When you die what do you think happens to you?

Xeno.of.athens said:

Heb 9:27 LSB And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgement,

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Depends on who you are.

If you are the regenerate, your spirit is with Christ (2 Co 5:1-9).

What happens to data when the computer dies. It sits waiting to be revived or cast out.

When you die what do you think happens to you?​

A chariot of fire being pulled by 4 dragons will arrive, and I'll be off and on my way to heaven.

In short, you meet your maker.

Some go up and many go down.
Both are waiting on judgement, for the born again believer in Jesus. They are waiting on the bema seat Judgment of Jesus after the rapture.
For the unbeliever they are waiting on the great white throne judgment, where they will wait their lake of fire position and to see if their name is in the book of life because they were good. But their name will not be found there because they never believed in Jesus for Eternal Life salvation.

There seems to be three states;

1. Alive
2. Dead
3. Resurrected

Some believe in a separate soul that exists separate from the body. And since the body decays, then the soul must go somewhere. “Heaven” would seem to be the logical destination. In fact many, if not most, Christians, think that the entire purpose of religion is to get one’s soul ready to escape this earth and to go to heaven.

Problems with this theory arise when one considers that the judgment will occur at the end of time, when Christ returns and the dead are resurrected. But how are those already in Heaven subsequently judged? I personally favor @tonychanyt's “soul zip” analogy, wherein the knowledge of us is stored safely by God, but the dead are not conscious.

Author NT Wright points out that the philosophy that teaches of spiritual spirits escaping a carnal, earthly world has its origins in Platonism. And that the Christian hope taught by Jesus and Paul was that Jesus was coming back TO EARTH to set everything right again. So the proper orientation is NOT that of escaping this earth to heaven, but rather of cooperating with God as he works to establish His kingdom here.

KT

KevinT said:

There seems to be three states;

1. Alive
2. Dead
3. Resurrected

Some believe in a separate soul that exists separate from the body. And since the body decays, then the soul must go somewhere. “Heaven” would seem to be the logical destination. In fact many, if not most, Christians, think that the entire purpose of religion is to get one’s soul ready to escape this earth and to go to heaven.

Problems with this theory arise when one considers that the judgment will occur at the end of time, when Christ returns and the dead are resurrected. But how are those already in Heaven subsequently judged? I personally favor TonyChants “soul zip” analogy, wherein the knowledge of us is stored safely by God, but the dead are not conscious.

Author NT Wright points out that the philosophy that teaches of spiritual spirits escaping a carnal, earthly world has its origins in Platonism. And that the Christian hope taught by Jesus and Paul was that Jesus was coming back TO EARTH to set everything right again. So the proper orientation is NOT that of escaping this earth to heaven, but rather of cooperating with God as he works to establish His kingdom here.

KT

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Keep in mind, there is no time for God. Time is a construct for our feeble human minds and therein lies the conundrum but only for us humans.

Clare73 said:

Depends on who you are.

If you are the regenerate, your spirit is with Christ (2 Co 5:1-9).

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AND in Luke 16:22 the beggar went to Abraham's BOSOM

The rich man SOUL was in HADES

AND the spirit went back to God that gave it , ECC 12:7

And the BODY went to a GRAVE for Israel !!

A believer to day the BODY goes to a GRAVE

SO where does a BELEVER BODY and SPIRT go ??

dn p

Hopefully I see all the loved ones that passed before me.

ARBITER01 said:

When you die what do you think happens to you?​

A chariot of fire being pulled by 4 dragons will arrive, and I'll be off and on my way to heaven.

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Dragons?

The Liturgist said:

Dragons?

