1 Thessalonians 4

This week, my D-group guys have been reading a chapter per day of 1 Thessalonians. When we arrived at chapter four, a question was asked concerning what happens to people immediately when they die. I spent some time on the answer, so I thought I'd use it as a blog post. Enjoy!

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There are, of course, many different views and interpretations of how the end of this world will come about. There are also several views as to what happens to us immediately when we die. Without getting into a discussion concerning the book of Revelation, a period of Tribulation, and the Millennium mentioned in Revelation 20, I just want to give some general points that (probably) most Christians can agree on.

My own understanding is that, when a person dies, the body is buried-- but the spirit (who we really are; our soul) goes to either "Paradise" or "Hell" -- the destination dependent on whether the person was a Christ-follower or not. The names for the places are less important-- you could call them whatever you want-- the important thing is, there is a "place" in some spiritual, metaphysical sense where our spirits dwell. Our spirits dwell in one or the other of these places from the time of bodily death until the return of Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:8 says that to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord.)

When Christ returns, as this 1 Thessalonians passage talks about, the bodies of the dead will rise up and be reunited with our spirits (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 where Paul tells us that we will have real, resurrection bodies). After the dead rise, anyone who is still alive at the time of Christ's return will then also rise to meet Christ. At that time (or pretty soon thereafter), their earthly bodies will be transformed into glorious, heavenly bodies.

The final destiny of Christians is Heaven, or more specifically, the "new heaven and new earth" spoken of in Revelation 21. God will destroy this universe and give us a new home (see 2 Peter 3:11-13). The final destination of sinners will be the "lake of fire" or "second death" spoken of in Revelation 20:14-15.

This comes up in 1 Thessalonians because the Christians in Thessalonica were hoping that Jesus might return in their lifetime. And so when their friends and family began to die off, they started to get worried. "Are they going to miss out on Christ's return?" So Paul writes to them to say, in verses 13-14, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep [dead], that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." He's comforting them with the knowledge that their loved ones will not "miss out" on eternity just because they died before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

We can have this hope as well for all Christians who have gone to be with the Lord. Their spirits (now with Christ) will return with Him (as 1 Thessalonians 4:14 states) and be reunited with their bodies (raised imperishable; glorious). Then the Christians who are still alive will be "caught up" with Christ and have their earthly bodies transformed "in the twinkling of an eye" to a glorious, imperishable body. Finally, all humans will face judgement and, based on their acceptance or rejection of Jesus, will spend eternity either in the Lake of Fire or on the New Earth. Amen.