Where does the soul go after you die? I have heard things like you are basically sleeping until God returns?

Question

I have heard numerous things like the soul sleeps until God returns in the second coming. I know that when God comes back He'll raise the "bodies" of the deceased but does anyone know what happens for sure?

ONLY SERIOUS ANSWERS PLEASE!!!

I believe that when you die your soul goes to either Heaven or Hell but when exactly does that happen?

I've seen some pretty interesting answers all ready. If we have no soul how come we know right from wrong? If we have no soul what is our real reason for being on this earth? To do what? Live, rott and die?

I am a Christian not a very good one but I believe that their is a God (God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) all one!!! And I believe He died on the cross I also believe that their is a Heaven and a Hell and that God is returning very soon. I'm just curious about the rest.

Answer 1

I believe your spirit goes to God and you are judged immediately upon physical death.

I believe the physical body returns to dust as it was made of dust.

I believe we receive a glorified, uncorrupted body which is united with our spirit at the return of Christ. Believers are then resurrected, body and spirit.


you said...
"I am a Christian not a very good one but I believe that their is a God (God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) all one!!! And I believe He died on the cross I also believe that their is a Heaven and a Hell and that God is returning very soon. I'm just curious about the rest."

If you understand these truths then you are a far better Christian then you realize. Don't knock yourself. There is much we can't know until it is time.

Answer 2

My very serious answer to you would be, what is a soul?
How do you define it?
How do you know a soul exists, and can you prove that?

If your "soul" is represented by your mind, your sense of self, then is a part of the soul destroyed when people suffer brain injuries?, Certainly the mind seems to go. To science, mind seems to be an emergent phenomena when you have enough neurons interconnecting with other neurons. With larger and larger brains relative to body mass, at some threshold, self awareness emerges. Religious people sometimes define soul similarly to mind, but some claim it is yet another "life essence" quality. There is no evidence for that.

You are making several unproven assumptions in your question such as the existence of God, and a "soul" that somehow survives your physical death. Reminder, hope/faith/belief are not evidence.

NOBODY knows what happens for sure...I don't profess to, only the believers will tell you with absolute (unproven) certainty what happens after death. Nobody....let me say that again...NOBODY has ever come back from the dead to tell us if there is an afterlife of some sort.

Anything else is religious opinion and metaphysical speculation.

EDIT:
What does a "soul" have to do with a moral sense? There are very good evolutionary reasons for morality, Richard Dawkins goes into it in some detail in The God Delusion, which is a book I think all Christians should read. Even if it doesn't change your belief in a god, it should help you to understand why many of us don't share your beliefs.

Also, I've noticed it is only religious people that have this need for life to have "meaning". Why does life have to mean something? Why can't it just be, because it is? It's not that difficult a concept.
I am much more comfortable with that view on life, then the thought that the purpose of my life is to die, and sing the praises of the deity who created me to die, for eternity.....what is the point of that?????

Answer 3

Well, I will let you know that in my opinion, everyone who has lived on the earth goes to the same place. I believe that Jesus Christ Himself referred to it when He was on the cross, when He called it "paradise." In my opinion, paradise is a big part of the spirit world, and it is where those who have sufficient knowledge of Jesus Christ to have used His Atonement to repent of their sins may go to keep learning and growing and living. There is another part of the spirit world called spirit prison, but it is not anything like the awful prisons down here on earth. Instead, it is a place where people who have not learned about how to apply the Atonement go. This is not the Final Judgment, but there is a preliminary judgment of sorts. If you think of God as our Heavenly Father, you know that fathers would not expect their children to literally sleep for years until some big event, in this case, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Children keep learning and growing and maturing, which you see all around you. This mortal life is the time to prepare to meet God, and the Second Coming is not as far away as it used to be. In my opinion, as a Mormon, Jesus Christ's Atonement has already initiated the Resurrection. He was the first fruits of those who slept, but "slept" here is a euphemism referring to those who have died (same with "passed away"). In my opinion, because I have read the Book of Mormon, I believe that many faithful believers were resurrected at the time Jesus Christ was resurrected. That can be found in 3 Nephi 23:11 "And Jesus said unto them: How be it that ye have not written this thing, that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them?" The first and greatest Resurrection of the Just is still in the future, however, after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. What you might want to do, if you want to get an idea of how glorious the resurrection is going to be, is watch the end of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" when the beast is revived and turned into a prince once more, with stunning shafts of light coming out through his fingertips. That may or may not be how the resurrection process is, but it gives you a good idea of the nature of God's light and love in the process of eliminating physical corruption, death, and disease. I will tell you that my father had a near-death experience almost exactly 2 years ago, and he does remember a few things from what happened, including seeing at least 1 family member who died, and who appeared to be in the prime of life. He was not allowed to remember everything, however, because this life is meant to be lived by faith and not sure knowledge. If you are interested in studying more, I would get the Bible and the Book of Mormon and read more (New Testament in Bible is good). There are also many good books on the subject, like Betty Eadie's "Embraced by the Light." Hope this helps, and I send you a virtual gummy bear.

Answer 4

When you die your body and your spirit separate. Your spirit goes through a kind of pre-judgement and goes to the Spirit World. The Spirit World is divided into two parts, Paradise and Hell. Paradise is for those that lived righteously in this life. Hell is for those that did not. There is the possibility that for those in Hell to repent and move into Paradise. Upon Jesus' Second Coming all spirits, but good and bad, will resurrect into bodies that will never die again. At one point or another everyone will then go through the Final Judgement and be assigned their kingdom of glory.

