Bible in general (Archive 1)

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Bible Question: when we die, do we go immediately to be with the Lord? i know that the Bible says to be absent from thr body is to be present with the lord, but then why would we come back to our bodies to rise and meet jesus in the air?

Bible Answer: Hello Pam,

I don’t believe your question got the attention it deserved so I will attempt to answer it for you.
You answered your first question. We do go directly to be with the Lord but notice the first part of that verse, 2Cor 5:8 "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord". KJV

To be absent from the body:
This means that when we die, our spirit leaves the body to be with Jesus. Now when Jesus comes back to rapture the Church, the dead in Christ will rise first. The Spirit of the dead in Christ will rejoin their bodies (The body cannot live without the Spirit. James 2:26) and the mortal body will become an immortal body, an incorruptible body; a spiritual body.
Just as Jesus' body laid in the grave for 3 days as his Spirit was in Paradise (he was preaching to the Old Testament Saints.1 Peter 4:6). When he was raised from the grave, his Spirit reentered his body and this is how it will be during the Rapture.

Read 1 Corinthians 15 but I will post verses 42 -54 in the Amplified version.
42) “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. [The body] that is sown is perishable and decays, but [the body] that is resurrected is imperishable (immune to decay, immortal).
43) It is sown in dishonor and humiliation; it is raised in honor and glory. It is sown in infirmity and weakness; it is resurrected in strength and endued with power.
44) It is sown a natural (physical) body; it is raised a supernatural (a spiritual) body. [As surely as] there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
45) Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].
46) But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual.
47) The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven.
48) Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded).
49) And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven.
50) But I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot [become partakers of eternal salvation and] inherit or share in the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable (that which is decaying) inherit or share in the imperishable (the immortal).
51) Take notice! I tell you a mystery (a secret truth, an event decreed by the hidden purpose or counsel of God). We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (transformed)
52) In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sound of the] last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable (free and immune from decay), and we shall be changed (transformed).
53) For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us, this nature that is capable of dying] must put on immortality (freedom from death).
54) And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says, Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished (forever) in and unto victory."

Hope this helps.

Your brother in Christ,
bgg