Kingdom Ready Blog

Common “Proof Texts”

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the Scriptures, there are a small handful of passages that are repeatedly cited as proof that a believer goes immediately to be with the Lord at death. One of the most common is Paul’s statement in II Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” This verse is almost always misquoted as, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” It is generally assumed Paul meant that to be absent from the body (i.e. at death) equals being present with the Lord. Similarly, Paul wrote in Philippians 1:23, “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” Did Paul mean that when he departed he would be immediately with Christ? Does being absent from the body mean being present with the Lord? If this was what he meant, it would contradict not only the Hebrew understanding of death which we have discussed, but even many things that Paul himself wrote elsewhere.

What Happens At Death?
When a person dies, the spirit (breath life) is gone and the body corrupts in the grave (“Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” – Psalm 104:29). Nowhere does it say that they are conscious on another plane of existence. This makes sense when you consider that consciousness and thought are the product of a functioning brain, and the brain is no longer functioning after the breath of life is gone.

This is something that has popped into my head here and there for some time now.  And I’ve read other answers to this kind of question out on the web (see links below).  But I wanted to ask it in more of a theological setting to see what others here could add to the subject. Please note that I’m not trying to be callous regarding death and the intense emotions it brings.  As an only child who lost both parents at a young age, that vile enemy death has had a far-reaching and deeply emotional effect on my own life.

(The following series is from my website, God’s Kingdom First.)
Overview
One of the doctrines I was taught in the ministry I was involved with for many years was that the dead are not currently alive in another realm somewhere, but are unconscious in the grave, and will remain so until the return of Christ. This is one of the few things I was taught that actually turns out to be correct Biblically. Those who are of similar background may recognize most of the points made here, although there are a few differences. However, those from a mainstream “Christian” background may find this section quite challenging. I only ask that you consider the Scriptures carefully, and don’t let preconceived notions blind you to the simple straightforward reading of the Bible.

It is a common assumption among both Christians and non-Christians that “faith” is some kind of mystical quality that enables us to believe in things that have little or no foundation.  It is commonly referred to as “blind faith.”  In a recent discussion on his late night talk show, Craig Ferguson made the following observation:

Since the Reformation, it has been taught more and more among Protestants that Jesus declared the Kingdom to have arrived, but that he taught his disciples the “true” understanding of the Kingdom, namely that of God’s reign in one’s heart.  In addition, another common misunderstanding that leads to the belief that the Kingdom must have been redefined is the question of when Jesus expected it to take place. If Jesus had indeed meant a political kingdom that would overthrow Israel’s oppressors, he would seem to have been wrong about it being “at hand.” Much is made of Jesus’ supposed belief that his return would be in the lifetime of his disciples, but he told them he did not know when he was going to return (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).

Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was near, but that there would be an interim period before it was fully inaugurated. The Kingdom, to him, was primarily the eschatological (end-times) reign and judgment of Messiah on earth. It is in this sense that it would fulfill the promises to Abraham and David, and the many prophecies of the Day of the Lord and the coming of the Son of Man.

In Part 1, we saw that the words for “generation” (Hebrew, dowr; Greek, genea) can have more than one meaning, and one of the meanings is a group of people with like characteristics, especially a group characterized by negative traits, as in “this crooked and perverse generation.”  We saw examples in the Old Testament, and we saw that this sense was in fact used more often than the literal sense in the Gospels.

One of the main reasons that other viewpoints don’t like the idea of a futurist interpretation of prophecy is that certain sections of Scripture appear to have Jesus say that the end would come before that generation passed away.  There has been much speculation about whether Jesus was mistaken or misunderstood, since the Kingdom apparently did not come to pass in the lifetime of his disciples.  C. S. Lewis wrote in his essay, “The World’s Last Night” (in 1960),