What happens when I die?

“Heaven is important but it’s not the end of the world”

Romans 8:9-11, 18-25, Luke 23:29-43

Tom Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham, Northern England. He is one of the world’s leading New Testament Scholars and firmly of the evangelical tradition. He recently wrote a new study entitled “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” Tom has got me thinking about heaven, about the end of the world about what happens when we die. One of his main motivations in writing this book is to show as the title suggests that our theology of hope about things to come, strongly influences the way we express hope in the here and now.
I soon realised that my thinking around these areas had been a little woolly; maybe because in this modern scientific age we are reluctant to enter into discussion on areas that are beyond our ability to prove. I also began to realise that a lot of the populist versions of the afterlife were not really Christian or biblical at all.
In this series I want to encourage you to think biblically and christianly about heaven and hell, about what happens when we die, about the end of the world.
So over the next three weeks we’ll look at three questions
1. What happens when I die?
2. Will the world end?
3. What happens to bad people?
Following a quote from his book I’ve entitled this series
“Heaven is important but it’s not the end of the world”
Our gospel lesson for today is one that is often read during the season of Easter.
You will know the story two felons are crucified either side if Jesus.
One curses Jesus the other defends Jesus and then asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom.
Jesus replies, “Today you will be with me in paradise”
A common mistake made interpreting this passage is to see paradise as the thief’s final destination. Some place that you go to be with Jesus in eternal bliss.
However paradise is not to be understood that way at all rather paradise is a resting place that one enters before the final resurrection. It is similar to the Hebrew concept of Sheol or Hades or the grave or the pit, an in-between place where the dead await the final judgement. The difference with paradise at least conceptually is that Jesus is there – it is not the cold storage depot that Hades is portrayed as.
The words in Jesus reply are crucial. He says TODAY you will be with me in paradise.
This is Friday that is being referred to - the day of death. Jesus isn’t talking about Sunday; he is not talking about the resurrection to come. He doesn’t say soon you will be with me in paradise. Today you will be with me in paradise.
As Jesus enters this state called death this in between state he conquers death. Just as an invading king conquers a new territory so Jesus conquers death and claims it for his own. Death is no longer the domain of the evil one, death belongs to Jesus, he inhabits the land of death just as he inhabits all things. Hades becomes paradise, because Jesus has been there and conquered it. We should no longer fear death because we will be with Jesus in death. There is life after death in paradise a life with Jesus but this is not yet the end.
The thief on the cross, experiences the salvific presence of Christ, the kingdom of God even as he dies his tortuous death. Jesus is with him, God is with him and because Jesus dies and conquers death the thief enters into death with Jesus.
In John’s gospel we find a text that is a favourite at funeral services. “In my father’s house are many dwelling places, I go and prepare a place for you”
The place referred to is clearly paradise.
the word for "dwelling places" here, monai, is regularly used in ancient Greek not for a final resting place, but for a temporary halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run.

The dwelling places of John’s gospel and the paradise of Luke’s gospel. Speak of an interim state a place where Jesus is, a blissful, peaceful place a resting stop along the way but not our final destination. We are talking about the Good Friday Place, the place where death has been conquered – but Easter Sunday signifies something entirely different.

Good Friday is life after death, Easter Sunday is life after life after death. Easter is resurrection day and on that day a whole new reality is entered into.

Jesus as the first to rise from the dead prepares the way for the general resurrection of all people. Resurrection is a way of talking about a new bodily life that we enter into sometime after death, sometime after being in the waiting place of paradise, or of those dwelling places in “my Father’s house.”

Tom Wright refers to a 2 stage post-mortem experience. The first stage being paradise the second stage being bodily resurrection. There is confusion when these two ideas are morphed. Both ideas are clearly written about in the New Testament and should not be confused.

The second stage of our after death experience is bodily resurrection.

