What scriptures indicate that Christians go to heaven immediately after death?
Some confuse the resurrection with going to heaven. Have you ever been to a funeral where they say, “Our dear sister has gone to be with the Lord” and then use Paul’s great resurrection chapter, I Cor 15, in an attempt to support this affirmation?
We ought not to confuse the resurrection with going to heaven at death. Jesus made 4 different statements about raising saints to life at the last day, all in chapter 6 of John:
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. (John 6:39)
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:40)
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44)
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:54)
Jesus didn’t say He would raise these people at the time of their death; He said He would raise them on the last day.
It seems that Paul considered the resurrection to be of paramount importance. He seemed to say that if the dead are not raised to life, then our Christian deeds are in vain. There’s nothing more. So we might as well eat, drink, and be merry. We might as well enjoy ourselves. For we’re going to die, and if there’s no resurrection, we’ll stay dead—we’ll be gone forever.
If I, as a man, have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (1Cor 15:32)
Let’s look at the passages which some use in an attempt to prove that we go to be with the Lord immediately after death:
- Let’s consider 2 Cor 5:1-8). In quoting this passage, one brother wrote that it seems to state that “the believer’s spirit is swiftly carried into Lord”. Yet it was the same Paul wrote these words who also wrote that if the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 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. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
It seems to me, that Paul is not speaking of going to heaven at death, but of being raised to life in the resurrection of the righteous. Paul says while in this tent, or body, we long to put on our heavenly dwelling. Our heavenly dwelling is not a place to which we go; it is something we put on. Surely that is the resurrection body. For Paul says by putting it on, we shall not be found naked. That is, we won’t be mere disembodied spirits, but we will be complete people, raised to life again. Paul says, “not that we would be unclothed”—disembodied spirits, but that we would be clothed—clothed with the resurrection body. “So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” This sounds a lot like that about which Paul wrote in the great resurrection chapter, in I Cor 15, where he said in vs 53, “This mortal must put on immortality.”
I understand verse 8 this way, “We would rather be away from this present mortal body and be at home with the Lord in our future immortal body.” I see nothing in this passage that suggests that we go to heaven at death.
- Another proof text for the dead going somewhere at death concerns the repentant thief on the cross. Does this prove that the thief went immediately to Paradise after he died? In the ESV it is written, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”. Yes, this verse would prove it—IF that is what Luke wrote. We don’t possess the original NT documents. But copies in the 100s (100-200 A.D.), contain no commas. Indeed, they contain no punctuation of any kind. All words are written in capital letters, and there are no spaces between the words. It’s true that most translations place a comma before “today” like the ESV does here. But on what basis to most translators do this? Do they approach the text from a position of preconception?
Not all translators place the comma before “today”. The Diaglot Bible puts the comma after “today”. But if that were the case, we might ask, “Why would Jesus use the word ‘today’ at all?” Why would He say “I’m telling you today, you will be with me in Paradise”? However, this is not so surpising since we do something similar even in our day. We say, “I’m telling you right now.”
Rotherham in his Bible which he translated in 1902, put it this way:
Verily, I say unto thee this day: with me, shalt thou be in paradise.
So there is no certain indication from Scripture that Jesus told the repentant thief that he would go to Paradise that very day.
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Another proof text is that of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Some suggest that this may not be a parable but an acutual event because the beggar is called by name in the story, that is, “Lazarus”. It is said that no other parable uses the personal name of a man. That may be the case. I haven’t been able to find another parable that uses a personal name. Nevertheless, one might observe this is the last in a series of 5 of Christ’s parables which Luke relates one after the other:
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The Lost Sheep (15:4-7)
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The Lost Coin (15:8-10)
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The Prodigal Son (15:11-32)
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The Shrewd Manager Luke (16:1-13) and
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The Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31)
In the parable, the Rich Man finds himself in (Greek) hades. This is not “hell” in the modern sense of “hell”. It’s a word that refers to the place of the dead, and is often translated as “the grave” in the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament. The original meaning of the English word “hell” was “a hidden place”, and that meaning was retained in the days in which the AV was translated. But the Greeks thought of hades as a place people went after death. This carried over into Judaism, (Josephus gave a discourse of hades as a place to which people go, very similar to our Lord’s story but in greater detail) So it seems our Lord was using a common belief among the Jews to come up with his parable. What is signified by the parable? I think this: even if it were possible for someone to return from the dead, the Pharisees to whom He was speaking still would not believe.
- As is written in Matt 22:32, it is true that Christ said, “God is not the God of the dead but of the living”. If this is all we had, it would make sense to think it meant that the dead are alive in heaven or somewhere. But I wonder why the previous verse usually isn’t quoted. It’s a part of the sentence. Jesus had been talking to some Sadducees who didn’t believe in the resurrection. They asked Jesus a question. If a woman had married someone who had died, and she married his brother and he died, until she ended up marrying seven different brothers, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? Jesus answered that there would be no marriage in the resurrection. Then He said these words:
As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.
The Sadducees believed that when a person dies, he stays dead. But Jesus indicated that this is not the case. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. Therefore the dead will not stay dead, but will be raised to life at the last day.
- John 14:1-6 has been traditionally thought to be our Lord’s desciption of going to heaven. His “Father’s house” is thought to be heaven. But do you know any other scripture where heaven is said to be God’s house?
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many dwellings. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
I suggest that “God’s house” refers to the Assembly of God or “Church” (if you prefer). Looking a bit further on in the chapter (vs 18-23), we begin to understand. Jesus said:
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Again we encounter the word “dwelling”. Jesus and the Father will make their dwelling with Jesus’ disciples. The many dwellings in the Father’s house (Assembly) are the places disciples have in the one Assembly which Christ said He would build on earth (“Upon this rock will I build my Assembly”). There is a dwelling for each and every disciple in the Assembly which Christ founded. He has prepared an individual place for each disciple. Another picture of the Assembly is one of “living stones” built up into a “spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). Every stone is unique but fits exactly into the place prepared for it.
The Lord Jesus (together with the Father) is the very Holy Spirit which was promised the disciples:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor 3:17)
So Jesus is Himself the Holy Spirit!
Jesus also said:
I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7)
Why could the Advocate not come until Jesus died? Could it be that Jesus’ spirit was confined to his earthly body until his resurrection? But after that He could send his very Personality or Spirit to every disciple?
Jesus Himself is called the Advocate:
… If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1)
After Jesus’ resurrection, there was Something new and powerful among the disciples. When a person repented and was baptized for the forsaking of sins, they then received the Holy Spirit to dwell with them and in them — Jesus Himself and the Father! (John 14:23)
So this is not about disciples going to heaven at death and having a mansion prepared for them in the sky. The English word “mansion” was fine in the 16th century when it simply meant “dwelling”. I think it is clear that the dwelling which Jesus prepared for his disciples was a place for each disciple in the Assembly, the Assembly in which He Himself and His Father would dwell.