What happens between death and the resurrection?

[Andrew]

My dad always asks me this and I usually end up saying that God and heaven are outside of time and that the soul is eternal, I just don't have any answer other than that.
How would you answer this question? because I have also heard this question from a few other people as well... again I don't believe in a waiting room, I imagine a timeless gathering of believers in heaven

 

[MennoSota]

My dad always asks me this and I usually end up saying that God and heaven are outside of time and that the soul is eternal, I just don't have any answer other than that.
How would you answer this question? because I have also heard this question from a few other people as well... again I don't believe in a waiting room, I imagine a timeless gathering of believers in heaven

Hebrews 12:18-19,22-24
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Notice that the first born are in heaven, not a waiting place.

 

[RichWh1]

Phil 1:20 "For me, to live is Christ to die is gain" *"I am hard pressed between the two, to absent from the body and present with the Lord, which is much better"
To die is to be with the Lord if one is saved.
If one is not saved, absent from the body absent from the Lord's presence

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[MoreCoffee]

My dad always asks me this and I usually end up saying that God and heaven are outside of time and that the soul is eternal, I just don't have any answer other than that.
How would you answer this question? because I have also heard this question from a few other people as well... again I don't believe in a waiting room, I imagine a timeless gathering of believers in heaven

Saint Paul says that between death and resurrection human beings are "unclothed" because they do not have their resurrected body yet[SUP]1[/SUP]. So maybe it is not a waiting room but something else, perhaps a heavenly nudist colony?

1 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (II Corinthians 5:4)

 

[TurtleHare]

To the believing thief Jesus says, "You will be with me today in paradise!" I'm gonna go with that passage for the believers since he didn't say you'll sleep until I come again and git you.

 

[Josiah]

My dad always asks me this and I usually end up saying that God and heaven are outside of time and that the soul is eternal, I just don't have any answer other than that.
How would you answer this question? because I have also heard this question from a few other people as well... again I don't believe in a waiting room, I imagine a timeless gathering of believers in heaven

I'd "answer" it just as you did.

Christianity is not about having all answers to all questions.... Somehow, especially in the West and especially for the past 600 years or so, there has been this assumption that we should know the answers to the questions we ask. Even that the Bible somehow does that. There are a LOT of mysteries.... and in my book, that's fine. Our "job" is to trust and love and serve - not answer questions for God.

God is not physical. We are. Everything we "get" is founded on physics and on the systems used by our puny, fallen, limited, human brains (that includes "logic"). God is not. Reality is not. SUPERnatural, by definition, is above and beyond what is natural.
Time... space.... indeed all of physics, all of "nature", all of our human ways of thinking are superseded.

I USED to say that when I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God my LONG, LONG list of questions. Nope. We will be basking in His love and glory (and perhaps realizing how silly and worthless our "questions" were)...



My half cent



- Josiah




.

 

[Arsenios]

Hebrews 12:18-19,22-24
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Notice that the first born are in heaven, not a waiting place.

"Be ye repenting, for the Kingdom of the Heavens, hath drawn nigh!" Matthew 3:2

We are enrolled in Heaven here on earth...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I'd "answer" it just as you did.

Christianity is not about having all answers to all questions.... Somehow, especially in the West and especially for the past 600 years or so, there has been this assumption that we should know the answers to the questions we ask. Even that the Bible somehow does that. There are a LOT of mysteries.... and in my book, that's fine. Our "job" is to trust and love and serve - not answer questions for God.

God is not physical. We are. Everything we "get" is founded on physics and on the systems used by our puny, fallen, limited, human brains (that includes "logic"). God is not. Reality is not. SUPERnatural, by definition, is above and beyond what is natural.
Time... space.... indeed all of physics, all of "nature", all of our human ways of thinking are superseded.

I USED to say that when I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God my LONG, LONG list of questions. Nope. We will be basking in His love and glory (and perhaps realizing how silly and worthless our "questions" were)...
My half cent- Josiah

One of the elders wrote that most who end up in torments are very surprised,
imagining that they would not...
"Depart from Me ye workers of lawlessness..."

Hence I shudder and tremble, and beseech God for Salvation...
And I pray for the Pharisee more than for myself...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

My dad always asks me this and I usually end up saying that God and heaven are outside of time and that the soul is eternal, I just don't have any answer other than that.
How would you answer this question? because I have also heard this question from a few other people as well... again I don't believe in a waiting room, I imagine a timeless gathering of believers in heaven

An exercise I have found helpful is to imagine myself able to do anything I desired without any consequences whatsoever... That this is the condition of my soul after departure after this life... With no more resistance to sin at all... And then that I am passing through the realms of the demonic temptations where each one tempts me according to its powers - The Demon of Anger, the Demon of Self-Importance, the Demon of Superiority, the Demon of Resentment, the Demon of Lust, the Demon of Fornication, the Demon of Power, etc etc etc...