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The pink unicorns resigned decades ago

prodromos said:

The pink unicorns resigned decades ago

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I was interested when some Romanian Orthodox told me that Vlad Dracul means “Vlad the Devil.” And then I discovered how for many people in Christian history, until fairly recently in most cases, the words devil and dragon are synonymous. Thus, for example, we see powerfully Christian imagery when the St. George-inspired Prince Philip kills the evil Maleficent in the 1959 Disney film of Sleeping Beauty. My only regret about that film was that Tchaikovsky’s ballet features a sinister theme for Maleficent which was omitted, but I think they may have dropped it because it was potentially too frightening, although perhaps not when one considers the animated adaption of Mugorssky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”, where Walt Disney also had the devil depicted, with historical accuracy as a dragon.

I think someone from the High Middle Ages or the Renaissance would be very confused with late 20th century fantasies that show people flying around on fire-breathing dragons. Flying on giant eagles was acceptable.

By the way, speaking of flight, there were several instances where Anchorites who had fallen into prelest were lured into hurling themselves down the Egyptian mountains at Scetis and elsewhere, and this remains a danger for monks even now, by the appearance of supposed angels waiting to carry them off to Heaven. When in fact the angels are imposters who are luring the monk to a fall.

For that matter, the Australian-born Coptic Orthodox hermit Fr. Lazarus el-Antony, when returning about 20 years ago from celebrating the liturgy in the Cave of St. Anthony with a handful of monks from the original St. Anthony’s monastery to the cave in which he resides nearby was distracted from his prayers by the appearance of a demonic bear, and slipped and fell and was severely injured and had to be airlifted to Cairo with a broken jaw and cheek and other broken bones. This had happened before and has happened since but on other occasions he had remembered to say “Kyrie eleison” or an intercessory prayer or acclamation to Theotokos or the Sign of the Cross. Also, because of the risk of deception, many Eastern and Oriental Orthodox monks advised neophytes not to look at the sky, also because of the humility and safety that comes from looking down at the path ahead of you - this advice is repeated in the Arena of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov for example, but I have seen it elsewhere (perhaps the Philokalia or the Desert Fathers). While more advanced monks often hate to look at the sky because they are able to discern the spiritual entities and do not wish to see them. Of course, these counsels are intended for monks and not laity, although much of what is contained in those books is applicable for laity, but my confessor and others have repeatedly said that for the layman there is no danger, for example, in enjoying the beauty of a sunset Eucharistically, thanking God for the beauty of His creation.

You might have seen some similar material to this.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Heb 9:27 LSB And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgement,

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The early Church taught that when we die, we rest with the Lord or in a tormented state depending on our probable eschatological outcome, and there are various permutations on this, for example, the Aerial Toll Houses we see as a theolougomemnon believed by many Eastern Orthodox, and likewise there is an Armenian view that I was unfamiliar with recently discussed in the Voice of the Desert. But the early church believed in the importance of prayer for the deceased unless and until we become certain of their salvation, when they are said to be glorified. Martyrs, upon winning a crown of martyrdom, are instantly glorified in the Eastern churches and are thus immediately subject to veneration. Icons and liturgical services for the 18 Coptic martyrs killed by ISIS in Libya, and the Ghanaian who was with them who declared “Their God is my God”, thus receiving a crown of martyrdom with them (He might well have been Christian before, but even if not, this would ensure the Baptism of Blood) were instantly produced, and likewise with the larger group of Ethiopian Orthodox martyrs in Chad. Likewise this generally applies with confessors, except in some cases the identity of confessors is not immediately known. For example, a relative of mine who was a missionary who was arrested by a totalitarian regime and became a confessor, but the facts of his case are not widely known. Thus a confessor is instantly glorified, like many saints, but the church does not know their specific identity or have individual services for them, but this is why we have All Saints Day, on November 1st on the Western calendar, and on the Sunday after Pentecost in the Byzantine calendar.