In the gospels Jesus is clearly shown to have a physical body before his death and after his resurrection. The resurrected Jesus walks and talks, he breathes, he tends a fire, he eats fish and bread with his friends, he invites Thomas to touch him. Jesus resurrection body is like his former body in that he is clearly identified as a human being not a ghost. He looks like a normal human being, he walks beside the disciples as they head for Emmaus and they don’t freak out he appears quite normal. However Jesus resurrection body is somewhat different. The same disciples on the road o Emmaus are kept form recognising Jesus –so perhaps he looked different. Jesus was able to suddenly appear inside a looked upstairs room that is something I haven’t managed with my body.

Paul explains the difference between the natural pre-resurrection body with the spiritual post-resurrection body. He draws an analogy between a seed planted and the plant it produces. A good gardener will recognise a plant from its seed and vice versa. So with us our natural body will be continuous with yet different to our spiritual body. In his conclusion he points to the differences.

42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

You may ask, Why is this important? Surely what happens after we die is neither here nor there. We just need to have faith that God is loving and that God will take care of it all.
Naturally that is the basis of all we believe. God is love and God will take care of all things.
Yet theology while not able to get to the heart of the mystery is able to keep us from moving in the wrong direction. Theology might not be able to tell you exactly what life after life after death is like but it can help us avoid error.
A popular misconception of Christian eschatology is the view that when we die we cease to be physical embodied beings and are for evermore disembodied spirits. This may be the case in paradise, in the waiting place between Good Friday and Easter Sunday but it is not our eternal destiny. We are destined for resurrection to have spiritual bodies, that is, bodies that are spiritual, spirits that are embodied. Human being is now and evermore shall be a body and spirit welded together one unitary being.
Over the centuries Greek thought has contaminated Christian thought. One such idea is that humans are essentially spirits that are trapped inside bodies and that our ultimate goal is to be released from our bodies.
Related to this is the idea that bodies are evil, that the material world is evil and in the end counts for nothing. True salvation in this model is escape from our bodies, escape from this world, escape from earth to heaven. As much as that sounds to some ears the Christian message it has more in common with Buddhism than the message that Jesus and the apostles taught.
Our hope is not to escape earth and find heaven. Our hope is a new or renewed heavens and earth.
Our hope is not escape from our bodies, but renewal and resurrection of our bodies, recreation of our bodies, transformation of our bodies.
The world God created is very good. It has its faults and imperfections. It bears the burden of sin. But the good creation is waiting in hope. The hope of creation is the same hope we share Romans 8
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Paul is very clear that our future hope and in fact the hope of the whole of creation is not in some netherworld – but in the liberation from the bondage of decay – our hope is in a renewed creation and in the resurrection of our bodies. We will be embodied people living in a renewed physical universe.
(And as I contemplate that hope it fuels my imagination much more than sitting on clouds and playing harps)
Because of the continuity between our present experience and our experience beyond death the things of this world take on much more importance. A recent letter in the Baptist typified a view that was once argued in the senate of the US, “This world is going to be destroyed so why bother looking after it”.
This world has an ongoing place in God’s economy and we are charged to look after it.
Let me take you on a bit of a speculative digression but worth thinking about nonetheless. Imagine that on resurrection day you arose with the same body as just prior to your death. You also arose with the same feelings, thoughts, attitudes, resentments, distortions and so on. Just like Jesus you arise with scars. The key difference between your pre-resurrection state and you new post-resurrection being is that you are now in a perfect environment, the “bondage to decay” has been removed. Your new improved body has the ability to regenerate itself, you now have the motivation to lose that excess weight, you now experience the love of God completely and fully and you have renewed spiritual strength to let go of old hurts, and completely bury old habits and attitudes.
I see nothing in scripture that would negate this possibility and I encourage you to contemplate it. It might not be how things work out but this scenario if we held it to be true I think would help us get our attitudes right in this life. If we see our existence beyond the grave as continuous with this one - as Scripture clearly teaches, then everything we do in this life impinges on the next.
If you have any doubt about the two stages in the grave and beyond the grave, paradise and resurrection or if you have any doubt about bodily resurrection then hear the words of Jesus.
It is quite explicit: "The hour is coming," he says, "indeed, it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those who hear will live; when all in the graves will come out, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."