When we die do we go directly to heaven??

Then you are taking the position that when Paul writes:

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.

he is talking about bodies and not even addressing the issue of the real "place" where our existence, on your view anyway, really lies - namely the "soul" or "spirit" that is already in Heaven. Of course, this is not a "plain reading" at all - it requires us to accept the "insertion" of an "I am only talking about bodies here" qualifier. In fact it also requires us to see this text (from the end of the chapter):

"Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"

as a declaration of what must be a very limited victory - the great victory, on your view anyway, seems to be God's ability to give you an immortal body. Let's be clear here - you are saying that the "being made alive" stuff at Christ's return is about bodies - the soul is already securely in Heaven enjoying full experience of fellowship with God and other saints.

I would have thought that the great victory would be Christ's victory over the death of that entity which carries the essence of who we are - a disembodied soul / spirit (on your view, anyway). The real victory is that we get conscious existence in fellowship with God in Heaven - not to merely wrap that disembodied soul in a body.

Then it would seem that Lazarus has already attained what any reasonable person would see as the real victory - the "swallowing up of death in victory. The problem is that Paul sees this as a future event:

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

I believe that the Luke 16 account is a parable where Jesus is critiquing the nation of Israel for its failure to fulfill its destiny to be God's people for the world. It is no co-incidence that the rich man has five brothers. I believe Jesus is implicitly referring to the five brothers of Judah as per Genesis 35:23:

The sons of Leah:
Reuben the firstborn of Jacob,
Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun

I will make a claim that I will not defend in this post but which I believe is indeed defensible: there is a Biblical precedent of Judah as being used to represent Israel as a whole. The use of one person to represent his people is a thoroughly Biblical concept - I claim that Jesus "became the nation of Israel" in a sense I will not get into here.

I think the Luke 16 account has nothing to do with the state of affairs in the human afterlife but is rather Jesus' way of telling the nation of Israel that a new covenant family is about to created - and not one that is based on Jewish ethnicity.

 

1. A summary, I see in these verses, stating what will be without going into details. Details, I agree, must be sought elsewhere.

2. Why do you feel the need to make light of our going to be with the Lord at the point of death in heaven, I will never know?

3. Show me Scripture.

4. I see Lazarus before the cross, representing full conscious after death, whether it's a parable or a real incident.

 

John 11 Christ said "LAZARUS sleeps" believest though this DHK?

John 11 Christ said "LAZARUS is DEAD" believest though this DHK?

He does not say "Lazarus' BODY sleeps" -- seest though that DHK?

Christ never said that "THE DEAD in Christ" are not dead.

Rather Christ argues in Matt 22 that the ONLY way that God can claim to be the "God of those who have died" is via the RESURRECTION because THAT ALONE makes it possible!

Scripture can not be denied DHK - believest though this??


"It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgement."

Your repeated efforts to substitute ad hominem for Bible argument is noted.

Make Bible arguments please.

Indeed you show Bible support for the fact that the BODY is dead - you show NO Bible support AT ALL for "spirit lives on for all eternity in one of two places: heaven or hell".

in Christ,

Bob

 

24 ""And he cried out and said, " Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.'

Abraham is appealed to - as in authority. Very acceptable mythology (parable) to Jews of Christ's day.

 

Matt 22:23-34 Christ insists that God is not the God of the dead.

Praise to God - ceases at death
Ps 115:17 the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence;
18 [b]but as for us, we will bless[/b] the lord from this time forth and forever. Praise the lord!
Ps30:9 yet clearly when the living worship we "worship in spirit" John 4:24 -

No thanks or praise to God given by those that are dead.
Is 38:18 “for sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the pit cannot hopefor your faithfulness.
19 “it is the living who give thanks to you, as I do today;

No memory of God
Ps 6:5for there is no mention of you in death; in sheol who will give you thanks?

No thought activity

Ps 146:2 I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3 do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 his spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
5 how blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Ecclesiasties 9:5-6 they have no activity

Ps 143
3Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.

Isaiah 38
18"For Sheol cannot thank You,
Death cannot praise You;
Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
19"It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today;
A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness.

 

Hint -- although we all know that after people on earth die - there is in the future a judgment (the 2Cor 5 judgment for example) yet there is NO TEXT IN ALL OF SCRIPTURE that says that at the moment of death "we are judged" -- no not even in Heb 9!

As Paul pointed out in Romans 2-- that day of judgment for ALL men was FUTURE to Paul's day!

 

That is a nice way to avoid a question that you are unable to answer. For your sake I will repeat it. But I doubt if I will get you to answer it

John 11:25-26 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

--Jesus said that the believer would never die. He obviously refers to the spirit of the believer, for He, in his omniscience, knows that the Resurrection will not take place for thousands of years yet. Thus Martha's spirit would never die. He was saying: Do you believe Martha, that by believing on me you shall never die? The only way that would be possible is that if Martha went to heaven after her death and was with the Lord in her spirit until the time of the resurrection. This is the teaching of Christ. "Thou shalt never die. Believest thou this?" Apparently not Bob.

And immediatley after death is the judgement--hell or heaven. Man meets his maker. He doesn't sit around waiting for the resurrection. The verse doesn't say: It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the soul sleep! NOT!

I made plenty of them. It is too bad you avoided answering them.

Learn to read the Bible Bob.

"The body without the spirit is dead."
In essence--The body is dead.
The body--subject.
"is" --verb
"dead"--predicate adjective.
"without the spirit"--prepositional phrase acting as an adjectival clause.

