Destination Heaven

There is agreement among most Christians that believers will eventually go to heaven.  The disagreement is on the timing.  There are those that believe no one goes to heaven until the rapture occurs.

Philippians 1:21-24

²¹For to me to live is Messiah, and to die is gain. ²²But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. ²³For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Messiah; which is far better: ²⁴Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

For the believer, it is either life on earth or with the Lord in heaven, 2 Corinthians 5:1-3.

¹For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ²For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: ³If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

When the believer’s fleshly body dies, there is a new tabernacle a spiritual body waiting for them in heaven.  Believers will not be found naked. Again, it is either life on earth or in heaven with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:4-8.

⁴For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. ⁵Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. ⁶Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: ⁷(For we walk by faith, not by sight:) ⁸We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord

Paul states clearly, for the believer, it is either on earth or in heaven.  There is no intermediary waiting place, no transitory place, not even a purgatory.  When believers die, they go to heaven.  Believers are not waiting for the rapture to occur, that is for the physical bodies.

2 Peter 1:12-15

¹²Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. ¹³Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; ¹⁴Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Yeshua Messiah hath shewed me. ¹⁵Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

When the believer dies they go directly to heaven where they receive a spiritual body.  The believer follows the pattern of Yeshua.  Once in heaven, they wait for the resurrection of their physical body.

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