What Happens When a Christian Dies?

The Apostle Paul says, O death, where is your sting? O grave, O death, where is your victory? The sting of death and the victory of death has been removed like a bee that stings and loses its stinger and goes away to die.

It buried its sting in Jesus Christ and He conquered death both for Himself and for all who believe in Him and therefore the sting of death which is sin is removed. What does the future look like for Christians? No sin and sadness? No injuries?

No cancer? No tense relationships or broken homes or financial worries or church squabbles? And that's just a fraction of it as John MacArthur is showing you in his current study on Grace to You, titled, When We All Get to Heaven. But as you wait to enter your glorious home, how should you live now? How should your anticipation of what's ahead affect what you do this month, this week, even today? Consider those questions as John looks at the eternal blessings that Christ secured for believers like you and me. And now with a lesson, here's John. First Peter 1, 13, this is where we were last time, where in the middle of the verse, fix your hope, that's a command, fix your hope, set your hope completely.

Pretty strong language. Set your hope completely. Don't put your hope in anything in this world if you have hope in this life, only you're of all men most miserable.

This is not where you want to put your hope. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Upon the appearing of Jesus Christ, or you're meeting Him when you have died, when He is fully disclosed to you in the next world, you will at that point be given the greatest gift of grace and that is eternal perfection in heaven. So fix your hope completely on that future grace, that grace that is to be brought to you when you enter into the presence of the Lord. Future grace, you could call it, final grace. And we pointed out last time that it's grace, it's just as much grace as your justification was grace, as your conversion was grace, as your redemption and your regeneration were acts of God's grace. It's just as much grace as your sanctification is grace as God continues to shape you through the Spirit of God into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, even though you're sinful.

It is His grace that does that and your future glorification is the greatest and consummate act of grace. Now you'll notice it says it is being brought, present tense. It's in the process of coming about.

It's in the process of coming about. One way to look at that is that in John chapter 14 we hear the words of our Lord Jesus as He was preparing to leave this world when He said to His disciples, in My Father's house are many dwelling places, if it were not so I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also. And so Jesus is saying, I'm leaving this world to get the place ready for you to come. God is in the process of getting heaven ready for every individual believer. That is, in a sense, another way to view the grace that is being brought to you, present tense.

God is working that plan out even now, preparing you for your final grace and preparing heaven for that final grace when you arrive. This grace is our promised glorification. And we've said salvation is really broken down into three parts, justification, the time when you have believed and were saved from the penalty of sin, sanctification, the ongoing process by which God delivers you from the power of sin, and the final element of salvation, the third one, when you are delivered forever from the presence of sin. Paul in the book of Romans says, now is your salvation nearer than when you believed. When you believed, you didn't receive your full salvation, you received the first part, deliverance from the penalty of sin because the righteousness of God was imputed to you. You are now being systematically delivered from sin's dominion in sanctification. The power of sin has been broken and one day its very presence will be forever eliminated. Now let's then look at this for which we should have constant interest and affection and desire and earnestness and eagerness, this future glorification. Let's be real basic.

What are the components that bring this about? And I'm just going to give you some things to think through. Number one, death. You have to die to get this, okay? You have to die to get this. That's why the Apostle Paul says, O death, where is your sting? O grave, O death, where is your victory? That the sting of death and the victory of death has been removed like a bee that stings and loses its stinger and goes away to die. Death has lost its sting.

It has been stripped. It buried its sting in Jesus Christ and He conquered death both for Himself and for all who believe in Him. And therefore the sting of death which is sin is removed. And so we do not fear death. We anticipate death. We may have a reasonable fear of the way in which we might die. None of us wants an excruciating or painful approach to death.

That's kind of a normal thing to resist that. However, in God's wonderful purposes, those times of very great difficulty, people dying that way are often the times of the most marvelous dispensation of God's grace. Nonetheless, you enter into this glorification through death. The wages of sin is death and we will all die physically who bear sin.

We all died in Adam. We all died spiritually in Adam and we all became susceptible to physical death because of Adam's sin. Death is the penalty for sin. It is every man's penalty for sin. It is appointed unto man once to die, Hebrews chapter 9. We all die. It is the penalty for sin.