It is the body that is dead (not destroyed or annihiliated).
It is without the spirit. Without the spirit it is dead. That is the cause of its death. The body without the spirit (which lives on forever) is dead.
The verse says nothing about the spirit dying. It does not die. It is simply separated from the body. Death is separation. The spirit lives on forever.
The body is dead (separated).
The spirit is very much alive.

You argue from silence. What do want to throw into that verse: limbo, the Annunciation? more Purgatory? If it is not there, believe it anyway?? Nowhere in Scripture does the Bible NOT teach the eternality of the spirit.

 

Predictably - DHK ignores the scriptures given above.

Though Lazarus IS DEAD - he WILL live again.

Christ had already stated "Lazarus IS dead" in John 11.

But clearly Lazarus WOULD live again!


Jesus also said "God is NOT the God of the Dead" in Matt 22

And Paul informs us "THE DEAD in Christ rise first" in 1Thess 4.

in Matt 22 Christ said that the FACT that "God is not the God of the dead" AND yet God STILL claims to be the God of Abraham when speaking to Moses -- can ONLY be true via the SOLUTION of the FUTURE resurrection of the saints.

I am going to have to go with Christ on that one.

in Christ,

Bob

 

You are the one ignoring the Scripture Bob. I will quote for the third time now, but this time I will quote only the relevant portion so you won't get side tracked. This time concentrate on this portion only:

"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

As for me Bob, I believe in Christ. I shall never die.

Jesus did not say: "And whosoever...believeth in me shall fall into soul sleep. Believest thou this?" NOT!!

 

Eternal life is one of the gifts received at the time of conversion to Christ.

 

1. Either we go with Bob or we go with the apostle John who says, "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life... These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life (1John 5:11, 12, 13, emphasis added).

2. I'll go with the apostle John. Who are you going with?

 

On the contrary -- either we go with TCG or we go with the words of Christ!

IF we go with the Words of Christ in John 11 we will NOT have to go with the imaginary doctrine of those who would have John 11 read thusly -


11 This He said, and after that He said to them, ""Our friend Lazarus is AWAKE but his body has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken IT out of sleep.''
12 The disciples then said to Him, ""Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.''
13 Now Jesus had spoken of Lazarus body and that IT was dead, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep of the PERSON.
14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, ""Lazarus is NOT dead – His body is asleep in death however,

I will go with the actual Words of Christ.

And as for Eternal Life "FUTURE" as we saw already it occurs for us in the "Age to Come".

Eph 2 - "we are seated with him in the heavenly places" by faith now - even though in reality this does not happen until the Rev 20 event.

1. Mark 10:30
   but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.
2. Luke 18:30
   who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life."

In Christ,

Bob

 

1. Forget about both Bob and TCGreek.

2. Are we putting Christ against John?

3. Shouldn't we be looking for a harmony to these texts?

 

In Eccl 12 God tells us that the spirit "of man" (all men both good and bad) goes back to God at death.

This is the state in 2Cor 5 - the "unclothed state" where we have not received our resurrected bodies --immortal and eternal heavenly ones also descrbied in 1Cor 15 -- and we no longer have our earthly bodies.

It is the state of innactivity described as the state of being dead.

It is WHY Christ AFFIRMS that "HE is NOT the God of the dead" because they have no concept of worship or praise to God in death.

in Christ,

Bob

 

in our spirit we worship God, we remember what God has done for us, in our spirit we give thanks and praise to God - we think about who He is and what He has done.

All that "ceases" at death.

 

I don't see that as the issue at all.

Just as we see Eph 2 the promise that by faith we are seated with Christ at the right hand of God and yet we LOOK and see that only after glorification at the 1Thess 4 "event" also described in 1Cor 15 will we ascend to "My Father's House" and only then be seated with Christ (Rev 20) -- yet we readily accept the by-faith statement of Eph 2 without saying "Who should I believe Paul or John".

The objective unbiased reader is going to see that clearly.

(Just pointing out the obvious).

in Christ,

Bob

 

Still ignoring Scripture Bob?

 

I say, not the Lord, if Bob wants to go where he thinks he is going when dead, if he wants to go to sleep, let him. As for me, I go to Jesus. See ya when you get there Bob! :laugh:

 

This is not an effective counterargument to the "soul sleep" position. You (DHK) seem to argue as follows:

1. Jesus says that whoever believes in Him will never die.
2. Jesus did not say that whoever believes in Him will enter "soul sleep"
3. Therefore, you (Bob) are denying statement 1.

Item 3 is only correct if it can be shown that "entering into soul sleep" is a transition which effectively can be construed as death. And this is not so.

This is a subtle matter. I cannot speak for Bob, and I admit I have not read all his posts. For me, there is a clear, albeit arguably subtle, distinction between being a state of "consciousness - less" and being dead.

When Fred dies and enters "soul sleep" (making this assumption for the sake of the argument), he is not dead - the essence of who he is is "safe in Christ", even through its a temporary "lights out" for Fred as a subject of experience. Perhaps the following analogy will clarify - knowledge of "the blueprint for Fred" is stored in the mind of God, to be used to "make Fred alive" at the return of Christ as 1 Cor 15 so clearly teaches. Being dead arguably means being "done for good" as it were. And Fred is indeed not "done for good".

So to claim that Fred enters soul sleep in no way denies the truthfulness of Jesus' statement: "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

 

If you don't think it is, answer it in the light of post #98.
Refute the Scripture and the arguments that I have posted there first.