Hi Mike,

I just recently came across your website, and I’ve been so blessed thus far. I must thank God for empowering you to do the great work He is doing through you. Of the many truths your website has exposed me to, the one that I’m still chewing on is implication of the truth about “hell”. I absolutely agree with you that our loving Father would not subject any of His creation to eternal damnation as many of us were taught. However, in the revelation of this truth, I have just one question (but several within that one) that I could not find answers to and I pray God would use you once more to answer them: a) What happens when someone dies? b) What happens to their “consciousness”? c) Since we that have actually given our lives to Christ “die in faith of the promise”, am I correct to think that the likes of Paul and others that died believing in Jesus would be part of the first resurrection?
Using the seen to understand the unseen, is the answer to this series of questions “Death for a believer would be just like falling asleep, and waking up to Christ?” Just that this time we would awaken in a spiritual body? Is this what the apostle Paul was revealing in 1Co 15:51-52?
Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you. God bless you, keep on the good work, and I pray that Jesus Christ would continue giving you the grace, wisdom and revelation to help those like us who are still “young” in this exciting walk with Him.

E____

Hi E____, Thank you for your questions. You ask:

1a) What happens when someone dies? b) What happens to their “consciousness”? c) Since we that have actually given our lives to Christ “die in faith of the promise”, am I correct to think that the likes of Paul and others that died believing in Jesus would be part of the first resurrection?
Using the seen to understand the unseen, Is the answer to this series of questions “Death for a believer would be just like falling asleep, and waking up to Christ?” Just that this time we would awaken in a spiritual body? Is this what the apostle Paul was revealing in 1Co 15:51-52?

I will answer your questions in the order you ask them.
1a) What happens when someone dies?

The answer is as you surmise. When any believer dies, it is “just like falling asleep, and waking up in Christ… just that this time we… awaken in a spiritual body”. You are exactly right. The fact is that this is the case for all who die and not just believers. Adam himself is completely unaware that six thousand years have passed since he was created. He has been lying unconscious in the dust of the earth all this time. God however, has us all “hid with Christ in God”.

Col 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Col 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

These verses are addressed to those who know Christ now, but they apply to all men because:

2Sa 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

For the benefit of all who think that what God wills for all men, is but a wistful longing, He has given us to know:

Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.
1Ti 4:9 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
1Ti 4:11 These things command and teach.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

There are great advantages to being raised up in the first resurrection. Advantages like these:

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

The second death is the lake of fire:

Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

This, on the other hand, is what happens to those who are resurrected before the thousand years begins:

Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

“Thrones” are given to those who are resurrected at the beginning of the thousand years, “and they live and reign with Christ a thousand years”. This, along with the judgment we are now the first to endure, is what Paul refers to in this verse of scripture:

1Co 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

This verse is dealing with the internal affairs of those who are within the fellowship of “the church which is His body” (Col 1:24). We are not, at this time, to be judging “them that are without”.

1Co 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
1Co 5:13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Not one person in a thousand believes that we are to “judge them that are within”. Nevertheless, the fact is that “all things come alike to all”, and there is but “one event to all”.

Ecc 9:2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

That “one event” is that all men will experience fiery trials and be judged for how they have lived their lives.

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day [ of judgment] shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Judgment is chastening. It is for no other purpose:

1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

The only difference between those who are being judged in this life, and are either “changed in a moment”, or are resurrected at the beginning of the thousand years, and those who are raised in the great white throne judgment, which is also called “the lake of fire”, is a matter of timing. Judgment is what is taking place in both resurrections, but those who are first resurrected are the first to be judged by the very same symbolic ‘fire’. “Every man’s works will be judged by fire”, but God’s elect, His firstfruits are being judged in this life, and will be resurrected before the thousand years begins:

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Those who are in the first resurrection are those upon whom God’s “scourging, fiery… judgments” rest in this age. Those who are in the second resurrection, are not being judged in this age, and will therefore be raised up in the second resurrection and will at that time endure the fiery judgments of the “great white throne… judgment… [ at] the second death”.
I hope all these verses of scripture have served to answer your questions: “1a) What happens when someone dies? b) What happens to their “consciousness”?”
The answer is that when a person dies, his spirit returns to God. Not as a personality, rather it is like the turning off of a lightbulb. When the electricity is withdrawn, the light dies, and that “light” in scripture is the understanding and consciousness of us all:

Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

You continue: “… am I correct to think that the likes of Paul and others that died believing in Jesus would be part of the first resurrection?”
Yes, that is exactly what will happen to all who have “died in Christ”.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike