Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: If we ever have questions about what will occur between the day of our death and the day of judgment, this passage is a good place to start. I want to say, straightaway, that this is an ancillary issue. Nothing in the Bible tells us that our salvation, or anybody else’s, rests on what we believe about the specifics of the afterlife. It is not something Christians should argue about. Rather, we must always keep in mind the primacy of Christian unity. Unity and acceptance of other Christians are primary issues, and the Bible tells us time and again not to be divided by “quarrels about words that result in strife.” (1 Tim. 6:4) (See, e.g., 1 Corinthians 1:10; John 17:23; Ephesians 2:14.) The most straightforward viewpoint is that we die and await in a state of death (or “sleep”) until Christ comes again, at which time the dead will be raised. All will be fulfilled, and the sinless (those who have accepted Christ’s grace of forgiveness) will be passed through into heaven to dwell with God for eternity. This seems the most obvious reading Jesus’ words in this passage, and also in the writings of Paul. (E.g. 1 Thess. 4:13-18.) In terms of what people actually seem to think (and the general, rather amorphous view of most agnostics and non-Biblical Christians) is that we go to heaven (or hell) after we die. Those who have accepted Christ’s grace are redeemed and are accepted into some sort of heaven, while the unredeemed are cast into hell, to suffer separation from God for eternity. There is a little authority for this view. Christ, on the cross, did tell the penitent being crucified with him, “[T]oday you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) And Jesus told a parable about a rich man and beggar named LazarusNot to be confused with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in Luke 16:19-31, where one man dies and is taken by angels into “Abraham’s bosom,” and another man is cast into eternal torment. I personally do not think that this passage is to be taken literally — but if someone else thinks differently . . . please see the first paragraph! One very contentious issue is whether the souls of those who have died in unremitted sin may be helped, either by prayers (e.g. Catholicism and many Orthodox traditions) or, in some cases (e.g. Mormonism) by baptism after death. All of these have at least some Scriptural underpinning. In our little Devotion, we do not have sufficient space to discuss the intricacies of baptism for the dead, prayers for the dead, or Purgatory. Love of God We do have space, however, to make two observations. First — read the first paragraph again. Do not get all worked up and let pride build a wall between yourself and others who have a very different viewpoint on these issues. Christians in other denominations are not Satanists! Second, pray for the departed if you want to. The Bible tells us repeatedly to let our requests be known to God. Even if your logic, your church, and/or your Bible reading convince you that a person’s salvation is already set at the time of death, you can still pray for the departed. God can do anything. We won’t really know about any of this—and are probably incapable of understanding it—until we get there. But be assured of one thing: What we do know is sufficient, for God would not leave us without sufficient information to find His grace and forgiveness. (See John 3:16.) Our belief in Christ and acceptance of the Holy Spirit will lead to forgiveness of our sins; whatever heaven is, we will know it for eternity, and it will be a place of perfect bliss.