In Christian Doctrine when do you got to heaven/ hell or wherever?

Dave RP

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I'm asking this to understand what Christians believe, I'm going to a funeral shortly, a very close relative died and whilst she wasn't particularly religious her daughter is, and the funeral service is in a Church.

My understanding of Christian beliefs is that everyone is judged when Jesus returns, and then go to wherever their lives determine is due to them. If that is the case, what happens upon death, where are the "souls" in the meantime.

Secondly, what about all the people who died before Jesus came, are they in Heaven/ Hell/ wherever already?

I'm sure I recall say other such occasions the priest of vicar saying the deceased were with God, and we'll meet again soon, but isn't that contrary to the Bibles teaching?
 

SkyWriting

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My understanding of Christian beliefs is that everyone is judged when Jesus returns, and then go to wherever their lives determine is due to them. If that is the case, what happens upon death, where are the "souls" in the meantime.

People sleep until Jesus returns. But it's comforting to think of them with God already
and not filled with embalming fluid or in louisiana being washed away in flood waters.
 
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Geralt

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remove the belief that life after death is confined in time and space or the laws of physics like we count days, hours and minutes, or define matter and gravity.

life after death is neither confined in human concepts of time (like they are somewhere else loitering around, while the living lives out their lives and eventually y joins them loitering around passing time.). this are all comic books, Hollywood version stories. imagine if you died in Jesus time, you would have been loitering around for 2000 yrs already.

'sleep' might be good rendering like in a coma when you wake up you have not notice any time difference, but in reality time has passed. another version, which i would prefer, are that those who are in Christ are in paradise at the moment, Luke 23:43 ; conscious after death.

what is evident is that after death comes judgment, Hebrews 9:27 ; could be that you are whisk immediately into judgment like waking up in a coma. but before that comes the awakening, the sound of the trumpet call, a stern promise from the lips of Jesus himself, Matthew 24:31
 
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juvenissun

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I'm asking this to understand what Christians believe, I'm going to a funeral shortly, a very close relative died and whilst she wasn't particularly religious her daughter is, and the funeral service is in a Church.

My understanding of Christian beliefs is that everyone is judged when Jesus returns, and then go to wherever their lives determine is due to them. If that is the case, what happens upon death, where are the "souls" in the meantime.

Secondly, what about all the people who died before Jesus came, are they in Heaven/ Hell/ wherever already?

I'm sure I recall say other such occasions the priest of vicar saying the deceased were with God, and we'll meet again soon, but isn't that contrary to the Bibles teaching?

I like the idea of a place called the Garden of Eden.
Just think about a question: Did Adam live in the Heaven before his fall? Did he live with God at that time? The Garden is where deceased "Christians" are, before the return of Jesus.
 
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ViaCrucis

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I'm asking this to understand what Christians believe, I'm going to a funeral shortly, a very close relative died and whilst she wasn't particularly religious her daughter is, and the funeral service is in a Church.

My understanding of Christian beliefs is that everyone is judged when Jesus returns, and then go to wherever their lives determine is due to them. If that is the case, what happens upon death, where are the "souls" in the meantime.

Traditional Christian theology states that there is a personal judgement and a general judgment. At Christ's return in glory to judge the living and the dead that is the general or Final Judgment. At death there is an individual or personal judgment. In a nutshell personal judgment is about between death and resurrection, the Final Judgment is about the final state in the resurrection.

Secondly, what about all the people who died before Jesus came, are they in Heaven/ Hell/ wherever already?

In the Gospels Jesus speaks of Gehenna and Paradise, these are two parts of She'ol, the realm of the dead in Jewish thought. Gehenna is the place of the wicked dead and Paradise is the place of the righteous dead--both are there awaiting resurrection. A common Christian thought is that part of Christ's Harrowing of Hell is that He took those in Paradise and brought them into the presence of God, "Heaven" if you want to call it that--it is this place, with God, that they (and we) will wait between death and resurrection.

I'm sure I recall say other such occasions the priest of vicar saying the deceased were with God, and we'll meet again soon, but isn't that contrary to the Bibles teaching?

See above. Christians, historically, do believe that between death and resurrection we will be in the presence of the Lord, and share in a foretaste of the future glory "in Heaven" (if one wants to call it that). But the ultimate hope is the resurrection and the eternal life in the age to come, which isn't in some far off place called "Heaven" but right here, on earth, with the renewal and restoration of all creation.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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