2013 Doctrine Series #11 – What Happens after We Die?

This is one of the great question of life and religious faiths of all kinds attempt to answer this question.  Even atheistic/materialistic evolution has an answer for this question: we rot!
Christianity has a unique view of life after life that all too often gets mushed up with other views and our own imaginations, so we need to get some clarity.
First, the Christian doctrine of the afterlife is based on the belief that human beings possess something that other creatures do not: an immortal soul.  This is based on what we read about the creation of Adam in Genesis.  All of the other creatures God simply spoke into existence, but God “formed” Adam and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7)  There is a part of us that will continue to live on somewhere after this earthly life.  (In case you are thinking reincarnation, Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment.”)  So, we are all going somewhere after we die, the question is, where?
The Bible says that it will be one of two places.  These two places go by various names in the Bible but we most often refer to them as heaven and hell.  The Bible does not describe either of these places in much detail.  Most of what we have come to think about them has actually come from human imagination.  However, the Bible does tell us enough to want to go to heaven and not go to hell.  So the question is, how do we get to heaven?
Some people think that everybody just automatically goes to heaven.  However, Jesus himself says that there is a hell and people will actually go there.  (See Matt. 25:31-46 and others)
Other people think that one can get into heaven by being good.  The problem is that heaven’s standard is not merely good, it is perfect.  Nobody is good enough to get into heaven.
So how do we get into heaven?  Or, as the crowd asked Peter on the Day of Pentecost, “What should we do?”  Peter’s response is, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:37-38)  We get into heaven by being forgiven for our sins when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior by faith.  However, this does not mean that we simply get away with what we have done.  We will be judged and held accountable, but will not be condemned.  (1 Corinthians 3:12-15 and others)
At the moment of our physical death our spirit leaves our body and goes to heaven.  2 Corinthians 5:8 says that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.  But heaven, as wonderful as it is, is not the end of the story.  We also look forward to the resurrection of the body, which we will talk more about next time.
The greatest thing about heaven is the ultimate hope that it gives us.  Physical death is the very worst that this world can do to us but, because of our faith in Christ and our hope of heaven, we face death with courage and even with joy.  Jesus said, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more.  But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”  (Luke 12:4-5)