Video from Great Sermons & Speeches
Where Do We Go When We Die? The Afterlife - Dr Michael Heiser
There seems to be much confusion among Christians about our afterlife- after we die.
Some have the ideas we sleep until judgement after which we will go to either heaven or hell. Still other think we will be judged immediately upon death. Then we have the concept of a temporary place to rest until judgement.
What does the bible say?
Dr. Heiser points out how we use physical descriptors because we are embodied and that is our point of reference. We also use geographical terms to talk about the spiritual realm.
John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
So scripture tells us that death is absence from the body and face to face with the Lord, immediately upon death of our bodies.
2 Corinthians 5: 6
6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,..
Here we see the contrast of being in the body away from the Lord's face to face presence. Remember Christ is embodied as well but in a Resurrection body.
1 Corinthians 15: 50-54
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an …
The reality of being with Christ begins at death and continues for eternity. Between death and our resurrected bodies we ARE NOT in a lesser state of being! When the New Heaven and New Earth comes about that reality continues in even a far more glorious way than we can describe with words or terms.