Where does a Christian go after she dies?

From an email: Where does a Christian go after she dies?  And, I want to know more about heaven and the new earth.

When we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, we are baptized into His death and resurrection. This means as He was raised from the dead, so will we be also. We will someday have new (redeemed) bodies. I believe these new physically resurrected bodies will be joined with our spirit/soul(s) in heaven during what is known as the “rapture.”  However, until we have new physical bodies, after we die our spirit/soul(s) are directly transported into heaven because we are citizens of heaven in Christ.

            “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble estate into conformity with the body of His glory , by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself,” (Philippians 3:20,21 and read also 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:54,55).

            We are alive in heaven because Jesus says, no one is married in heaven for “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” (Matthew 22:22-23 and read also Mark 12:25 and Luke 20:34-36).

In Revelation 6:9-11, the souls of the slain martyrs are seen; they are heard; and they speak; and white robes are given to them. All who die in Christ (received salvation by grace) are immediately transported (taken/travel/lifted) to heaven to be with Christ.

Heaven is a real place, (Ephesians 4:7-10) and Jesus very specifically designated this as a physical, special place when He told the thief about paradise and also when He gave the parable of Lazarus, (Luke 16:19-31 and Luke 23:40-43). In the Old Testament, Paradise was a section of Sheol/Hades, but after the ascension of Christ, He moved it and it became a part of heaven (2 Corinthians 12:4).

 In Revelation 21 the scriptures speak of a new heaven and a new earth. This means that both the heavens, plural s, because there is more than one heaven, and the earth will be changed, Psalm 102:25,26). This will not be “new” in the sense of newly created, but the “newness” will be a recreated, renovated heaven(s) and earth. After the seven year tribulation period, the earth will be  not only polluted by war (more so than today), but it must be cleansed (redeemed) by Christ’s return and His setting up His kingdom (government) on earth. In 2 Peter 3:5-13 we are told that the former world, “being overflowed with water, perished,” referred to the flood of Noah’s time. But the flood changed the earth, it did not eliminate it. It is promised to Abraham (by God’s covenant word) that Israel will have a permanent home on earth. We will also “rule and reign with Him” on a permanent, reconstructed earth, (Romans 4:13).

Rest assured or in other words—have peace in your heart—your saved loved one is in heaven with Christ and the angels before the throne of God.

 

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