2 Corinthians 5:1-8
Although
the Bible tells us a lot about what life in the hereafter will be like, the
reality is that we won’t truly understand everything until we actually
experience it. Paul declared, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has
conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9,
NIV) However, the next two verses following that often quoted verse declare, “but
God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spir
it
searches all things, even
the deep things of God. For who among
men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?
In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
Indeed, the mysteries of what lies beyond the grave
are real, however, God reveals in His Word what we really need to know. Thus,
it is imperative that we search God’s Word, not resort to a fortune-teller or
Ouiji board or deck of cards to know about the future. We must allow His Spirit
to instruct and guide us about the things that lie on the other side of death.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky made the observation, “My faith is not built
on arguments of logic and reason, it is built on revelation.”
In a series like this, one of the things we have to
deal with is the myths and misconceptions that people
have about the life beyond. For
instance, where did the idea of playing harps and having halos come from?
According to a 1997 Time magazine poll, 43% of Americans believe that we will
play harps in heaven, and 36% think we will have halos in heaven.
But harps and halos are never mentioned in the Bible in association with
activities in heaven.
Today I will continue the series entitled Hope
Beyond the Grave and we will examine the question, “What happens
immediately after we die?” What will happen in the first moments…1 second…
after we leave this life and cross the bridge into eternity? I raise that
question and I turn to the Bible to find the answer. Remember, there is a lot of
speculation about the afterlife but I am not interested in man’s theories. I
want to know the truth and there is only one reliable source of truth and that
is the Bible.
I have provided a Listening Guide so you can take
notes and perhaps retain more of the information. The first place I want you to
turn is 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
#1.
God designed you as a multi-dimensional being.
So, “What part of me goes to heaven?”
Last week I shared with you several
theories that represented the worldview of the ages concerning death. Here is a
quick review:
·
Some believe in the idea of EXTINCTION, that when we die physically
that’s it, we’re done, we no longer exist.
·
Then, there is the Eastern idea of REINCARNATION, that after death we are
reborn as another living being based on our karma.
·
Finally, there is the idea of DISEMBODIMENT, the Greek idea that the real
"me" is my soul, which is imprisoned in my physical body, and that at
death my soul--the real "me"--finally finds liberation by being free
from my body. The Greek thinkers of Paul’s day viewed the body as a
“tomb”, a place of shame and no possible glory.
I mention these three views because many people confuse the Greek idea of
disembodiment with the Christian view of life after death. Here is a
simplified view of such confused theology: “Our bodies are so polluted by sin
that God sent Jesus to save our souls. So when our physical bodies die, if
we’ve trusted in Jesus Christ our soul goes to heaven to be with God and live
forever.”
Although there is some resemblance of truth in that
view, I suggest to you that is an idea has more to do with the Greek philosopher
Plato than it has to do with Paul, the Bible or the Christian faith. What does
the Bible teach concerning my essence and what part of me does God want to save
for heaven?
Paul declared, “May God himself, the God of peace,
sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, NIV)
In this verse the apostle Paul expressed his
passionate desire for his Christian friends who live in the city of
Thessalonica. Paul’s prayer is that God would "sanctify" the
Thessalonians, and "sanctify" them "wholly, entirely, quiet
completely”. The word not only implies entirety, but involves the further idea
of completion (Lightfoot.)
The idea is that every follower of Jesus Christ is involved in an ongoing
process of completion of being made holy, as God renews our minds, transforms
our habits, reshapes our emotions, and so forth. Another Biblical word for
this process is sanctification.
The goal of this process is completion, that is, for
every Christian to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ who
wholeheartedly loves God and loves other people.
In fact, that’s our discipleship goal for every
member of this church. The goal of our Sunday night Encounter classes is to help
those who already know Jesus Christ to make progress in this process. But notice
that the purpose of God involves the whole you: spirit, soul (mind, will,
emotions) and body. God is interested in sanctifying Christians "through
and through," entirely, because you are created by God as a
multi-dimensional being.
There is a philosophical debate among some Christian
camps as to whether human beings are essentially composed of two parts, body and
soul or three parts, body, soul and spirit. I’m going to leave the
merits of that debate for another time, so we’ll just assume here that human
beings are essentially composed of three parts: body, soul (mind, will,
emotions) and spirit. This means that human beings in their essence are
not souls imprisoned in physical bodies, as the Greek philosophy of Platonism
suggests, but that both our physical nature and our non-physical nature make up
who we are.
Christian theologian Robert Saucy says, "The
body is not the whole person...nor is it the prison house of the soul...Instead
the body or ‘the outer [self]’ is designed as a partner of the [soul] or
‘the inner [self]’...The body is the only avenue of expression for the inner
person in the world of time and sense."
Once we understand this, then we know why Paul prayed
for the completion of these Christians. He wanted to see them complete
“through and through” in the sanctification process and that involved every
dimension of our being.
Having established that foundation, now I can raise a
relevant question related to our topic: “What part of us does God want to take
to heaven?” Since we are multi-dimensional beings with a body, soul
(mind, will, emotions) and spirit, God has made provision through redemption for
the whole person.
