Question:
Just heard a preacher on t.v., I think it was “Amazing Bible Facts” or something like that: he said that when Paul said, ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord’, that the next conscious thing that a dead Christian is aware of is when Christ returns the second time. I understood him to say that a Christian who died years ago, would think he had stepped immediately into the Lord’s presence when Jesus returns. He was saying that our spirit is not immediately in heaven after death, taht the spirit and resurrected body rise together at the second coming of Christ, and we will seem to think it is an immediate thing much like the alarm clock goes off in the morning and we sometimes feel as if we only slept a few minutes when we actually slept several hours. I do not agree with this. I believe the spirit of a true believer is in heaven immediately after death and the spirit will come back with Christg at the rapture to be joined with the resurrected body. Do we have any scriptures that point to our spirits being in heaven immediately after a believer’s death? Do we have any scriptures that point to the rapture being separate from the Second Coming of Christ? Thanks
Answer:
The ‘Amazing Facts’ preacher has his facts WRONG. This man teaches ‘soul sleep’ which is not supported in Scripture. When the Bible says, ‘absent from the body, present with the Lord.’ That should settle the question. Check out the unseen world of the dead in Luke 16:19-31. They were ALL AWAKE! ‘Beware of false teachers’ Matthew 24:4. I Thessalonians 4:14 tells us that Christ returns with the souls of them that have died before us and soul and body will be united at the rapture.