What happens to Christian believers when they pass away?

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“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” (Revelation 14:13)

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It has happened to me on at least two occasions. The first time was on the occasion of my father’s death. The day before he died, father lay still and quiet and very weak, he was hardly breathing. My dear wife Valerie bent over him and said in a quiet voice, “It’s Valerie.” Almost inaudibly, he repeated her name. The next day when we saw him, he looked very much the same, but it was quite clear that he had gone. His body was there just as it was the day before, but no one was in it. It was empty. It flashed immediately through my mind: where is he, where has he gone?

The second occasion was the sad occasion at the passing of my own beloved wife, Valerie. I was devastated. She was sitting in her armchair and although she had been weak for some weeks, Parkinson’s disease and age had done their worst, yet she gave no indication that she was about to die. I was in the kitchen preparing a meal when I heard her call my name softly, “David, David.” When I got into the sitting room she had gone. Her emaciated body was before me, leaning to one side. I moved her head, but it fell back. I cried out, holding back the tears, “Valerie, Valerie” to no avail; she had gone. Gone where, where was she now? Certainly, her body was there, but very clearly, she was not.

So, the question arose once more: what happens to believers when they die? Where had my lovely wife gone: where is she now? Losing a close loved one is a very salutary experience and the reality of one’s faith is put very much to the test. The great reformer, John Calvin, wrote this in his Institutes of Religion: “No one has made good progress in the school of Christ unless he anticipates with joy the day of his death and of the final resurrection.” It is a supreme moment of the testing of our trust in Christ yet it is designed to generate in us a consciousness of victory in what appears as an hour of apparent defeat. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? …But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55 & 57). This is not mere textbook theology nor a time for theorizing, but it is a real-life experience demanding real and genuine answers. What had happened to my wife? I wanted to know. Her body I could see, but she herself had gone, but where is she right now?

This is a subject about which no one can afford to be indifferent. What happens in passing from this world is a tangible occurrence which in the event of mistake on our part can lead to the most serious consequences. We must get things right and cannot afford to entertain vain speculation or delusory theories. Sometimes the flippancy and dead academic theorizing that surrounds this subject astounds me, as if we were not standing before a pressing and unavoidable reality. We are to face our Saviour and our God, then surely, we need to approach this matter with the utmost reverence and make absolutely certain of the facts. The only way we can do this is by avoiding vain speculation and by submitting strictly to the plain teaching of the Word of God and allowing it to rule our thoughts.

In his inspiring book, The Wonderful Works of God, Herman Bavinck makes an interesting observation: “…it is not immortality which must be proved, but death which must be explained.” Explain death and you can explain life. The best wisdom of men can do neither. What we can say is that death brings with it a total break with life on earth and the Scriptures teach us that it is a penalty for sin. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This judgement is concerned with what has been done in the body whether it be good or evil. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Yet for all who believe in the Lord Jesus, the terror of death and the judgement flees and is gone. As believers, we leave this world to receive our reward (1 Corinthians 4:5). Death is no longer death for those who have trusted Christ. It is the pathway from one life to another so that death loses its meaning. God’s grace and His covenant promise towards us guarantee a perfect salvation and eternal life. We leave this world and move on. No genuine believer can come into judgement, because he has passed across from death into life and is in receipt of the perfect finished salvation of the Lord Jesus. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24)

Of deep significance in this whole matter is that our God is not the God of the dead but of the living: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:32). All believers in Christ shall live even though they pass through death. In the eternal realm they are beyond death. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, although he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25-26). The Bible teaches most clearly that the souls of believers at death pass immediately into glory. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive right now and not sunken into a dreamy state of semi-consciousness. Jesus our Lord is alive as are all those who die in Him. When we first trust Christ, from the start we share His own glorious life that is neither subject to decay nor even death. And remember, the Lord Jesus is not dead but alive and so are we in Him.

