Hey guys,
I was told by a few different Christians some of their different faiths and one of the popular ones is that we go to Heaven when we die.. Or Hell..
I was just wondering where you get this belief from as my step dad keeps telling me when we die we are no more..
Some verses would be good I have my bible here in front of me.
Thanks a mil
=]]
It's true that you will never find anything in Scripture that says that when we die we "go to Heaven".
That's because the Bible isn't really that interested in that sort of thing. It's more interested in what happens
after life after death. Namely that at Christ's coming there will be a resurrection of the dead and the restoration, renewal of creation (a new heavens and a new earth).
In the Gospels we find Jesus talking using the common understanding of the afterlife of 2nd Temple period Judaism. That there is a common pit, or grave, of the dead, the underworld. In Hebrew called She'ol, translated in the New Testament as the Greek word Hades. She'ol/Hades was divided into two parts, the abode of the righteous dead (Paradise) and the abode of the wicked dead (Gehenna).
We see this demarcation between Paradise and Gehenna in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where Lazarus the poor man dies and is with Abraham in Paradise while the rich man dies and is scorched in the flames of Gehenna. We also see this when Jesus turns to the repentant thief and tells him, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise", that is Jesus told him that he would be counted among the righteous. Paradise isn't "Heaven", it's the abode of the righteous dead in the place of the dead, She'ol/Hades.
This place, She'ol/Hades, in both constituent parts was understood as the waiting place, the intermediate location where the souls of the dead spent until the Final Day when there was a resurrection of the dead and Last Judgment
In traditional Christian teaching Jesus "descended to the dead", that is He descended to She'ol or Hades, to the underworld (the Apostles' Creed says in Latin "descendit ad infera", literally "descended to the lower parts/regions"). Jesus did not descend into Gehenna, the abode of the wicked; but He descended to the realm of the dead, specifically Paradise, where we say He set the captives free. That is, He loosed from their captivity in death those ancient righteous saints of old who looked forward to Christ's day (John 8:56). By His rising He has set free us from the bondage of death, to hope in resurrection and eternal life in the world to come.
Now to what Scripture does address as to what we may call the "intermediate state". I can think of precisely two places that addresses this in a more-or-less direct way:
"
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." - 2 Corinthians 5:6-8
The Greek uses a sort of "emigration/immigration" language here, to emigrate from the body and immigrate to the Lord.
Is this "heaven"? Well the text doesn't say, but our Lord Jesus reigns now at the right hand of the Father in and from heaven, so it's not a difficult thing to say it is. But the point isn't about "where we go", but that we are with the Lord in our time apart from the body, and that is sufficient for us.
Also this text,
"
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!' And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.'
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
'Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'" - Revelation 7:9-17
This is from the Revelation, meaning we shouldn't be taking it literally or at least too literally. But the indication seems to be that the saints and martyrs stand before God's throne.
That's not a whole lot to go on for a "going to heaven", but it is enough to indicate that we who are in Christ will be with Christ kept by Him between death and resurrection. That it's not simply that we die, and darkness creeps over, and that's it until we rise up; but that we are alive, conscious, with Him even as our bodies sleep in the dust of the earth awaiting their rising on the last day.
-CryptoLutheran