What Happens When You Die?

Yesterday, we heard the incredible Good News of the Gospel. Today, we begin our study of, practically speaking, what happens to us when we die. For every single human being, there are two outcomes to death. For the believer in Jesus, what will come after that last breath leaves your body should bring you extraordinary peace long before that day. Let’s get started. 

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

2 Corinthians 5:6-9

Here’s something you may or may not have thought about. You have a soul, an essence, that is separate from your body. If you’ve ever been around someone at the moment of their death, it’s strangely obvious how vacant their physical body suddenly appears. This is why The Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians that our soul while here on Earth is away from the Lord, but that there will be a day when we are away from the body and at home with the Lord. 

What an amazing comfort this is for the believer. In an instant, you will be present with the Lord. This is what happens to you who believe in Jesus when you die. Why? Because when you put your faith in Jesus you already received and began living with eternal life, and that life cannot be bound by your physical body. 

Now, you may be asking, what happens to my body?

Turn to 1 Corinthians 15,

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory."

1 Corinthians 15:51-54

1 Thessalonians 4,

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

And Philippians 3,

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Philippians 3:20-21

All three of these writings from the Apostle Paul paint this picture for us: in the end, at the call of God, we who are already spiritually with God will be reunited with our bodies, which will be raised and transformed. God, who spoke the Universe into existence, will, in His miraculous power, recreate your body into a glorious one. 

Take heart, Christian. Your God has made a way for you to be with Him forever.