When faced with the loss of a loved one who believed in Christ, or when thinking of our own departure, this question our Lord put to Martha, on the occasion of the death of her brother Lazarus, takes on for us a new and immensely potent sense: Believest thou this? Do we really and honestly believe what the Lord Jesus said? “Though he were dead, yet shall he live”.

In what condition and circumstances does the soul of a believer find itself upon leaving the body? Although many claim otherwise, nowhere in the Bible do we ever find it said that the soul sleeps in death. The human soul is made in the image of God. To deny to the soul the ability to think, understand, reason or imagine at any point is to deny its very nature without which it cannot exist. Soul sleep or psychopannychy is an error that finds no support in the Scriptures.

Many philosophers and theologians suggest that the self-consciousness of the soul is impossible without a body and that the bodyless soul can consequently neither perceive nor act. This ignores the fact that it is the soul that gives life to the body not the other way round. In his treatise Psychopannychia, John Calvin writes this with respect to the soul: 
“We, on the other hand, maintain both that it is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding. Both these points we undertake to prove by clear passages of Scripture. …For those who admit that the soul lives, and yet deprive it of all sense, feign a soul which has none of the properties of soul, or dissever the soul from itself, seeing that its nature, without which it cannot possibly exist, is to move, to feel to be vigorous, to understand.”

The soul is distinct from the body and is therefore not dependent on the body to exist or function as materialist theologians and sectarians suggest. Only when God breathed the breath of life into the body that He had created from the dust did that body come alive, within that body man became a living soul. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7). The soul of man is not of the earth as is the physical body, but it was created by the mouth of the Lord. What is true of mankind is not true of animals who came into being at the word of God (Genesis 1:24-25) with no indication of them having a soul in the same sense as do we. It is the living soul that distinguishes us from all other creatures that have sprung from the earth (Genesis 1:24). Nothing can bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26-7), but that which is spirit, because God is spirit.

So it was that my dear wife was, and all who like her believe in the Lord Jesus are straightway at the moment of their death taken up in their souls to be with Him in heaven. Did we have somehow to become good enough ourselves for heaven, as I once heard one professing Christian say, such an accomplishment could never be achieved in a lifetime. This is a sleight to our Saviour who has achieved everything for His own. He took upon Himself the penalty for our sins and earned complete forgiveness. “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). Our precious Saviour met the demands of the law in our place and brought us eternal life, so is the sting of death removed. Anyone who believes in the Lord Jesus is at that selfsame moment in time delivered from the wrath of God and inherits eternal life. From that instant on every believer is ready for heaven and there is no need for anything additional to that which Christ has accomplished for us.

This perfect work of Christ is that which opens heaven to every believer immediately upon death. In Luke 16 we read the parable of Lazarus who was transported by angels into the bosom of Abraham where together with him he enjoyed eternal blessedness. Although a parable, a similitude, to carry any meaning like all parables it must be founded on reality. Dying on the cross Jesus committed His spirit into the hands of His Father. “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” (Luke 23:46). To the thief on the cross next to Him, Jesus promised: “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43) Stephen when being stoned to death called “upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59-60). Paul was quite certain that on being released from his body he would be in the presence of the Lord. “Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). In Revelation 7:9, we are given a picture of the souls of those martyred, who have suffered death and now stand in the presence of God, as with all the saints in heaven, standing before the Throne of God and before the Lamb. These do not yet have the resurrected bodies promised at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus to this earth, yet they are described as wearing long white gowns and carrying palm branches in their hands. Certainly, to wear white gowns these souls must be awake. Those who die in the Lord are blessed from the moment of their death; they live and reign with Christ. At death we enter a state of blessedness and joy, freed from all evil and as filled with joy as it is possible to be. Believers then, are where Christ is and where there is neither sin nor sorrow only eternal joy. Not even death itself can separate us from the love of God in Christ our Saviour. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Paul writes to Timothy: “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).

