are descended from Adam, we share his sinful nature and commit sinful acts; and we share in a creation that struggles under the weight of internal contradiction, and that groans as it awaits the day of redemption (Romans 8:22).

Sometimes – perhaps often – we don’t know why a person dies. There seems no reasonable explanation, and they are wrenched from us, and all we can do is thank God for their memory and commit them to the Lord’s merciful care.

We all accept that death is universal, and we probably understand that both physical death (separation from the body) and spiritual death (separation from God) are the indirect result of sin. But most of us have a lot of questions about death, and the afterlife, and the idea of a future resurrection.

Thinking biblically about death ——————————-

What happens to my body when I die? Where does my spirit – my conscious self – go when I die? What state of being do I enter after I die? When do I get my resurrection body – at the moment of death, or at the Lord’s return? Where do unbelievers go if there’s an interval between death and judgement? Is there a second chance after death? What about the fate of those who have not heard the Good News? Let’s look at these questions, and discover what light the Bible sheds on them.

First, what happens to my body when I die? An old lady went to a tombstone-cutter’s office to order a stone for her husband’s grave. After explaining that all she wanted was a small one with no frills, she told him simply to put the words, “To my husband” in a suitable place. When the stone was delivered, she saw to her horror this inscription: “To my husband – in a suitable place.”

Against the Sadducees, who rejected the notion of resurrection, Jesus affirmed the reality of bodily resurrection (Mark 12:18-27), but the Bible nowhere teaches the Greek concept of the “immortality of the soul” held by Plato and classical Hellenism. For the Greeks, each person possessed a “spark” of divinity, the “soul,” which was as eternal as God; whereas the Bible emphasises the resurrection of the body, either raised to eternal life or eternal destruction.

When I die, my spirit is separated from my body, and my physical body decomposes in the natural manner, reverting to its original form: as God said to Adam, “for dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19b; cf Ecc 3:20). Our bodies are a temporary abode; Paul describes them as “an earthly tent” (2 Corinthians 5:1- 4).

If my body reverts to dust, where does my spirit go? Some say it goes to purgatory, a place to which, in Roman Catholic tradition, the spirits of believers go for purification before entering God’s presence – like a half-way house between this life and the next. But there is no biblical evidence for such a place, and the apocryphal evidence that does exist itself contradicts Roman Catholic teaching. There is no second chance after you cross the threshold of death from this life into the next.

Now is the time of God’s grace and mercy. Now is your opportunity to accept God’s salvation and experience forgiveness and reconciliation with him. Now is the moment to decide your eternal destiny.

‘At home with the Lord’ ———————–

For the Christian, the Bible teaches that after death we go to be “with Christ,” where we are “at home with the Lord” (Php 1:23; 2 Cor 5:8; Lk 16:22; 23:43). This language may only refer to our existence after the Lord’s return, but I believe it makes sense to understand that, from the moment of our death, we are consciously “with Christ,” although we still await the full reality of the consummation of the kingdom of God when the Lord returns in glory to the earth (1 Cor 15:51-54; cf Rev 6:9-10), where we share in the resurrection and are united with those believers who are living when the Lord returns.

Between death and the Lord’s return, believers who have died are “waiting” for their resurrection, and the final triumph of Christ, and the redemption of all things. The tension between the present and the future, the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ which the church experiences is shared by those who have died.

For the Christian, death does not mean separation from the Lord. “As long as we are at home in the body,” Paul says, “we are away from the Lord . . . (but we) would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6b, 8b). Death has no power over us; it cannot “separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

That’s the good news for those who have faith in Christ. What about those who don’t believe? Where do they go when they die? I believe that at the moment of death God consigns them to hell on account of their condemnation for sin and their rejection of God’s offer of life in the Gospel.

It makes no sense for those who have no part in the new creation to be given bodies of glory and to be “with Christ” only to have those privileges withdrawn at the last judgement. The Bible clearly warns us all that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a), and we accept God’s ruling despite the pain and grief this may generate when we consider the fate of those we know who appear to have died without being reconciled to God, without accepting the gift of God which is “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).

Soul sleep ———-

What form of existence awaits me between death and the resurrection? Will I experience a state of consciousness, or unconsciousness? Will I be aware of my surroundings, and other people, and those I’ve left behind on earth?

There is a belief, taken from the Bible’s frequent description of death as “sleep” (e.g. Mt 9:24; Mk 5:39; Lk 8:52; Jn 11:11; Ac 7:60; 8:1; 1 Cor 15:51; 1 Th 4:14), that the dead – believers and unbelievers – experience an unconscious “soul sleep.” This doctrine is a “Fundamental Belief” of Seventh-Day Adventists, and it is also held by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which apparently originated from within Seventh-Day Adventism.

While scripture certainly refers to death as “sleep,” reflecting the term’s common usage to describe death in Hebrew thought, it also affirms the conscious existence of believers and unbelievers alike between death and the Lord’s return. At the Transfiguration, for example, Moses and Elijah appeared in glorious splendour, fully conscious, and talked with Jesus (Lk 9:30-31). When Jesus relates the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar dies and is taken by angels to “Abraham’s bosom,” while the rich man dies and “in hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side” (Luke 16:22-23).

That certainly suggests conscious existence to me! And, finally, we should note that Paul’s desire, to be “with Christ, which is better by far” than our present earthly experience, presupposes conscious spiritual existence (Philippians 1:23).

The Christian hope ——————

History is moving toward a climax when Jesus will return a second time to consummate the kingdom of God, fulfil God’s prophetic word, bring about the restoration of all things, and achieve final and absolute triumph over the devil and all that is evil.

When Jesus returns, all people who ever lived will share in the resurrection. But here interpretation of scripture differs widely. Are there two resurrections – one for believers at Christ’s coming, and the other for unbelievers at the end of the millennium? Does a secret rapture (involving the resurrection of believers) precede Christ’s coming in glory, and, if so, when does it occur? We’ll look closely at these questions next week; tonight I simply want to suggest when believers will gain their resurrection body: is it at death, or at the resurrection?

If the ultimate triumph of God culminates in Jesus “hands over the kingdom to God the Father . . . so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28), the parousia (the future ‘presence’ or ‘coming ‘ of Jesus Christ) is the defining eschatological moment around which all other future events unfold.

The Christian hope in the resurrection of the body is closely linked with the return of Christ (1 Cor 15:51-54; 1 Th 4:13-17). I confess that I don’t know conclusively whether believers are given their glorious body at death, or at the Lord’s return. What I do understand from scripture is that life after death for the believer is “far better” because we will be “with Christ” (Philippians 1:23), and, for the unbeliever, far worse.

When John Owen, the great Puritan preacher, lay on his deathbed, his secretary wrote (in his name) to a friend, “I am still in the land of the living.” “Stop,” said Owen. “Change that and say, ‘I am yet in the land of the dying, but I hope soon to be in the land of the living.”

What about those who haven’t heard the Good News, who have never had a chance to respond in faith to the claims of Christ? Millions of words have been written and spoken on this controversial topic, and I don’t aim to add to them!

To those who ask me this question as a pastor, I suggest for your consideration that the fate of such people may be determined not by how much they know of Jesus, but what Jesus knows of them (cf Matthew 7:22-23).

This applies to people in remote villages who never see or hear a missionary, to those who die before birth, to infants who die before they are able to exercise conscious faith in Christ, and to those who are intellectually impaired and are similarly unable to profess saving faith.

Prepare for your final exit —————————

Tonight we’ve taken a swift tour through what the Bible teaches about death and the afterlife. Let me conclude by asking you two questions. Are you prepared to die? And, are you ready to die?

Are you prepared to stand before God and be judged by his justice and righteousness? The only way to be prepared is to be, in Charles Wesley’s words, “Alive in him, my living Head, and clothed in righteousness divine.”

Are you ready to die? Have you accomplished all that you need to, or would like to, in life – or are there things left undone that you still need to do? Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the Swiss-born Chicago psychiatrist made famous by her writings about death, echoes my point:

Death can show us the way, for when we know and understand completely that our time on this earth is limited, and that we have no way of knowing when it will be over, then we must live each day as if it were the only one we had.

Make sure you’re prepared to die, and ready to die, before death catches up with you. Death is as final as it is inevitable; you won’t get a second chance. Jesus Christ offers you eternal life tonight.

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E134 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).