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What Happens When We Die?
The Bible says death is like a sleep from which believers will be awakened at the first resurrection by Jesus the Lifegiver. Jesus called it a sleep when talking to the disciples about Lazarus (John 11:11-14). He called it a sleep when speaking of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:39). The apostle Paul called death a sleep (1 Corinthians 15:20, 51-54; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17).
Some have read into 2 Corinthians 5:5-10 the idea that at death we go immediately with the Lord. Since Paul made it abundantly clear in the above passages that the righteous rest in Jesus at death, and are called from their graves at the second coming of Jesus, we must try and understand what Paul was saying in this passage. He speaks of this present life as filled with burdens (verse 4). Some day when we are freed from this earthly body, we have the promise that we will be with the Lord (verses 8,9), but in verse 10 he makes it clear that this happens when we appear before the judgment bar of God (verse 10). Then we receive what is due, depending on what we have done "in the body, whether good or bad."
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