Question: I want to know what happens when we die. Where does
the spirit go?
Answer: We are made up of a physical body and a spiritual
soul. At death, there is separation of body and spirit: “The body
without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). The body returns to the
ground and decays, while the spirit returns to God. “Then the dust
will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God
who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
Every believer will be with Christ on the same day of his death.
Jesus promised the repentant thief on the cross, “Assuredly, I say to
you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The apostle Paul expected to be with Christ at death; he wrote: “For
to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the
flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I
cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to
depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1:21-23).
The same is true for every believer: “We are confident, yes, well
pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
Our confidence is not based on our moral perfection - we admit and
confess our sins daily; yet, we fully trust in the Lord Jesus, “in Him
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Therefore for us “to be
absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord.”
Furthermore, we look forward to the resurrection of the body, similar
to the resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 14). Our redemption is not
complete until we are given a glorified and immortal body. “We
ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the
redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).
Early Christian writers were the first
to use the word ‘cemetery’ for the burial ground. The word means the sleeping
chamber, and it fits beautifully with the Christian belief in the resurrection
of the body. The New Testament describes the dead as ‘sleeping in Christ’. When
he returns, he will call his sleeping children back to life.