And in each of these temptations, I am no longer able to resist the temptation based on my ability, my power, to turn from it, but can only slip into it or not based on my previous repentance from it while on earth... And when I get to the one from which I did not establish repentance on earth, there I will enter and remain, stuck in my unreported sin(s)...

This is why the Church prays for the Departed... And this is why their sins are bound by the prayers of those who have been given the power to bind and to loose sins... And in this way, and through the ongoing prayers for the departed, we raise our loved ones through our love for them, as they begin their journey into eternity... And this is the preliminary Judgement, in which we abide, whether as Lazarus or as the Rich Man, until the Dread Judgement Day of the Last Judgement...

The literal Greek of Paul says:

"For me:
To live: Christ...
To die: Gain..."

Not so for the Rich Man...


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

"...we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed"
It's odd how this is stated, it could mean that many will sleep (until resurrection?) but also those who are alive will be changed as well in a twinkling of an eye (rapture?) OR it could mean that ALL shall NOT sleep and that ALL SHALL be changed (no sleep)
but it goes on to say that the dead will rise first (those asleep) so I do tend to see that maybe a deep coma similar to adams deep sleep would not be such a bad thing, it would seem like a twinkling of an eye, kind of like when you wake up and can't remember your dreams all you know is you fell asleep and now you are in the future (so to speak)... either way I see them both comforting but anyways...
Also [MENTION=204]TurtleHare[/MENTION] I've seen it read "but I tell you today, ye shall be with me in paradise"

 

[Arsenios]

"...we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed"
It's odd how this is stated, it could mean that many will sleep (until resurrection?) but also those who are alive will be changed as well in a twinkling of an eye (rapture?) OR it could mean that ALL shall NOT sleep and that ALL SHALL be changed (no sleep)
but it goes on to say that the dead will rise first (those asleep) so I do tend to see that maybe a deep coma similar to adams deep sleep would not be such a bad thing, it would seem like a twinkling of an eye, kind of like when you wake up and can't remember your dreams all you know is you fell asleep and now you are in the future (so to speak)... either way I see them both comforting but anyways...
Also [MENTION=204]TurtleHare[/MENTION] I've seen it read "but I tell you today, ye shall be with me in paradise"

Sleep perhaps means "be separated from God's Grace"...
"Changed" means perhaps being "given unending life"...

Non-existence is not an option...
Condition of existence is...
Life or death...
Heaven or hell...

God's Grace or self-isolation...


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

Sleep perhaps means "be separated from God's Grace"...
"Changed" means perhaps being "given unending life"...

Non-existence is not an option...
Condition of existence is...
Life or death...
Heaven or hell...


Arsenios

Did Adam 'not exist' when God put him in a deep sleep?

 

[Arsenios]

Did Adam 'not exist' when God put him in a deep sleep?

He did exist...

And Lazarus of Four Days fell asleep...

Yet Lazarus the Suffering died and abode in the Bossom of Abraham...

Mystery...


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

He did exist...

And Lazarus of Four Days fell asleep...

Yet Lazarus the Suffering died and abode in the Bossom of Abraham...

Mystery...


Arsenios

Indeedy, remember the little girl that Jesus said was "sleeping" and people were like "uhhh no... she is clearly dead" and then Jesus woke her up? (Not verbatim lol but I'm at work and don't have time to look up the passage)

 

[Arsenios]

Indeedy, remember the little girl that Jesus said was "sleeping" and people were like "uhhh no... she is clearly dead" and then Jesus woke her up? (Not verbatim lol but I'm at work and don't have time to look up the passage)

No need...

This is why "Doctrinal Correctness" is far less important than condition of heart...


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

No need...

This is why "Doctrinal Correctness" is far less important than condition of heart...


Arsenios

So wouldn't you say that we sleep when we die and then we are resurrected?

 

[Arsenios]

So wouldn't you say that we sleep when we die and then we are resurrected?

We are asleep from this earth through our body when we die...

Death is separation of soul from body...

Discipleship is attaining that separation prior to death
through being Baptized into Christ,
into Christ's Death on the Cross...

Baptism is our initiation into Life in Christ through His Death...

It is prepared for by our repentance...


Arsenios

 

[psalms 91]

I think that the problem some have is in seperating the body, the soul, and the spirit. Like God we are triune beings and at death they all go to their proper place

 

[Andrew]

I think that the problem some have is in seperating the body, the soul, and the spirit. Like God we are triune beings and at death they all go to their proper place

Interesting

 

[Arsenios]

I think that the problem some have is in seperating the body, the soul, and the spirit. Like God we are triune beings and at death they all go to their proper place

Body to dirt...
Soul to heaven or hell...
Spirit to ???


Arsenios