This life on earth can be said to be largely an unsatisfying hurt, apart from union with Christ. Outwardly, for most of us, if we summed up our good times and bad times, the bad vastly outweighs the good. This is especially true when we consider the times we suffered in confusion, stress, anxiety, due to health, finances, and disappointment, estrangement in relationships. This all results in a general lack of satisfaction. Of course, much of this is due to our yielding our mindset to the nearly total self-interest of our Old Man’s sin-nature. Most Christians, for quite some time, live without the eternal view of life and death in mind. Read the story of Joseph, Jacob’s son in Genesis chapters 37-50:26, and learn that the ending outcome of life’s trials is what really matters.

The only real hope for man is to receive Christ’s “eternal life” for men as believers in Christ as Savior. His is a life to be enjoyed both now on earth and after death. Real hope, peace and joy are only found in our living spirit-union with and in Christ. His life takes us beyond “death” and “the grave,” giving us as believers the hope for the full manifestation of the His “eternal life” in our eternal home… in heaven.

“Even the mystery (Gk. musterion, secret) which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: ²⁷ To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery (secret) among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:” (Colossians 1:26-27)

“For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: ²¹ Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Philippians 3:20-21

The encouraging word for believers as we contemplate death in “the grave,” and for living believers awaiting the Lord’s return, is the word “RESURRECTION”! Our coming resurrection, which we commonly call “the Rapture,” will be in our new glorified ‘spirit-bodies’ that will manifest, express and emit the ‘Christ-life and Christ-character’ that constitutes our eternal “Living Soul.”

“… the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

²³ And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our (sin-laden) body. ²⁴ For we are saved by hope (a confident expectation): but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? ²⁵ But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it (in faith). (Romans 8:21-25)

The believers of “the body of Christ” will one day soon be resurrected, “caught up” at His coming in the cloud, whether we at that time are alive at His coming or “asleep” in “the grave.”

“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep (dead), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. ¹⁵For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (Gk. phthano, go before or precede) them which are asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: ¹⁷Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. ¹⁸Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1Thes 4:13-18)

The word “sleep” is an excellent metaphor for the “dead” believer’s waiting in “the grave.” The word “sleep” implies a true state of unconsciousness and unawareness of anything. The rest of “sleep” allows for no account of or recognition of the elapsed time… between death and the Rapture into “the presence of the Lord.” For “the dead in Christ” it will be as if we had immediately gone into “the presence of the Lord.”

Jesus Himself called the unconscious state of the “dead” believing Israelites such as Lazarus, “sleep” (cf. Jn 11:11-14). Jesus said, “Lazarus sleepeth” (v11), then He afterward plainly, said “Lazarus is dead” (v. 14).

There is nothing in the thirteen epistles of Paul that say any of the dead will “sleep” in “the presence of the Lord” immediately upon death. The very last installment of this series addresses the common mistaken idea that dead believers will immediately dwell “in the presence of the Lord.” Most get this erroneous idea from 2Cor 5:8-9. But if we read this in context we will see that only those alive at His coming, at the Rapture, will be immediately “absent from” their old sin-laden corruptible bodies and proceed directly into “the presence of the Lord” without dying; yet taking on their new glorious incorruptible spirit-bodies in the process of being ‘Raptured.’

We of this age of grace, as all the dead believers of all ages, assuming we die before He comes, will one day hear His voice and “awaken” from “the grave” going immediately unto “everlasting life” in heaven.

“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle (body) were dissolved (decayed), we have a building of God, an house (body) not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

The grave is a where the physically decaying bodies of those who have died are temporarily deposited until their accompanying “sleeping soul” is reawakened unto the resurrection. The “grave” can be a hole in the ground, a cave, the sea, or a vault or other place used for interment.

No matter though, because our spirit will have departed our body at death and returned “to the Lord who gave it” (Eccl 12:7), therewith the soul is immediately “asleep,” then having no consciousness of life or time in “the grave.” This all serves to emphasize man’s need of a Savior and His eternal life. After the 1^st death (the physical death) all the dead who sleep in “the grave” will reawaken by resurrection from “sleep.”