Ten Seconds After You Die - Ask Pastor John
- Andy McIlvain
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Video from Desiring God
Ten Seconds After You Die - Ask Pastor John
Audio Transcript
"On Monday, we looked at how to love a dying unbeliever well, and today we ask what happens when the believer dies. We’ve all stood there at a gravesite, looked down at the pile of dirt or the new grass, and we wonder, Is he just sleeping there? Or is he somewhere else entirely? If you’ve ever wondered whether believers simply “sleep” in the grave until Christ returns, or if they go immediately to be with Jesus, it’s a big question. To get the answer, we need to reconcile 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, the rapture text, with Paul’s confidence that the soul is immediately at home with the Lord, as we are about to encounter in our reading in 2 Corinthians 5. Today on Ask Pastor John: Ten seconds after you die.
The question is from Jessica: “Pastor John, I have been studying 1 Thessalonians 4, and as I do, I am getting more confused about what happens when believers die. When I read that passage about the dead in Christ rising first and then meeting the Lord in the air, it sounds like believers who have already died don’t actually meet Jesus until his second coming. Perhaps their souls are just sleeping or waiting somewhere until the resurrection happens, and that’s when they first encounter Christ face to face? But I’ve always been taught that when Christians die, they go immediately to be with Jesus. So, which is it? Thank you!” Here’s how Pastor John answered this exact question in 2018.
The reason this is an excellent question is that 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 says that believers who have died are raised from the dead, and, in that sense, they first meet the Lord at his coming rather than immediately meeting him when they die.
It sounds like that, but I’m sure that’s not what Paul means there, and I’ll try to show why. I think it’s really plain from two passages of Scripture that Paul was certain: when he and other believers died, they would go immediately to be with the Lord Jesus and see him in that moment.
At Home
First, look at 2 Corinthians 5:6–8:
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Those are the two alternatives that Paul sees. I’m either here in my body — in one sense, away from being at home with the Lord — or I die, and I’m at home with the Lord. Now here’s verse 9: “So whether we are at home or away” — whether we’re with him or here — “we make it our aim to please him.”
“Paul did not conceive of a time when the body dies and we are not at home with the Lord.”
Paul did not conceive of a time when the body dies and we are not at home with the Lord. To die is to lose the body temporarily and to go be at home with the Lord. This is not his first choice. That’s one of the things we might correct at funerals. We do not want to give the impression that disembodied at-homeness with the Lord is the first apostolic choice. His first choice is that the Lord Jesus would come before he dies and overclothe his body with eternal life.
But he says that if we die, it is better. So, his third choice is to stay here and work; his second choice is to go and be with Jesus without his body; and his first choice is this: “Come, Lord Jesus, and give me a new body so that I never have to be bodiless.”
Depart or Remain?
The other passage is Philippians 1:22–24:
If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
Now, those are the two possibilities for Paul, and one of them was not to die and have the soul lie in the grave sleeping. That wasn’t the choice — die and have the soul lie in the grave sleeping until the second coming. No.
The two possibilities were to go on living here or to go and be with Christ (which is far, far better). I conclude that Paul had no doubts about being united with Christ with conscious joy by faith in this life, and it would never be interrupted by death. And when he left his body, when he was martyred, he would go to something far better than even the communion that he enjoyed with Christ here.
Caught Up Together
Now, let’s say a word about 1 Thessalonians 4:14–17. You’ve got to put on your thinking cap, because the logic of this text is so important. I think it’s clear, but it’s complicated. It goes like this:
Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (1 Thessalonians 4:14)
Now, that sounds like he means to bring them with him from heaven, where they are. In fact, there are souls in heaven. We just argued for that from 2 Corinthians 5:6–9 and Philippians 1:23.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. (1 Thessalonians 4:15)
Now, that too might sound like we are already in our souls — body in the grave, souls with Jesus — in the presence of the Lord. And in that sense, those still on earth have not preceded them into the presence of Christ. But here’s the problem. Now comes the argument for why those who are left, who are alive, will not precede those who have died. It goes like this:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (1 Thessalonians 4:16)
That’s why we won’t precede them. They rise. They rise first. “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together” — not a first and second, but together — “with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
The argument for why those who are alive at the Lord’s coming will not precede those who have died is that those who have died will rise first, and then we will all go together. There is no ranking — no “Oh, you got to go first.” We go together to meet the Lord in the air. No firsts, no seconds; we are all together.
Meeting the Lord
Here’s my conclusion when I put these three passages together. Precede in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 does not refer to the dead preceding the living into the presence of the Lord in heaven (which of course they clearly do). Paul’s just not talking about that. Rather, precede refers to preceding with resurrection bodies into the glorious experience of the second coming.
Let me say that again, because that’s what the argument of verses 16 and 17 demands that precede means. “We won’t precede the dead,” Paul says. Precede where? Preceding them with resurrection bodies into the glorious experience of the second coming.
In other words, what Paul is saying in 1 Thessalonians 4:14–16 is that the living won’t have any advantage over the dead when it comes to the fullest enjoyment of that day — that resurrection, second-coming day, including bodily sight and enjoyment and bodily celebration of the second coming — because the dead in Christ shall rise first.
In other words, before there is any glorious gathering to meet the Lord in the air, the bodies of all believers who have died will be raised from the dead, reunited with their souls, and then the entire Christian church, the living and the resurrected, will together meet the Lord and welcome him to establish his rightful kingdom." from the Transcript
John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.
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