Samuel Daniels

Where do people go when They die?

Welcome back, my faithful Cronies!

One of the questions I get more often as a pastor is the question of where people go when they die. I would like to shed some light on this seemingly trivial but interesting subject. At a glance, it almost seems like it is obvious but the truth is, many Christians have a misguided view on this subject. My main motivation in writing these blogs is that, whenever there is a vacuum in the area of knowledge, that space often gets filled up with liars and deception from the enemy. 

The question of where people go when they die is one of the four most important existential questions. Every religion in the world, being Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc, seeks to find answers to these questions. They are;

• Who am I?
• Where did I come from?
• What am I doing here?
• Where am I going from here?

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If all we have is to live our lives here just to die and end in the grave, then our toils and efforts as Christians are simply useless. We may as well join those who live anyhow as though there will be no accountability. But our lives do not end in the grave. We have the hope of the resurrection. Apostle Paul said,

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Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that He raised Christ—whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied [1].

Currently, there’s no one in heaven nor hell

Majority of Christians think that when someone dies, they either go to heaven or hell. Unfortunately, that is a gross misconception. I want to state emphatically, that until the judgment day, there is no one in heaven nor hell. There have been a lot of controversies on this subject. We hear people claim that they had visions or ‘near-death experiences’ and saw some celebrities in hell or some people in heaven. 

Much as I agree that it is possible for God to give people such visions, it must not be taken literally. That assertion is simply not Biblical! No one will be condemned to hell fire before the judgment day. The question then is “where do people go when they die?”. Continue reading as this mystery unfolds right before your eyes.

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Away to paradise

When Jesus was on the cross, there were two men condemned by crucifixion with Him, one on His left and the other on His right. The one on His left verbally abused Him and said, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! [2]”. However, the one on his right rebuked and replied him;

Don’t you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong [3].

He then requested that the Lord remembered him when He goes to His kingdom. Jesus then replied and said to him “truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise [4].” This means that if someone dies believing Jesus, he/she goes to paradise: A temporary place prepared by God, for the Church triumphant to wait until judgement day. They will then spend eternity in heaven. Matthew 25:31-34 reads,

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’.

Hades/Shoel

Until the judgement day, when Jesus will say to those of us on his right hand, to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for us, the dead in Christ await in paradise. On the contrary, when someone dies without knowing Jesus, the Bible gives a graphic description of what happens to such a one:

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee [5].

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The phrase “Hell from beneath” is known as Hades in Greek and Sheol in Hebrew. This is the place where the dead who did not die in Christ go to wait for the judgement day. If we, being humans and therefore corrupt and sinful, will not incarcerate someone unless he/she is found guilty, what makes us think a just God will do so?

Where the dead actually go

Whenever people die, depending on how they lived their lives, they either go to Paradise or Hades/Sheol, to wait for the judgment day before they either go to heaven or hell, where they spend their eternity. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me [6]”. The question then is, ‘what about those who died from the time of Adam to the last person who died before Jesus began His ministry?’ They were never given the opportunity to hear the salvation message of Jesus, perhaps they would have repented if someone had preached to them about Jesus. God, therefore, would not be fair to cast them into the hell fire after judgment. To curb this, Jesus descended to Hades/Sheol after His death on the cross on Easter, to preach to the souls in prison and emancipate them from the shackles of death, in order for God’s judgment to be fair to all humanity [7]. The bible says

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord [7a].

The Hope of Resurrection

This text implies that, the dead in Christ will be moved from Paradise to join the Lord in the great procession. And we that are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds. In traveling to Hades/Sheol, Jesus took the keys of death, hell, and the grave [8]. Therefore, we believers have hope in the resurrection. It is worth mentioning that, the only time we can pray for someone to be saved is when they are alive. When people die, no amount of prayer can change their eternal status. Usually, during funerals, we hear people pray that God should accept them and give them eternal rest in “heaven”. That prayer is not Biblical. If we want our loved ones to be saved, we should pray for them while they are alive, to make a decision to accept Jesus while it is still day, because a night is coming that no man/woman can work [9].

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References

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

[2]  Luke 23:39

[3] Luke 23:40-43

[4] Luke 23:43

[5] Isaiah 14:9-11 (KJV)

[6] Isaiah 53:4

[7] 1 Peter 3:18-20

[7a] 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

[8] Revelation 1:18

[9] John 9:4

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