Our physical bodies are riddled with the effects of sin, are corruptible and so must perish. Corruption must put on incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:53). What the Bible shows most clearly is that our Lord is the perfect Saviour, not content only with the redemption of the soul, but also redemption of the body. The vitality of the regenerate, resurrected body is an act of the Lord Jesus to transform our lowly body.
“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” (Philippians 3:20-21).

In the fact of the resurrection soul and body are once more united. We shall put on a state of glory and shake off all remnants of death. Our body will continue undisturbed by sin, death and the curse in an eternal state of glory. With the resurrection of our bodies there is the final and complete victory over death. The end of redemption is that we should live with God in eternal blessedness. Now in heaven and on earth there is a yearning for the future when the final victory of Christ’s perfect redemption will be manifested at His coming. “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10). If the souls of the dead cry aloud they are not sleeping!

“The Protestant doctrine on the state of the soul after death includes, first of all, the continued conscious existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body. This is opposed, not only to the doctrine that the soul is merely a function of the body and perishes with it, but also the doctrine of the sleep of the soul during the interval between death and resurrection.”  (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Volume III, p.713)

Although the conscious souls of believers have been taken into paradise, they are said to be asleep in Christ or to have died in Him and there is a seeing of corruption (see John 11:11 and 1 Corinthians 11;30) signifying a preliminary state. What this demonstrates is that our perfect Saviour is not content solely with the salvation of the soul but also of the body. Where believers are said to sleep in death this can only be true in the sense that it applies to their relation to this present fallen and finite world. The last we see of our departing friends and relatives is lying prostrate as if asleep. The very clear teaching the Word of God is that the soul being freed from the body of corruption and decay is completely freed from sin and the curse.
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17)
The voice of Christ Himself shall rise the dead from their graves, some to life and later others to judgement and eternal pain (John 5:28-29; Matthew 25:46). There is a heaven, but also a hell where the fire is not extinguished and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the wrath of God is revealed in all its terror.

Passing into the Lord’s presence the soul of the believer immediately at death enjoys that full salvation received through faith that it will retain for evermore and which is only to be completed when finally united with a resurrection body like unto Christ’s own glorious body at the time of His Second Coming. What a glorious hope that is for us all! Let no one diminish or deprive us of that. The body we receive at the resurrection corresponds in essence to our earthly body. It will be physical and recognizable, but not natural, above sexual life (Matthew 22:30), having no need of food or drink (1 Corinthians 6:13), immortal and glorified (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

Some think that the soul in the intervening period receive some kind of intermediate body at death, but this is not found in Scripture which speaks only of two bodies: the natural body which we now have and the spiritual body we are to receive at the resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul compares our body to a house in which the soul now dwells, but heaven is the house into which it enters when this earthly house is dissolved. Variously in Scripture heaven is said to be a house in which there are many mansions (John 14:2). In Hebrews 11, we are told that heaven is a city whose builder and maker is God. It is the “greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” (Hebrews 9:11). This house is in heaven and is eternal because the state into which the soul enters at death is unchanging.

