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Where does man go when he/she dies?
First of all, we should know that man is made of three parts.
1 Thes 5:23 (KJV) "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Here we see man's three parts.
Genesis 2:7(KJV) "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being(literally 'soul')."
Here we see man's body is made of dust of the ground, and man's soul, i.e, man's very self or being is the outcome of the breath of life entering into man's body.
And also we can see the breath of life that entered into man's body settled in to become his spirit.
What is man's spirit? It is nothing but the breath of eternal God, and man is the only creature having the breath of eternal God within, making his being, his soul immortal.
Therefore, though man's body decays in death, man's being(soul) whose innermost part is his spirit stays.
Now let's see where man's soul goes after his physical death, the soul that is etenally sustained because of his spirit, the breath of eternal God.
Many people mistakenly and traditionally think man goes to heaven when he dies. Now let's see what the Bible says on this important matter.
Luke 16:19-31(NSAV;New American Standard Version)
"Now there was a certain rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, gaily living in splendor every day. "And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the [crumbs] which were falling from the rich man's table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores.
"Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. "
And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and *saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. "And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.'
"But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. '
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and [that] none may cross over from there to us.' "And he said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father's house-- for I have five brothers-- that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment. '
But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' "But he said, 'No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!' "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.'"
This is not a parable but a real story which Christ the Son of God saw before he bacame a man thru His incarnation. By this story we know that the dead are contained in Hades, not heaven. Hades is bisected by a chasm into two section, one being the comforting section and the other the tormenting section. The chasm is too wide for man to jump over but close enough to see and talk to each other.
Let’s see another verse.
Rev 20:11-15(NSAV)
And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one [of them] according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
When the Lord Jesus Christ comes for the 2nd time, He will establish His thousand year kingdom on the earth (not in heaven) to recover the damaged earth, at the end of which, He will sit on a great white throne to judge the dead(unbelieving souls) according to the books of their deeds done while they were alive.
Many Bible teachers conjecture that demons are the intellectual and spiritual creatures that might have lived in the preadamic earth, the earth before Adam and Eve whose top representive was the Archangel who later became Satan because of his rebellion against God, and that might have been judged by God because of their joining Satan in his rebellion against the Creator, because of which God disembodied them and covered them with the waters, with what is now the oceans. On their judgment day, the sea in which the demons are held will give them up, the preadamic dead(They are called the dead, though living, because in God's sight they are dead, for they are doomed to perish.), and death and Hades(Death and Hades go together all the time, for the former is the reaper and the latter the container.) will give the human dead that they may be judged by the Lord Jesus, the Righteous Judge and be cast into the lake of fire which is the 2nd death. The judgment at the great white throne that will take place at the end of the millennial kingdom will be only for the dead, those who are doomed for eternal perdition, and has nothing to do with the judgment on the believers, God's elect.
Believers of Jesus will be judged at the beginning of the Millennial kingdom which only those overcoming ones will be allowed to enter for joy with the Master Jesus(The Joyful part of the 1000 year kingdom is called Paradise as in Revelation 2:7)
Rev2:7(NSAV) 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the
while the failing believers will be sent to another place for a thousand year make-up class where there will be much weeping and the gnashing of teeth. They will not eternally perish, but suffer for their lacking maturity for 1000 years.
Matt 8:12(NSAV) 'but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Every dead soul, believing, or unbelieving, will go, not to heaven as people hope, but to Hades, where the believing souls wait in its comfort zone, and the unbelieving ones in its torment zone until they get to stand before Christ's judgment seat which will be at the beginning of the millennial kingdom for the believers, and at its end for the unbelievers.
Therefore, the comfort zone of Hades which Jesus, when dying on the cross, mentioned as Paradise(Luke 23:43(NSAV) 'And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in
Those not believing in the Lord Jesus as their Savior will remain 1000 years longer in the tormenting zone of Hades, suffering in flames till they are cast into the lake of fire eternally after judgment at the great white throne.
By then Hades will have been completely emptied out, so the Lord Jesus will cast it into the lake of fire, where Satan with all fallen angels, the demons, and the humans who didn't accept the Lord Jesus as their Redeemer and Savior will torment for ever.
By these verses we know that Hades is a temporary encampment for the dead. All those not believing in the Lord Jesus in His person and works will eventually be cast into the lake of fire that has no exit for eternity, where they will suffer for ever, because their soul with their spirit is immortal.
Finally let’s see where is Hades. Hades is a Greek in which the New Testament Bible is written(many English users err by rendering it as hell according to their traditional concept, but Hell whose Greek is Tartarus is the place somewhere under the sea containing some naughty fallen angels who married human daughters at the days of Noah, not the place containing the human dead, because the human dead are contained in Hades as in Luke's Gospel 16).
1 Peter 3:19(NSAV) 'in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison(literally Tartarus)'
Hades in Greek equals Sheol in Hebrew in which the Old Testament Bible is written.
Genesis 37:35(NSAV) "And he said, "Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son." So his father wept for him.(42:38,44:29, 31)"
The verse says the way to Sheol is downward, not upward.
Matt12: 40(NSAV) "for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
Jesus went, in His death, down to Hades that is in the heart of the earth, not in heaven.
Numbers 16:32-33(NSAV) "Then it came about as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah, with [their] possessions. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly."
This story clearly shows that Sheol is not in heaven but in the midst of the earth. Therefore, man doesn’t go to heaven when he/she dies, but goes down into the earth, into Hades where they will be kept for a while; the believers till the Lord comes back and the unbelievers till the Millennial kingdom nears toward its end.
The unbelieving will suffer in the lake of fire for ever, and the believers will live on the renewed earth under the renewed sky as Christ's Bride for mutual satisfaction and for reigning over the entire universe for eternity.
Rev 21:5 And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He *said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true."
Rev 21:9 And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I shall show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there arose loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become [the kingdom] of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever'
Rev22:5 'And there shall no longer be [any] night; and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them; and they shall reign forever and ever.'

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글씨가 커서 시원시원하네요. 위 글의 자매 글에 해당되는 것 민하 형제님 블러그에 올려져 있는 거 같던데 여기 답글로 가져다 놓을까요? 음식점이든 옷 가게든 옹기 종기 모여있으면 장사가 잘 되는 면도 있더라구요. 혹시 먹거리 파는 식당이 많이 몰려 있는 골목을 뭐라고 부르는지 아셔요? 네 자입니다.^^ 00 골목
그렇게 해 주시면 더욱 도움이 될 것 같습니다. 00골목처럼...
죽었다가 깬 사람중에 천국에 대해 말하는 자들이 더러 있지만 말이 다 다르더이다!