IndianaRob
Well-Known Member
Let me ask you this: When your body dies and your spirit goes to be with the Lord, does the Lord considered you as dead?Jesus did say, “whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11: 26), but He qualified that statement by explaining exactly what He meant during the very same conversation. Just one verse earlier, He said, “he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). Physical death is not ruled out for believers, but it will have no victory over them anymore (1 Corinthians 15:54–55). The Bible plainly records many believers who have died physically after trusting in Christ (Acts 7: 59–60; Philippians 1:21–23; Hebrews 9:27), so “never die” is speaking of the second death, the eternal separation from God, rather than physical death never occurring. Paul himself wrote that “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9: 27) and that not all believers will die before Christ returns, but for those believers who are alive when Christ comes, they will be “caught up” after the dead in Christ have first been resurrected from the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). This is not the promise that every believer escapes physical death, but that all who are in Christ will be gathered up to Him, whether that happens through resurrection from the grave or a transformation from the living state (1 Corinthians 15:51–52). To take “we who are alive and remain” as a promise that no believer will ever see physical death makes an assertion far beyond what the text and the rest of Scripture actually teaches. And NO, this is not coming from bias, nor am I reinterpreting these verses, I am simply stating them the way the Bible says them, in their immediate context and in harmony with the whole counsel of God’s Word (1 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Timothy 3:16–17).
Would the Bible call you ‘the dead in Christ’ while at the same time you’re very much alive in heaven with Jesus?
There’s only one group of people in history that could ever be called the dead in Christ and that’s the Old Testament believers who died believing in Christ but were still dead in their sins and trespasses until Jesus paid their sin debt at the cross.
Last edited:



