Have you ever wondered where all the people are who have died before you? For those that have lost parents, grandparents, children, siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, and the aborted unborn, has it ever once occurred to you what happened to their bodies? Where are the millions, billions, and trillions of people that have passed on? Consider the mass number of human beings born on this earth going back to and beginning at the garden of Eden! How many humans have come and gone? Sextillion? Septillion? Octillion? The numbers are innumerable. The apostle Paul gave an interesting statement in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8. He said he preferred to be “absent from the body, and present with the Lord." That phrase alone begs the question, "When believers in Jesus Christ die, do both their spirits and fleshy bodies return to the Lord immediately? What about a non-believer? According to scripture, a non-believer cannot enter heaven if unsaved, so where do their spirit and body go? Being raised as a Catholic, but now converted, I was taught a soul goes to "purgatory"... a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are making amends for their sins before going to heaven. By the way, that is nowhere to be found in the Bible. However, the Bible does say Jesus said, "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (John 8:24)." The truth is, if you die an unbeliever there is no second chance to repent or make amends. There is no purgatory. It's over plain and simple.
There are some people who believe in "soul sleep." Meaning that when a person dies, his body and soul sleep in the grave, awaiting a resurrection. But if this were true, why would Paul, as a believer and follower of Jesus not want to live to minister as long as possible, rather than sleep in a grave? Good question, no? And if it were true that the body and soul are never separated, it would be impossible to ever be absent from the body and present with the Lord. The believer's spirit returns to the Lord (absent from THE BODY) when they pass on, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). A believer's spirit RETURNS to the Creator! Did the physical body? More later in this blog.
What about the sinner, the unsaved non-believing person? Where does he or she go? "That" spirit cannot return to the Lord in heaven because they are not allowed there. This person's body, spirit, and soul REMAIN in the grave (Sheol) until the time of judgment. They aren't in "purgatory" waiting for the judgment. They are in Sheol awaiting judgment. You're thinking, "Wait! I thought you said they are in a grave buried in the ground?" THE GRAVE IS HELL (one part of it anyway). In Ephesians 4:9, Paul says of Jesus: "Now that He ascended (resurrected), what is it but that He also descended first into the LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH" (Hades). Jesus descended into Hell ... the lower parts of EARTH! Hell includes:
1) The physical grave (Sheol- the resting place of dead bodies until judgment day). David said of the Lord, "You have delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol." So there are other areas even lower than the grave!
2) Hades/Gehenna/Lake of Fire & Brimstone are the lower parts of the earth WHERE JESUS DESCENDED TO (Ephesians 4:9) it is a place of eternal separation from God, the place where both soul and body will be destroyed in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43). David said, "but those who seek my soul to destroy it shall go down into the lower parts of the earth" (Psalm 63:9)
3) The bottomless pit (a place God made where demons are imprisoned). The grave, Sheol, along with hell (Gehenna and lake of fire) ARE IN THE EARTH! Remember, Satan was cast down to the earth and will eventually be imprisoned in the bottomless pit - which is in the earth! HELL IS INSIDE THE PLANET EARTH!
To be “absent” from one’s body simply means to die (THE SPIRIT LEAVES). But for the believer, it means more than that. Because, at death, the spirit is not only separated from the body, it moves into its eternal abode in heaven with the Lord. But for the unbeliever, it means temporarily imprisoned in the grave (body and spirit) until judgment. And then after their judgment, separated from God for eternity in the lake of fire. Let's consider hell for a minute. How well do you know the planet on which you live? From a Google search: "Biblical views of the center of the Earth as a hellish pit raging with fire and brimstone have some support from new research. Scientists have found that the vast majority of brimstone — reverently referred to in biblical times as "burning stone," but now known more commonly as sulfur — dwells deep in the Earth's core. Burning at a staggering 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit!"
From the New York Times: "Geologists have long known that Earth’s core, some 1,800 miles beneath our feet, is a dense, chemically doped ball of iron roughly the size of Mars and every bit as alien. It’s a place where pressures bear down with the weight of 3.5 million atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head, and where temperatures reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit — as hot as the surface of the Sun."
I'd say both these excerpts from articles concur with Revelation 14:10, "and He shall be tormented with fire and BRIMSTONE . . ." And Job 18:21 describes it as the "PLACE of him that knows not God."
Let's conclude. What about the believer's body? If their spirit returns to God, is their body still in the ground? When the believer dies...
1) The body goes into the grave and is dead; lifeless (the body is dead because the spirit has left). We will be oblivious to our bodies resting until the rapture.
2) The soul (the mind/thinking/reasoning/essence of you) and your spirit (one with your Lord and Savior) go immediately to be with the Lord Jesus.
Your spirit, now in heaven, awaits the body's rapture and glorious transformation when they will be joined together again to be forever with the Lord in eternal bliss. When Jesus was crucified and taking His last breath, He cried out saying, "Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit." Having said this, He breathed His last breath (Luke 23:46). HIS SPIRIT returned to the Father immediately (into Your hands I commit My Spirit), but His body breathed its last breath... quietly gone, resting in a grave, until the 3rd day when He rose as a new, glorified body JUST LIKE EVERY BELIEVER WILL! While the physical body was gone (no life without the spirit), there was no suffering because His Spirit was not present. I believe this will happen to every born-again believer. Our spirits return to God when we physically die and will wait with Him in anticipation until He raises our bodies as a new, glorified body just as He did, then reuniting them with our spirits. The Bible says, "The dead (that's the body) IN CHRIST (believers body's only) will rise first to meet the Lord in the air (rapture) and be forever restored with our saved spirits (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Unfortunately, the unsaved person's spirit and soul (the conscious mind) will be alive/awake in the grave aware of his/her body. He or she is aware BECAUSE the spirit is still with him/her! They will know they are in Sheol (the darkness of the grave separated from God) awaiting judgment day. They will feel fear, regret, doom, guilt, shame, and hopelessness as the darkness of the grave surrounds them. Whether you are saved or unsaved, your spirit will live on in heaven or in hell inside a glorified body as a believer, or the body of flesh you inhabited on this earth as an unbeliever. Fear God, because He has the power to throw both body and soul into Gehenna! (Luke 12:5).
Until He Comes,
-Pat-
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