For that matter there are saints who are venerable by, for instance, the Eastern Orthodox, but do not have a liturgical service, and vice-versa with other denominations. And there are a few saints who, because of the fluidity of the boundaries between the ancient churches, are claimed by all of them, for example, St. Romanos the Melodist and St. Isaac the Syrian (the latter we know to have been a part of the Church of the East, but after the Christological reform of Mar Babai became known mainly as the canonical church in Yemen, Iran, parts of Iraq, India, Central Asia and the Far East, and the main theological peculiarity of it was not Christological but Eschatological, namely that during the late first millennium the Church of the East tended to believe in Apokatastasis. This has ceased to be the case. The Church of the East was also for a time the largest church, geographically at least, until the massive genocide that began with the Uzbek national hero Tamerlane* and was continued by his sons.

*Tamerlane, a distortion of “Timur the Lame”, for his actual name was Timur and he had a disability of movement in one of his legs, was a Mongol-Turkic warlord who killed all the Christians in those regions except for those in the Fertile Crescent and the Nasranis or Mar Thoma Christians converted by St. Thomas the Apostle from the Jewish and gentile population in the region of Kerala, India, where he was martyred in 53 AD.

The Liturgist said:

Dragons?

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I was obviously being funny.

Xeno.of.athens said:

"obviously"

But when you're in God presence would "being funny" be your immediate reaction?

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Could be. We are friends, so it just depends on the situation.

Do you have anymore questions about my relationship with the GODHEAD? You seem overly interested.

KevinT said:

Author NT Wright points out that the philosophy that teaches of spiritual spirits escaping a carnal, earthly world has its origins in Platonism. And that the Christian hope taught by Jesus and Paul was that Jesus was coming back TO EARTH to set everything right again. So the proper orientation is NOT that of escaping this earth to heaven, but rather of cooperating with God as he works to establish His kingdom here.

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That’s partially correct (although actually it was a group of religions that were not actually founded by Plato, but which included Neo-Platonism, which is far removed from Platonic philosophy, which along with that of Aristotle and the Socratic method was used cautiously by the early Church Fathers to explain certain concepts, and which also included Manichaenism, Valentinism, Severianism, Docetism, and the religion of Simon Magus, and at present the Mandaeans and some Kurdish and Turkish religions preserve these teachings, which also include salvation by secret knowledge and emanationism).

Insofar as it is correct, NT Wright’s position was what was taught by the early Church, which rejected these various religions (see the writings of St. Irenaeus of Lyons “Against ‘Knowledge’ So Falsely Called” and the Panarion of St. Epiphanios of Cyprus, and the Fount of Wisdom of St. John of Damascus, with the caveat that before the Last Judgement, the souls of those saved through the grace of Christ our True God will be with God, and indeed some people are with Him bodily, for instance, St. Elijah the Prophet and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Soul sleep is a recent innovation that was unknown to the Early Church, which believed in (from our perspective) a future Last Judgement and in prayer for our reposed loved ones. Prayer for the deceased is included in all complete liturgical texts from antiquity, and indeed there was more variety in the number of prayers for the dead and their beauty, particularly in the Western Church, than there is at present (this was largely a result of the suppression of the Gallican Rite (which led to the eventual disappearance of the Mozarabic Rite in Spain and the Benevenetan Rite in Campania) by Charlemagne along with the Scholastic innovation of Purgatory, which was also unknown to the early church.

Dan Perez said:

AND in Luke 16:22 the beggar went to Abraham's BOSOM

The rich man SOUL was in HADES

AND the spirit went back to God that gave it , ECC 12:7

And the BODY went to a GRAVE for Israel !!

A believer to day the BODY goes to a GRAVE

SO where does a BELEVER BODY and SPIRT go ??

dn p

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The believer's body goes to the grave, to be raised at the resurrection, and his spirit when it is away from the body is at home with the Lord (2 Co 5:8).

Clare73 said:

The believer's body goes to the grave, to be raised at the resurrection, and his spirit when it is away from the body is at home with the Lord (2 Co 5:8).

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AND I believe 2 Cor 5:8 and it will happen BUT where does the sprit go at death ??

WHERE does te SPIRT , I say it goes to Paradise waiting for TSURRECTION in 2 C or 12:1-4 which I call the

INERMEDIATE STATE

dan p