We can raise our eyes to heaven with Paul and say: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. …Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4; 6-8)
The meaning of these verses should be clear. We do indeed desire to depart from our physical body which resembles a prison, but we are not left to wander about in an uncertain manner. We have a better home prepared for us by the Lord Himself and clothed with it we shall not be found naked. Then we no longer walk by faith but by sight beholding the glory of our blessed Saviour. Calvin once more:
“For then the soul, having shaken off all kinds of pollution, is truly spiritual, so that it consents to the will of God, and is no longer subjected to the tyranny of the flesh; thus dwelling in tranquility, with all its thoughts fixed on God. Are we to say that it sleeps, when it can arise aloft unencumbered with any load? – that it slumbers, when it can perceive many things by sense and thought, no obstacle preventing?”
The dissolution of the body neither destroys the soul nor does it deprive the soul of a home. As an immediate consequence of death, the soul does not sink into unconsciousness waiting for the resurrection, rather it has another unspeakably better habitation. To be absent from the body means to be then present with the Lord. “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Philippians 1:23). Upon death, Paul expected to be present with the Lord and aware of it. All this flows from the perfect salvation wrought for us by Christ. The souls of believers live and enter into the blessedness secured by the merits of Christ alone. Surely Paul is here speaking of a closer communion with the Lord Jesus than is possible for the believer in this present world. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Calvin asks, “do they think he wishes to fall asleep so as no longer to feel a desire of Christ?” Slipping into dreamy unconsciousness can by no stretch of the imagination said to be a better experience of Christ, than to enjoy His presence face to face, not something we can as yet enjoy. Can we not be envious of those who have gone on ahead of us? Heaven is our house and the Lord entered heaven to prepare a mansion for His people there. To reiterate: our soul upon death is not left without somewhere to go, not drifting into some dreamy semi-conscious intermediate state, but we have a house and a home prepared for us in heaven by our blessed Saviour. Being made perfect, we pass into glory where no sin nor corruption can enter. Hallelujah, and let no one try to rob us of this treasure.

Our soul at death enters a house whose builder is God. The soul being made by God is eternal and although we dwell in our physical bodies but for a short time, heaven once entered is our eternal home. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

All in whom the Holy Spirit dwells have the pledge from God of admission into heaven when they die and of a glorious resurrection when Christ returns in glory. Our heaven is to be with Christ, to see Him as He is and be like Him in every way possible. Absent from our earthly body we pass directly into His presence. Our soul at death is immediately transformed into His likeness so that when at the resurrection our body is made like unto His glorious body, so the work of Christ’s glorious redemption is consummated.

“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” (Revelation 14:13) This verse is very clear: it speaks of rest and sounds very similar to verses in Genesis 2:1-3. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Believing souls in heaven do not sleep, but enjoy a similar Sabbath rest from their labours, a moral and physical separation from the fallen world, a world yet to be fully redeemed. The Bible calls the Sabbath a delight, so this time of rest for departed souls in heaven is a time of great joy and delight, always beholding the face of the Lord Jesus whom we love.

My dear and lovely wife is in a good and safe place for which I bless and thank my Saviour, the Lord Jesus. When I too pass from this scene and given my age this cannot be too far hence, not only will I also behold the face of my Saviour, but be reunited with Valerie although no longer as her husband. Blessed as it is, marriage is a life-long earthly ordinance that is not carried over into heaven (see Matthew 22:30 & Romans 7:2). I will also meet again the many Christian friends and family who have gone on ahead of me. There are some Bible references that indicate seeing and recognizing others after death. David assumed that he would be able to recognize in heaven the baby son whom he lost when he said “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:23) In Luke 16:19-31 Abraham, Lazarus and the rich man were all recognizable after death. It will be my greatest joy to worship and praise our blessed Lord and Saviour in a bliss to last for eternity along with all those who are His.

Only those who know Christ will ever see their believing loved ones again. Friend, if you have never trusted Christ, it is most essential that you do so without delay. The alternative is too dreadful to think about. Make absolutely certain you know where it is you are going. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). This is something far too important to be put to one side. No one knows at what moment our soul may be required of us by our Maker. “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4). “Him that cometh to me,” said the Lord Jesus, “I will in no wise cast out.” He will not turn you away because: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” (John 6:37). This is all reality to which every death testifies. Come to Christ our Saviour today, do not delay.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

 

Face to face with Christ, my Saviour,
Face to face- what will it be
When with rapture I behold him,
Jesus Christ who died for me?

Only faintly now I see him
With the darkened veil between,
But a blessed day is coming
When his glory shall be seen.

What rejoicing in his presence,
When are banished grief and pain;
When the crooked ways are straightened
And the dark things shall be plain.

Face to face- oh, blissful moment!
Face to face- to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ who loves me so.

Carrie Ellis Breck

 

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

 

 

DAVID W. NORRIS

 

 

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