God
doesn’t want us to be less of what we are now in heaven! On the contrary, He
provides redemption that is past (sins penalty), present (sins power) and future
(sins presence) as well as redemption for the spirit, soul and body. In
theological terms we call this justification (spirit), sanctification (soul) and
glorification (body).
Greek philosophy taught that our soul was saved from
the prison of our bodies, but the Bible teaches that our spirit, soul and body
are saved from the prison of sin.
God created you as a multi-dimensional being. That means that you are more than
a physical body, more than just a soul incarcerated in a body. The essence of
your being includes all three: body, soul, spirit. If you have a relationship
with Jesus Christ, then you should be committed “to make progress in this
process” because in reality you are in training to prepare you for heaven.
Justification is past tense, sanctification is present tense and
glorification in future tense. God desires to redeem you “through and
through” including your spirit that is stained by sin but also you thoughts,
habits, and emotions that are soiled by sin. Eventually, He will redeem your
body and fashion it after His glorious resurrected body.
You must comprehend this process and cooperate with
God because He is preparing us to be at home with him in heaven forever.
#2. This world is
not your real home. You are living in
a tent!
“What happens to my soul and spirit when I discard
my tent?”
This
brings us to our second question: “What happens to my soul and spirit (the
non-physical part) when I discard my tent?” There is a time in which my
physical body is “dissolved” and laid in a grave, yet before God redeems my
body at the final resurrection at the end of the age. So what happens in
the meanwhile, what happens to that part of me that isn’t composed of physical
matter when I fold up my earthly tent?
The complete answer to that question largely depends
on whether that person has received God’s love or refused God’s love. So for
today I will answer that question from the perspective of those who receive
God’s love first.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 5:1-8.
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in
is taken down—when we die and leave these bodies—we will have a home in
heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We
grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on
our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without
bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies. Our dying bodies make us groan
and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want
to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by
everlasting life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he
has given us his Holy Spirit. So we are always confident, even though we know
that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. That
is why we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and
we would rather be away from these bodies, for then we will be at home with the
Lord.” (New Living Translation)
This is a complex passage; in fact, the diversity of
scholarly interpretation on these words of Paul is enormous. However, remember
that these words are an extension of those that precede it and their purpose is
to offer the hope of glory (4:8, 9, 13, 14, 17) in the midst of persecution,
suffering and in the face of death before the parousia
(Second Coming) of Christ. So let me try to briefly explain what I believe Paul
said in these awesome words. There are three separate conditions described here
by Paul:
(1)
Paul speaks about our current condition of being alive in a
mortal body and soul on earth. He compares this to living in a tent.
(2)
He refers to our future condition of being immortal body and soul
in heaven possessing a transformed and glorified body. He calls this state “a
building of God, a house not made with hands.”
(3)
He mentions the in-between condition of our soul being separated
from our mortal body waiting for our immortal body as being unclothed, out
of the tent.
Paul, who made his living by making tents, compared
our body in its mortal condition like being in a tent. A tent is
temporary, with no foundations, vulnerable to the elements. G. Campbell Morgan
said, “The tent is for pilgrimage; the house is for settlement.” He
then compared our state in its immortal condition as living in a house.
This state is permanent,
with a strong foundation, built by God. The ideal state is for us to be out of
the tent and inside the house; out of our temporary body with its declining
mortality and in our permanent body in its immortal condition. This is what Paul
spoke about to the Christians in Philippi, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to
go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I
choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with
Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain
in the body.” (Philippians
1:21-24, NIV)
But Paul also used another word picture to illustrate
the comparison between now and then. He employed the imagery of clothing. Our current
condition with our mortal body is like being clothed while our future condition
is like putting on an immortal overcoat over our current clothing, so
immortality swallows up our mortality.
The in-between condition of our soul being
separated from our mortal body waiting for our immortal body is like being naked,
without the clothing of our mortal body and not yet having the overcoat of our
immortal bodies.
Immediately
following death, in this in-between state it means that a believer is instantly
at home with the Lord, yet there is still some condition of incompleteness.
Although “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2
Corinthians 5:8), the believer is in heaven with the Lord in spirit and soul
awaiting the time of their full completion
in which they are clothed with their permanent house, the immortal body.
The question arises, “What will that state be
like?” Obviously, we do not know for sure but I believe that we will have an
intermediate body. It will be like Jesus after the resurrection but before His
glorification. On the Mt. Of Transfiguration both Moses and Elijah had a body
that was recognizable and functional. Calvin understands Paul’s words to mean
that “the blessed state of the soul after death is the beginning of this
building, and the glory of the final resurrection its consummation.”
So you might say Paul describes our current condition
in this mortal body as good, because we can serve God in our
current condition and participate in the process of completion. He described our
condition at death as being separated from our mortal bodies and at home with
the Lord, yet without our final immortal bodies as better,
because even though we’re without a physical body we’re at home with
the Lord.
However, the best condition is to be at
home with the Lord and within our immortal bodies. This is the state which Paul
anticipated, even desired with great longing.
