As we finish talking about what heaven is like, we are going to look at a little different issue today. That is what happens at the moment when we die. We have been talking mostly about what is the eternal state like, and what it will be like in eternity for us, but everyone throughout history and most of us, if the Lord doesn’t return very soon, will die and then we will not be in the eternal state as such yet since the Lord has not returned, but we will do something. Where will we be and what will happen to us between the moment of our death and the return of Jesus Christ and the eternal state? Where will we be?
According to 2 Corinthians 5:6, it says, “Therefore, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord – for we walk by faith, not by sight – we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” The picture we have in the New Testament, that once we are dead physically, our soul goes to be with the Lord. We are at home with the Lord is what this passage of Scripture is teaching. As a matter of fact, this passage, if we could take a little more time talks about us groaning in this life and that even though this life often is very good, and we enjoy it very much, there is something not quite right. We are living in a broken and sinful world and there are always issues and corruptions and problems and so forth. There is something within the heart of the believer that longs for a new home, and longs to be home with the Lord to be with Him forever. That is what he is talking about here.
In Philippians 1:21, Paul says this, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” So, those who might think that at the moment of death there is no more are misguided. Some in religious circles such as the Seventh Day Adventists believe there is a soul sleep so when you die you just sleep until the Lord returns, but that is not the picture we have in Scripture. Paul is saying that, “to live is Christ,” my whole life is wrapped around Jesus Christ, and to die is even better, so that doesn’t fit the picture of soul sleep. Unbelievers of course believe this is the only life we have and when we are dead, we are gone, and we are extinct. Again, we know that not to be true because the revelation of God that talks to us about the afterlife and for the believer - to die is actually gain. So, death shouldn’t scare us . . .