It is not only the penalty for sin in the sense that it's a divine act, it is the effect of sin in the fact that sin creates corruption and corruption continues to spiral down until we finally all die. Now what happens when you die? It's obvious what happens to your physical body. It stays here.

We all know that. When somebody dies, we send the body to the mortuary, or we take the body to the morgue, or we put the body in some kind of crematorium and it's reduced to ashes, buried in the ground, whatever it is, we know the body stays here. The soul goes on into eternity because the soul is eternal. Once God creates a living soul, that soul lives forever. There's no such thing as anyone, believer or non-believer, righteous or unrighteous, going out of existence. All whom God has ever given life live forever. That is true of even angels. Fallen angels are doomed to an eternal lake of fire and holy angels are to enjoy the bliss of heaven forever.

The wicked will live forever in hell and the righteous will live forever in heaven. But when a person dies, the body stays here and the body decays dust to dust. The body is mortal, it is corruptible and it decays. The soul then is the question, what happens to the soul of someone who dies? Well immediately that soul consciously goes into eternity in a condition that will never change.

There is no remediation going on. There is no place where you can go and kind of make up for your sins. There's no place where you can go and people can sort of pray you out of that place into heaven. There is no limbo. There is no purgatory.

There is no intermediate kind of environment in which you are sort of kept. There's no holding tank for God to give you another chance or maybe to make up His mind as to what He wants to do with you. I will show you from Revelation how clear it is that the way you die is the way you stay in the book of Revelation, toward the very end of Revelation, chapter 22 verse 11. Let the one who does wrong still do wrong. The one who is filthy still be filthy. Let the one who is righteous still practice righteousness. Let the one who is holy still keep himself holy. The language in this verse is really saying whatever you are when you die is what you're going to be forever. If you are filthy, you're going to be filthy forever. If you are righteous, you're going to be righteous forever.

That's how it is. Nothing will ever change. This is a condition that is perpetuated forever. In Revelation 14, 13 it said, I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on that they may rest from their labors but their deeds follow with them. Whatever you are in life is exactly what follows you forever in eternity. And so, when a person dies, the body goes into decay, stays on the earth and the soul is released and nothing will ever change. If a person dies as a non-believer, they will remain that way, filthy and wicked and unredeemed forever. Those who die redeemed and righteous will remain that way forever. The death of the unsaved is horrific.

It is described that way all throughout the Bible, not only in the New Testament, but all throughout the Scripture. The death of the wicked is a tragedy because it is eternal. That is why the Bible says God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Proverbs 11, 7, when a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish and his hope will perish.

That's it. There's nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, perpetual sin and wickedness without relief. Now in Proverbs 14, 32, the wicked is thrust down by his wrong doing but the righteous has a refuge when he dies.

When a righteous person dies, there is a refuge, that refuge, of course, the presence of God. The death of the wicked is called the second death in Revelation 21, 8. The death of the wicked is described in this kind of language, eternal punishment, Matthew 25, 46 and elsewhere. Eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, 2 Thessalonians 1, 9. Eternal sin, you can actually say that the death of the wicked perpetuates them into eternal sin, Mark 3.29.

Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin...an eternal sin, a sin that perpetuates itself everlastingly. The death of the wicked is described as casting them into an eternal lake of fire, Matthew 25, Revelation 20, casting them into an abyss or a pit, casting them into outer darkness, Matthew 8, 12, torment, Revelation 14. The death of the wicked puts them under the wrath of God, 1 Thessalonians 1, 10, Romans 2, 5, where the anguish will produce everlasting weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, back to Matthew 8, 12.

It's a horrific thing. And there's no probationary period and there's no waiting period at all anywhere taught in the Scripture. This is then physical, spiritual and eternal death. Now on the other hand, the death of the righteous is only physical.

It's not spiritual for they have spiritual life permanently and it's not eternal for they have eternal life. And so when the Bible describes the death of the righteous, it calls it eternal life, eternal rest, eternal glory, eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal communion with God in a state of ever-expanding bliss. In fact, the death of the righteous catapults them into what the Bible calls paradise. Now just saying the word paradise in English, we understand what that means. When we say something is a paradise, we mean by that that it's everything that you could ever imagine anything to be. It's a kind of perfection.

