The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-R, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 20."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

My question relates to death—I’m finding I’m going to more funerals that weddings these days. And because I’m a nurse, I see a lot of death. And I would like to know what the Bible says about the state of awareness of a believer from absent from the body until the Rapture as far as things on the earth, things in heaven. I’m thinking of Luke 16:22 about the beggar being carried by the angels, and about a passage that I can’t find called—says “the dead know not any thing.” Would you expound on that please?

Answer

Basically, in other words you’re asking, “When a believer dies now, or an unbeliever dies now, what happens between now and the final resurrection?” Right?

Question continued

Between now and the Rapture.

Answer continued

OK, now and the Rapture, which is the first phase of the final resurrection. The best way to understand that is, that for the Church the Rapture is the resurrection of what? Of what? Bodies—bodies. Souls are always alive, and that‘s why Paul says in II Corinthians 5, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” That’s why he says in Philippians 1:21, “Far better to depart and be with Christ.” So when a believer dies...Jesus said in John 11, “He that believeth in me shall never” what? “die, shall never die.” So the real person, the spirit never dies. In your salvation the transformation occurred. I believe as a Christian you were created for eternity. When you became redeemed God created you for eternity. You know, your death will be less of a change for you than your conversion was. You’ll just drop off the flesh, and the flesh is your hang up, right? “It’s not I that sin” Romans 7, “It’s sin that’s in me.” It’s not the new creature that sins; it’s not the new creation; it’s not the new I fitted for eternity.

You know the other night when I was preaching and I said that when God justifies you, He doesn’t just declare you righteous; He makes you righteous. Somebody wrote me a letter and said, “How can you say He makes your righteous? That would mean you’re perfect.” And that’s exactly what I meant; you are perfect. In terms of the new creature—the new creation, it is the flesh that surrounds that that sins. Now I don’t want you to think about that too long; it’s very difficult to understand, even for me.

So your new creation is fitted for eternity, so when you die, all you do is lose the body, and you go immediately into the presence of the Lord, Philippians 1:21, II Corinthians 5:7-8. Now your body then is in the ground until the Rapture at which time, a glorified body comes to be joined with that spirit. Now I believe that when a believer dies at this point in time, he is instantly, immediately, and eternally in the presence of Jesus Christ; there’s no waiting place.

Now I believe that when an unbeliever dies he goes to a place of punishment. He goes to a place without God, because when the rich man died, he being in torment, said, you know, “Send somebody to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue for I’m tormented in this flame.” Now, ultimately, the person will be brought out of the grave at the end of the Millennium, the ungodly, and to the Great White Throne, described in Revelation, and at that point, sent to the Lake of Fire which burns forever and ever. But that Lake of Fire burning forever and ever is a little different than where they’ve been up to that point. It’s very much like a person who commits a crime, a murder. The police go out; they take the person and put them in jail, right? Keep them in jail until the trial, try them, put them back in jail. It’s the same kind of a situation.

Question continues

What about that passages that says, “the dead know not any thing.”

Answer continued

There is a passage to that effect in the Old Testament, and all it’s simply saying is that the dead are cut off from anything that occurs in life. It’s not talking about soul sleep; it’s not talking about annihilation, going out of existence. When I was a little kid in Philadelphia, they have a really funny custom, and some of you maybe knew this…when somebody died, they kept them in the living room for a couple weeks. Which really—talk about raining on your parade. You know you’re sitting there trying to play Parcheesi and old dead Albert is right in the…I’m not kidding you; we had dead Uncle Joe in the living room for two weeks, laying in the casket, you know with his best suit on and all that pancake makeup staring at the ceiling and he didn’t know what was going on. You know, from a human viewpoint, he didn’t know anything. You don’t want to take the statement, “the dead know not any thing” to be a great theological comprehensive statement about not knowing anything. It simply means when you’re dead, then you can’t play games, right? You can’t watch TV, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t read well, and all that. So I think you have to take that in the sense it means they’re cut off from the activity, the knowledge of life.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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