Remember, the question we are currently considering
is this, “What happens to my soul and spirit when I die?” Based
on everything that I have just said, when a believer
dies, their spirit and soul are temporality separated from their body.
This temporary separation is what Christian
theologians call the "intermediate state." For those
on that pathway of sanctification, where God is transforming them into
fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, to be absent from this mortal body is
to be at home with the Lord. And, although we can not completely understand this
based on any experience we know on earth, it is a definite promotion from
earthly tent dwelling and that brings us to our third and final consideration.
#3. You Are Up For A
Promotion!
“What will the intermediate
state be like?”
That brings us to our final question this morning: “What will the intermediate
state be like?”
Some advocates suggest that our departed people exist
in a state of unconsciousness during this temporary period of time. That
is the teaching of the Seventh Day Adventist church as they contend that
believers experience a state of soul
sleep, unaware of anything until their bodies are raised from the
grave at the end of the age. Mostly, those who believe in “soul sleep”
do so based on a misunderstanding of the times in which the condition of death
is compared to sleep such as when Jesus spoke of Lazarus as being asleep.
(John 11:11-14) Others teach that believers become angels
during this period of time. The Bible clearly teaches that angels are a
different species of creation than human beings are. As I have stated
previously, human beings are multi-dimensional including a body, soul and
spirit. They are created in God’s image, something that’s never said of
angels. There is no indication that God changes our species during this
time. As difficult as it is to grasp, we simply exist in a disembodied state.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that some people go into purgatory
during this period of time. In Roman Catholicism purgatory is an extension
of heaven for Christians who still need purification from their sins. So
in Roman Catholic thought, every soul that goes into purgatory eventually ends
up in heaven, because the fire of purgatory is designed to purify and make one
ready for heaven. Most Roman Catholic theologians admit that the Bible doesn’t
teach purgatory, that it comes from church traditions. Roman Catholic
biblical scholar Zachary Hayes says, "We cannot find a clear textual
‘proof’ for the doctrine of purgatory in the Scriptures."
Again, I remind you that there is a distinction between those who receive
God’s love and those who refuse it and I am only dealing with this issue from
the perspective of those who have receive God’s love and embraced redemption
as offered by Jesus Christ.
It will be an
awesome promotion!
There is no
waiting. You will be in heaven immediately! In the act of dying on the cross, Jesus Christ hung
beside two convicted criminals, one of whom cried out for mercy. The Biblical
record indicates that this man had lived a life of violence and ungodliness, yet
as he was dying a cruel death, he made a request of Jesus” "Remember me
when you come into your Kingdom." Jesus’ response to that person is
recorded in Luke 23:24.
”Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." (NIV)
When Jesus said the thief would experience
"paradise" that very day, it’s clear that Jesus is talking about the
thief’s spirit and soul, not the thief’s body. So immediately upon death the
spirit and soul of this newly converted criminal would be present with Jesus in
paradise, not in some state of soul sleep,
not in purgatory and certainly if anyone needed purgatory it was this guy!
It will be more
beautiful than you ever imagined! That word "paradise" is a loan
word from the Persian language that described an enclosed park or garden.
When the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into
Greek, the translators used this word "paradise" for the Garden of
Eden. The basic idea behind this word is that of a beautiful garden, perfectly
kept, and this became a word picture for the kind of happiness and blessings of
being with God in heaven.
Now what will this “paradise” be like? I’m not
sure, but if it’s anything like the Garden of Eden in Genesis we can be sure
that we’ll be active, not strumming harps or polishing halos. It will
not be boring or idle, as we await that time when Christ raises our bodies from
the grave, so we can experience the completion of our salvation; body, soul and
spirit.
So, “What will it be like for believers during this
temporary state?” It will be immediate and more beautiful than you can
imagine. It will be a temporary time as we await the full, complete and final
state of redemption called glorification.
Conclusion: “Are You
Ready?”
Harps, halos and rocking chairs have nothing to do
with the Bible’s teaching about what happens to our souls after we die. God’s
plan of redemption involves saving and sanctifying all
of you: body, soul and spirit. When
the temporary tent (body) we are living in is dissolved (death), our spirits and
souls become temporarily separated from our earthly bodies, consciously waiting
for the end of the age, when Jesus Christ will complete redemption for every
saint.
When we talk about these things our initial reaction
is to think about our loved ones who have died, and to wonder where they
are today. When we think about people who clearly received God’s love,
our hearts are filled with comfort because as we think about them, we visualize
them in a better place, at home with the Lord, awaiting that time when they
receive their immortal body at the end of the age. That brings us comfort.
Our next reaction should be to think about ourselves and ask some
piercing questions:
Having received God’s love through Jesus Christ….
·
Are you living the kind of life that is preparing you for heaven? You don’t
get to heaven on your works, yet people on their way to heaven you should be
different and holy.
·
Are you cooperating with God’s process of sanctification, his work in your
whole person; body, soul (emotions, habits, thoughts, & memories) and spirit
so the shock of heaven won’t be so great?
· Are you doing everything possible to take as many people with
you when you go to heaven?
·
Are you becoming more fully devoted followers of Jesus every day; a person who
wholeheartedly loves God and sacrificially loves other people?
