Heaven (2)

Intro

What happens after death?

RC:

Historical Christianity teaches something called Status intermedius (intermediate state… where we go immediately upon death, distinguished from our state after the final resurrection)

Philippians 1:23 “23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;”

“As soon as we die, our souls go immediately into the presence of God and into the presence of Christ. But in that particular intermediate state, we’re disembodied souls and we won’t have our glorified bodies until after the coming of Christ and the great resurrection where our souls will then at that point be reunited with our body.”

“The instant we die we go into heaven in our soul state, and then we await the final consummation of the resurrection of our bodies.”

The Believer’s final rest

What happens to us at the end?

Our glorious hope is entering into our rest in heaven

Every Sunday we see God’s sign of the promise of rest that is before every believer as the Sabbath day is God’s established sign of His promise

There are those who doubt

Pie in the sky

The direct result of our ability to project our wishes and our desires into the future

What basis of real confidence do we have that the next existence will be great than this one? … our answer is from the testimony of Christ

Not only of His personal conquering of death by the resurrection from the grave, but also from His teaching

John 11:25–26 NASB95

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

If it were not so, I would have told you