When we die, it is not our bodies that will inherit the kingdom of God. It’s a good thing as these bodies wear out, get diseases, age and just are not the body most of us want to be in for all of eternity. We need something new. There’s good news. Something different is exactly what we will get.
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
When will this happen? When will be raised imperishable? At the last trumpet.
“For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?””
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How it will all go down? The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and we will be changed from perishable to imperishable.
This brings us to a question. Where are the dead prior to the sounding of the final trumpet? This passage says that they are “asleep” in the Lord. But does that mean not conscious in the Lord?
Other passages in Scripture would make this seem otherwise.
“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Philippians 1:23)
“We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8)
While we would like to know for certainty, the Scriptures are not abundantly clear. What it looks like though is that after we die, there is indeed the sense that we will be “at home with the Lord.” But there is something more final and greater to come. The new heaven and the new earth. It is where we will be ultimately raised imperishable.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.