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Transcript 221A — Where Do We Go When We Die?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: In Luke 16:23 it talks about Lazarus, and how he was carried by angels to Abraham, and how the rich man woke up in hell. And in II Corinthians 5:8 Paul said that as soon as he would die he would be with the Lord. And that seems to say that we'll be with God immediately. And in a book I read it said that we would all be escorted, at the point of death, to Heaven, to be with God.
And then there are scriptures like I Thessalonians 4,where Paul says that at the second coming of Christ the dead in Christ will be the first to rise to meet Christ. And then those who are left on the earth will be the second to rise and meet Christ. And there are other scriptures that talk about how we are asleep in Christ at death. So how is it? When we die, do our souls go into sort of a state of limbo? Or do we go immediately to the throne of God?
HC: All right. Let me see if I can help you. Your question is, "Where do we go when we die?" And at this particular point you're talking only about the saved people. Unsaved people, that's another matter.
Now in Luke 16, there we have a parable. This is not an historical event. If we try to make an historical event, then we're going to find that it's in flat contradiction with some things in the Bible. "Abraham's bosom" here is a figure of God Himself, to come into the highest felicity. Abraham was the father of all believers. Therefore he is a type of God the Father Himself.
And so when Lazarus died, he did go into the presence of God, although in this parable (and I say it's a parable) we see that he's there in his body, because the rich man is saying, "Let Lazarus dip his finger in water." And if we're in Heaven in our soul, then we don't have a body. We don't have a finger. So we know that it is a parable.
But when we synthesize everything that the Bible offers concerning the death of the believer, we find this, that the moment we die, we leave our body and we go in our souls to live and reign with Christ. Now the reason that this can happen is that at the moment we were saved, at the moment we were born again, in our souls we experienced the resurrection. We became a new creature, an eternal creature. Therefore in our souls we cannot die.
And so when our bodies die, because our bodies haven't been saved as yet, our souls, which are eternal in nature, leave our bodies and go to another place of residence, which is in Heaven, to be with God. And so there is no such thing as limbo, or a place of soul sleep, or whatever, for those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the thief on the cross could be told so confidently by Christ, "Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." And when we search out the word "Paradise", we find that Paradise refers to Heaven itself, where the Father is.
CALLER: When Paul is talking in I Thessalonians 4, he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, for the dead in Christ shall be the first to rise."
HC: Yes. All right. Now let's look at this again. Before I die I am an integrated personality. My body and my soul are not separated in any sense. Now let's say a born again believer dies, and we'll call his name Mr. Jones.
And we say, "Mr. Jones died last week, and we buried him." Now all we buried was his body. But we say, "We buried Mr. Jones." By the same token, correctly, we can say, "Mr. Jones died last week, and he has gone to be with the Lord." Now in his whole personality he didn't go to be with the Lord, but only in his soul. In other words, at death he has become a divided personality. He is living in Heaven in his soul. In his body he is asleep in the grave.
Now in I Thessalonians 3, the last verse, God speaks of the fact that when He comes He will come with all His saints. He's going to come with Mr. Jones, in his soul. Or in I Thessalonians 4:14 it says that those who have fallen asleep will come with Him. And that will be Abraham in his soul, and David in his soul, and Mr. Jones in his soul existence. Each of them will come with Jesus.
Now at the same time, their bodies, which have been asleep in the grave, will arise and be caught up in the air, so they will be reunited with their souls and become again a complete personality.
CALLER: So what about the new bodies?
HC: They will be new. Our bodies will be resurrected a perfect spiritual body, whatever that is. It will be a glorified body.
CALLER: Not the same type of body then. I know He would have to make any type of body new, because our old ones would be decayed.
HC: Yes. And more than that, God uses an analogy, in I Corinthians 15, of a grain of wheat. You put a grain of wheat in the ground. Now that's analogous to our bodies that have died, and are put in the ground. Now that grain of wheat doesn't bear any resemblance to the plant that springs forth, does it? And yet the plant that springs forth is totally related to that grain of wheat. And so when the question is raised, in I Corinthians 15, "What kind of bodies will we be resurrected as?" God says, "You foolish man." In other words, it's a question we shouldn't even ask. It's to be such a glorious body, actually an eternal body that our minds can't really take hold of this. We see Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they're glistening, and they're in their eternal bodies. But you can believe that they're not there in their full glory, because anything from Heaven is too glorious to look at.
CALLER: Thank you. That really had me puzzled.
HC: Yes. The term "falling asleep" is simply a synonym for death.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.