This came up in another thread, and I'm moving here to discuss in more depth. In particular
@JudgeRightly,
@Clete,
@Leatherneck, and
@Right Divider all made some response. I'll try to respond to each in time, but I'll start with JudgeRightly.
My position is that when someone is dead, they are dead--there's no life in them or any part of them, and they cease to function in any way and in any place, until they are resurrected. And I'll admit I'm kind of new to this position, and I want to think through it well. So it helps to have others argue the other side for me, to come to the best understanding possible, hopefully for all involved.
The others, assuming I'm right in grouping in the same camp, believe that when a person dies, his body ceases to function, but his spirit and soul are carried up to Jesus right away, if they are a believer, and to hell right away if they are not. (Please correct me if I've misstated that.)
The first of this was about Jesus, and His death, which I approach cautiously, knowing that He was not always a man, that He existed before He became a man, and that it might work differently for Him. I made a statement about death being the same as "ceasing to exist", and I believe that is possibly a decent way to think of men in general, but I don't know about whether it could apply to Christ, since He has both a human nature and a God nature.
Let's jump in:
Yes, and I would think His experience would be not just the same in death, but the same forevermore, except where His capabilities of God still exceed ours. I admit to some ignorance on that front--how does Jesus in heaven exist in a physical body and retain omnipresence, for instance? Does it speak to God's omnipresence, or are they different now that He has a forever human body?
I question whether His body was protected more than other humans that were raised within three days of death. I don't think you can extend scripture that far, but maybe.
The bible never says "He returned" to His body. It said "He was raised", like here:
[Act 2:24 KJV] Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Note that the pronoun "whom" is a personal pronoun, meaning it refers to Jesus, not to something that was NOT Jesus. If Jesus was still alive while separate from His body, then His body wasn't Him, it was something else. And if His body was all that was dead, then HE wasn't resurrected.
Here are some more (in no particular order) showing that HE was raised from the dead, not that His body was raised, or that He returned to His body:
[1Co 6:14 KJV] And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.
[Rom 1:4 KJV] And declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
[Rom 8:34 KJV] Who [is] he that condemneth? [It is] Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
[Rom 6:4 KJV] Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
This particular one emphasizes that without His being raised from the dead, we have no hope:
[Act 17:31 KJV] Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by [that] man whom he hath ordained; [whereof]
he hath given assurance unto all [men], in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Our assurance is based on His resurrection. Not on His continued life while He was dead. Not on His return to His body and His body's resurrection.
Your point is a good one, and perhaps "ceased to exist" is too strong. I'm even struggling with how to explain it, but the man Jesus was not alive when He was dead, was He? If so, then
He wasn't resurrected.
Compare to this:
[2Co 5:17 NKJV] Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ, [he is] a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
So, if all things have become new, then, at least in a sense, we cease to exist, and then we are recreated. Though this applies currently to us, it is also a picture of what is to come, since we know we still have an old man/sinful nature that is at odds with our will to do good.
"Hell" there is "Hades", which is rightfully translated "grave" in many places. It requires extra-biblical texts to make it say "the place of departed spirits in Greek mythology". And you add to scripture when you say "returned to his human body".
What is the "captivity" that he led captive, and when did it occur? Did it occur while He was in Hades, or when He rose from the dead. I would vote for the latter, and "captivity" as a euphemism for "death" or "the grave", since the person that is dead is unable to escape the grave. I can also see "the grave" as a euphemism for the state of death. These are not antithetical to scripture.
I'm not saying Jesus ceased having a human nature. I said He ceased to be alive. And I don't know how that works for God's son who has existed for eternity. I do know that "He is, He was, and He is to come", which tells us, possibly, that "He wasn't" between the "He is" and the "He was". That seems to be the meaning of the verse--that He was alive, then He was dead, and then He became alive again. These are "existence" words.
[Rev 1:8 KJV] I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
No, you're right. You have a different problem, in that He didn't really die. It was just a piece of flesh that died. And if
He didn't die, then
He wasn't resurrected. And if He wasn't resurrected from the dead, then we have no hope, according to Paul. Yet we know that
He was resurrected.
Are you saying that people are made in hell?
[Psa 139:15 KJV] My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, [and] curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
But the people are not dead. A contract may be dead. Are you saying we now need to add another category of death, "contractually dead".
So we have
1. Physical death
2. Spiritual death
3. Contractual death.
And I think you (maybe someone else??) that Jesus was neither spiritually nor physically dead when He cried out to God about being forsaken. So I guess He was contractually dead. Can you see that such is leading us to all kinds of weird theology?
So, if you read your bolded part in your last paragraph, it says "thus" we shall always be with the Lord. In that usage it means, "according to what I wrote above, we shall always be with the Lord." So, according to that, we won't be with the Lord UNTIL that rapture--the trumpet will sound, then the dead will rise first, then we shall be caught up with them to all meet the Lord in the air. A normal understanding of the given chronology would say that if the trumpet hasn't yet sounded, and we who are alive haven't been caught up yet, then the event between those two events also hasn't taken place, so the dead in Christ are NOT with the Lord, because they aren't with the Lord until we are with the Lord.
Regarding "to die is gain", I agree that it is a little tricky to see it as a gain, if he's not immediately with the Lord. Yet, think about it from his point of view. He dies, and the next thing knows (since the dead do not know anything) is when he is next alive--he'll be rising up in the air to meet the Lord. So it's a gain--there's no more pain or sorrow.
[Ecc 9:5 KJV] For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
[Ecc 9:6 KJV] Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any [thing] that is done under the sun.
Remember your citation, that says they are the "dead in Christ". So Paul recognizes that they are dead, and Ecclesiastes says the dead don't know anything. So how is it a gain for Paul to be with Christ if he doesn't even know that he is with Christ.
Which is the better gain, to be with Christ and not know it, or to not be with Christ and not know it?
Have you ever seen a body after a few years in the grave? They don't look like they're asleep anymore.
I agree that the euphemism "sleep" equals "dead". Jesus made that clear when talking about Lazarus. And Lazarus began to stink, so that Martha didn't want to go look at his body. So, I can see your side of the euphemism for a few days, and then I have to move to the other side of the euphemism.