It's a kind of longing. It's something that we would love to see. We would all love to live in a paradise.

Well we will. On the thief on the cross, Luke 23, Jesus says to him, today you shall be with Me in...what?...in paradise...in paradise. That was Jesus' way of saying in the place that is the best that any place can be. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, 4 says, I was caught up into paradise.

It isn't some kind of temporary place that went out of existence. Thief went into paradise. The Apostle Paul went into paradise after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's just a term to describe the glories of heaven.

He went there, heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak. It was a place of indescribable glory, joy and satisfaction. In the book of Revelation chapter 2, in the letter to the church at Ephesus, verse 7, he says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes to believers, to Christians, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. So in the paradise of God is where people go who believe in the Lord. Paradise of God is where the thief went, where the Apostle Paul went and where everyone goes who believes in Christ and therefore overcomes.

The overcomer is the one who puts his faith in Jesus, John tells us in the fifth chapter of his first epistle. We also learn from Revelation 2, 7 that in the paradise of God is the tree of life. Now that's a good hint because if you follow that to chapter 21 in Revelation, you're going to run into the tree of life again...or rather chapter 22, you're going to run into the tree of life again. Chapter 22 verse 1, he showed me, this is heaven, this is a glimpse of the final heaven, the new heaven and the new earth, the final glorious heaven of heavens. He says it has a river of the water of life, clear as crystal coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the middle of its street on either side of the river was the tree of life. So we just read in Revelation 2, 7 that the tree of life is in the paradise of God. Here the tree of life is in heaven of heavens, the holy city, the capital of the eternal state, therefore the paradise of God is just another term for heaven that describes heaven as a paradise. This to express the delight, this to express the joy and enjoyment of heaven. And so for the wicked, death is horrific loss, eternal loss. For Christians it is glorious gain, eternal gain. And that is why the Apostle Paul says a very normal thing, not a bizarre thing, not an over-the-top comment, it's just basic foundational Christianity 101, he says this, for to me to live is Christ and to die is...what?...is gain. He said, I would rather depart and be with Christ for that is very much better, yet I'll remain here if it's necessary for your sake. This is just basic Christianity, to want paradise. Well what is it like?

What is it like? Well, the Bible describes it as deliverance from all sin, all trouble, all pride, all lust, all temptation, all care, anxiety, disappointment, fear, labor, suffering, sorrow, weariness and I could go on. On the positive side, that's sort of what you get delivered from, on the positive side it is perfect holiness, perfect purity, perfect happiness, perfect satisfaction, perfect honor, perfect dignity, perfect freedom to enjoy everything that God has prepared. And especially perfect love given to God and to all who are in His presence and perfect love received from God and all who are in His presence. Therefore perfect fellowship with God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the holy angels and all the saints. And it's even more than that, it's to be made like Christ. As much as glorified humanity can be like incarnate deity, we will be like Christ.

First John 3, 2, when we see Him, we'll be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. And having said that, we have to remember that the Bible says, eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man things that God has prepared for them that love Him. We've never seen it. We've never really heard the heavenly sounds. Paul was uniquely given that experience. We don't have any report on it that we can comprehend.

It's really incomprehensible. So the first thing to understand about our glory is you have to die to get there. So we don't fear death because death is not the end, it's the beginning. Death is not a sad event, death is a joyous event because this is what ushers us into that which God has prepared for us to enjoy forever. Now let me just say as a footnote, a few people don't die...a few.

I mean, really a few. Enoch didn't die, he took a walk with God one day and walked right into His presence. So says Genesis 5, 24, Hebrews 11, 5 comments on it as well. Elijah didn't die, Chariot came out of heaven, picked him up and took him to heaven.

Pretty rare. Now apart from those, there will be some others who will not die and they are described for us. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4...1 Thessalonians chapter 4, familiar passage of Scripture. We'll pick it up in verse 15, we say this to you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord. What if you're alive when the Lord comes? Do you die?

