Last week, a student handed me a note with the following questions scribbled on it:

What happens to people when they die? Do they go straight to heaven? Because in Revelation it says, “And the dead in Christ will rise up.” Are they already in heaven or it is talking about physical bodies?

One of the girls in my class piped up, “Again? When are we going to stop talking about death?”

“When your peers stop asking about it, I suppose.”

That’s the great thing about answering the kids’ questions—they have nobody to blame but themselves for the topics we cover!

Actually, the verse that says “and the dead in Christ will rise up” comes from 1 Thessalonians, not from Revelation. But we’ll get to that soon enough. Let’s discuss the questions in the order in which they were asked. But first, let’s do a little defining of terms.

What is Death?

Death is a consequence of Adam’s rebellion against God, about which God warned him in Genesis 2:

And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” — Genesis 2:16, 17

Because of Adam’s rebellion against God we now all sin, and therefore we all die:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned — Romans 5:12

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment — Hebrews 9:27

As we’ll see below, a concise definition of death is “separation.”

Death comes in two “flavors”: physical and spiritual.

Physical Death

Adam didn’t drop dead right there in the Garden after his rebellion; it took some 930 years for that to happen (Genesis 5:5). Ever since the fall, physical death has been commonplace in the human experience, so much so that it almost doesn’t need to be defined. But, for the sake of completeness, we’ll simply say that physical death (euphemistically called “sleep” in the Bible) is separation of the spirit from the body:

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. — John 19:30

They went on stoning Stephen as he was calling out and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And having said this, he fell asleep. — Acts 7:59, 60

Interestingly enough, we also see an example of life returning to a previously-dead body when the spirit returns to it:

And they began laughing at Him, knowing that she had died….And her spirit returned, and she stood up immediately. And He gave orders for something to be given her to eat. — Luke 8:53, 55

Spiritual Death

To arrive at a definition of spiritual death, we have to work backwards from spiritual life.

What is (eternal) spiritual life? Jesus defines this for us in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” So, if spiritual life is relational unity with God through Jesus Christ, and the opposite of life is death, then spiritual death is relational separation or alienation from God. We see this tragically illustrated in the third chapter of the Bible:

Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden. — Genesis 3:8

Before this time, there was no need or desire for them to run from God, but their sins had made a separation between them and God (Isaiah 59:2). This separation has persisted through the generations since Adam.

Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ — Matthew 7:22, 23

And although you were formerly alienated and enemies in mind and in evil deeds, but now He reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach — Colossians 1:21, 22

And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, — Ephesians 2:1, 2

What Happens to People When They Die? 

For the sake of time, I’ll narrow my focus down to what happens after Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. If you’d like a more comprehensive answer that includes those who died before this time, see “Did Jesus Go To Hell After He Died and Before He Rose Again?”

In terms of our bodies, both the unredeemed and the redeemed alike suffer the same fate:

It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead — Ecclesiastes 9:2, 3

 This, of course, is also echoed in Romans 5:12, cited above. 

But the fate of their respective souls is quite another matter.

The Unredeemed

When the unregenerate (those who have not been born again) die, their souls are immediately cast into hell where they will await their final judgment at the Great White Throne (which I’ll talk about later):

…the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ — Luke 16:22–24

We also see this inferred in Acts 1:24, 25 where Peter and the rest prayed “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen to take the place of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”

The Redeemed

Scripture is unequivocal on this matter: the souls of those who die in Christ are immediately ushered into his presence:

And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” — Luke 23:43

we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. ­— 2 Corinthians 5:8

But I am hard-pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better, — Philippians 1:23

The Resurrections

Yes, “resurrections”—plural—because there are actually two of them. Jesus hints at this in John 5:

Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. — John 5:28, 29

I say, “hints at,” because we might think that, based upon what Jesus says here, that theirs is one resurrection event that has different outcomes for believers as opposed to unbelievers. Paul adds a bit more clarity in his first letter to the church in Thessalonica:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. — 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17

The apostle John draws an even clearer distinction in Revelation 20:

Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their witness of Jesus and because of the word of God, and who also had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. — Revelation 20:4, 5

The second resurrection happens at what is commonly called the “Great White Throne Judgment,” and is discussed a few verses later in the same chapter:

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sits upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. — Revelation 20:11–15

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he discusses with some detail the resurrection, starting with Christ’s and moving to our own.

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. — 1 Corinthians 15:35–37

Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the corruptible inherit the incorruptible. Behold, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on the incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible puts on the incorruptible, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the word that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! — 1 Corinthians 15:50–57

TL;DR

When someone dies, his spirit leaves his body and exists in either heaven with Christ Jesus or in hell until the time of the resurrection, at which point the spirit is united with a new resurrection body which is then either glorified in Christ or cast into the lake of fire.

Homework

I feel like my students are inviting me to step on a theological landmine with this one…it’s a total setup. I have an entire book that covers five different views on this topic, and I’m supposed to communicate this to a class of 7th – 9th graders (and a few older kids) in a 30-minute class? Pfff.

How do the laws in the Old Testament apply to us as believers today?

Ya’ll better be praying for me.