No. If you're alive when the Lord comes, it says, if you remain until the coming of the Lord, you will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Okay? Somebody said that's because they have six feet further to go. I don't think that's really the idea. But when the Lord comes, the first thing that's going to happen is the dead bodies are going to come out of the grave and then, verse 17, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus shall we always be with the Lord. So the people who are alive when the Rapture event, the catching away of the church occurs will not die.

There will be a vast number of people. This is the church of Jesus Christ alive at the time when the Lord raptures His redeemed church. He will gather the bodies of those who have already died and then He will collect those who are alive and take them to heaven. On the way up, there will be a total transformation...a total transformation. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15, here again it's referring to the very same event in the future.

Paul says, verse 51, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. Sleep is a nice way to refer to death and it's appropriate to refer to death this way. It softens it and for a believer it's not a harsh reality at all.

It's like falling asleep. We shall not all fall asleep. We shall not all die, but we shall all be...what?...changed...changed. When the Lord comes to rapture His church in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, by the way, that doesn't mean a blink, that means the time it takes for light to bounce off the pupil. In a nanosecond, at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable or incorruptible, same thing as in 1 Thessalonians 4. And the ones who are alive, we shall be changed and this perishable will become imperishable and this mortal will become immortal. And those will not even experience death but be taken into the presence of the Lord. So with the exceptions of those few in the Old Testament and those who are alive when the Lord Jesus comes to take His church, everybody else dies. There is no other way to receive the final installment of your eternal salvation than to die. We don't escape death. This is Grace To You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today John showed you that if you're in Christ, there's no reason to fear death, as he continued his series, When We All Get to Heaven. John, you said that for the unbeliever, there's nothing to look forward to in death. And I know you're a pastor, you have to deal with the families of people who are bereaved because a loved one died in unbelief. So what do you say to those who are left when an unbeliever dies, the family and friends who suffer the loss?

Well, there's really nothing hopeful that you can say. All you can say is that you will feel the pain, you will feel the sadness, you will feel the emptiness of realizing the one you loved is in eternal punishment. But that's not all bad, feeling that, because that can become a motivation for you to exhaust every bit of energy you have in making sure you communicate the gospel to those who remain in your family. And also, the hope is that one day you will be with the Lord, and there will be no memory of those who are lost. It's not as if in heaven we're going to be pining away because of someone who's not there.

So yes, it is a devastating reality. And I think, Phil, and you would too, I think this is one of the reasons that people who are in a false religion have a hard time letting go of it. I see this a lot with people who come to understand the gospel, but when they reject the system of works, they are essentially moving in their minds their ancestors from heaven to hell. And so this has massive implications in their sense of joy, and that's a hard move for them to make, and so it's certainly a natural barrier. But of course, when the Lord saves someone, he can move them away, even though they have to realize that those people they thought were in heaven weren't in heaven at all.

But I think that is a real barrier. It has to be stated—and we've all done funerals for nonbelievers—that apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there will be no heaven, there will be hell, and that's a reality we have to deal with. But hopefully, understanding that reality motivates people to say what they need to say to the people who remain about coming to faith in Christ, the only hope of heaven. Thanks, Jon.

That is a tough subject. And friend, if you're not sure what to say to someone facing death, let me encourage you to get Jon's study When We All Get to Heaven. It's pure comfort for a Christian who will be in heaven soon, and it's excellent teaching for calling unbelievers to repentance.

Get your copy of this series today. You can download the messages from When We All Get to Heaven, and all the messages in our sermon archive, for free at GTY.org. Or if you'd like to put these messages in someone's hands, the three-CD album is reasonably priced, and shipping is free. To order When We All Get to Heaven, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to GTY.org. That's our website. When you visit there, GTY.org, make sure you download the Study Bible app. It's a free app that gives you the full text of Scripture and instant access to thousands of free Bible study tools. And with an in-app purchase, very affordable, you can also download the notes from the MacArthur Study Bible. That gives you 25,000 detailed explanations to help you understand what you're reading and how to apply it to your life. The app, again it's just called the Study Bible, is free to download from GTY.org. Now for Jon MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here as Jon considers what happens when a Christian dies. That lesson is part of his study called When We All Get to Heaven. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.