Answer 5

Soul Sleep teachs that when a person dies his soul ceases to exist. On the final judgment day he is brought back to life and judged. This is not a heresy, only an error of interpretation. The Bible is not specific on the condition of the person between death and resurrection. However, there are scriptures that strongly suggest man's continued self-awareness and continued existence after death (Luke 16:19-31; 2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-23).

Answer 6

Let's see what God's word says on this matter.
What does the Bible say that helps us to understand what the soul is?
Gen. 2:7: “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Notice that this does not say that man was given a soul but that he became a soul, a living person.)

Is the soul the same as the spirit?
Eccl. 12:7: “Then the dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit [or, life-force; Hebrew, ru´ach] itself returns to the true God who gave it.” (Notice that the Hebrew word for spirit is ru´ach; but the word translated soul is ne´phesh. The text does not mean that at death the spirit travels all the way to the personal presence of God; rather, any prospect for the person to live again rests with God. In similar usage, we may say that, if required payments are not made by the buyer of a piece of property, the property “returns” to its owner.)

Heb. 4:12: “The word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul [Greek, psy·khes´; “life,” NE] and spirit [Greek, pneu´ma·tos], and of joints and their marrow, and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Observe that the Greek word for “spirit” is not the same as the word for “soul.”)
Does conscious life continue for a person after the spirit leaves the body?
Ps. 146:4: “His spirit [Hebrew, from ru´ach] goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.

Answer 7

Jesus Christ spoke about the condition of the dead. He did so with regard to Lazarus, a man whom he knew well and who had died. Jesus told his disciples: “Lazarus our friend has gone to rest.” The disciples thought that Jesus meant that Lazarus was resting in sleep, recovering from an illness. They were wrong. Jesus explained: “Lazarus has died.” (John 11:11-14) Notice that Jesus compared death to rest and sleep. Lazarus was neither in heaven nor in a burning hell. He was not meeting angels or ancestors. Lazarus was not being reborn as another human. He was at rest in death, as though in a deep sleep without dreams. Other scriptures also compare death to sleep. For example, when the disciple Stephen was stoned to death, the Bible says that he “fell asleep.” (Acts 7:60) Similarly, the apostle Paul wrote about some in his day who had “fallen asleep” in death.


The Bible teaches that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” They are not alive and have no conscious existence anywhere. The account of Lazarus confirms this. Upon returning to life, did Lazarus thrill people with descriptions of heaven? Or did he terrify them with horrible tales about a burning hell? No. The Bible contains no such words from Lazarus. During the four days that he was dead, he had been “conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) Lazarus had simply been sleeping in death. John 11:11.
The account of Lazarus also teaches us that the resurrection is a reality, not a mere myth. Jesus raised Lazarus in front of a crowd of eyewitnesses. Even the religious leaders, who hated Jesus, did not deny this miracle.

Think about this too: If Lazarus had been in heaven for those four days, would he not have said something about it? And if he had been in heaven, would Jesus have made him come back to earth from that wonderful place? Of course not!

Yet, many people say that we have a soul, and they say that the soul lives on after the body dies. They say that Lazarus’ soul was alive somewhere. But the Bible does not say that. It says that God made the first man Adam “a living soul.” Gen. 2:7, Adam was a soul. The Bible also says that when Adam sinned, he died. He became a “dead soul,” and he returned to the dust from which he had been made. The Bible also says that all Adam’s offspring inherited sin and death too.

The Scriptural teaching of the resurrection, however, is not compatible with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. If an immortal soul survived death, no one would need to be resurrected, or brought back to life. Indeed, Martha expressed no thought about an immortal soul that was living on elsewhere after death. She did not believe that Lazarus had already gone to some spirit realm to continue his existence. On the contrary, she showed her faith in God’s purpose to reverse the effects of death. She said: “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:23, 24) Likewise, Lazarus himself related no experiences of some afterlife. There was nothing to report.

Clearly, according to the Bible, the soul dies and the remedy for death is the resurrection. You enjoy the best sleep ever, until Jesus resurrects you, sometime in the future.

Answer 8

This is just my opinion, it doesn't have to be true, but common sense is what we use to discover answers in our lives...

Remember what God said, " World without end."

This means the world has no end and is continuous. This is true, because Jesus Christ paid for this possibility. However, God, Jesus Christ's father, was going to destory the world and put an end to it, but Jesus Christ paid for the continuance of the world by giving up his life for our sins...

In fact, God comes for the world everyday when one dies. As soon as your soul leaves your body you'll be judged by God and put to where you belong.

Also, I observed to this song " You have to go all by yourself."

This song means you won't have anyone to go with you on your way to meet God. This is true, because if God comes for the world for everyone at once, then you will have company with you... But God said " World without end."

So, I personally believe once you die you'll be judged by God immediately. In other words, you will meet God after your soul leaves your body...

Yes, there is a place such as heaven and Hell. Why do I think so? Because for people to born and die just like that without going no where is plain nonsense. Why do we born and die? There's more to that, and we can only elaborate after death.

Answer 9

Paradise

Death is inevitable. The thief on the cross knew when his would occur, but we can not predict our own. After his death, the crucified criminal went to live in paradise with Jesus. Some of us will also live eternally in God's presence. But others will experience everlasting torment, forever separated from Him.
If we receive Jesus as our Savior, our penalty for sin is paid. We are adopted into God's family, and Heaven is our eternal home. If we reject Jesus, we remain alienated from the Lord and under condemnation for our sin. We are destined to experience eternal judgment. God won't accept any of man's excuses because there is no acceptable defense for unbelief. (Acts 4:12)

Answer 10

Immediately after death, the soul is judged. If the person is in a state of grace, the soul undergoes a final purification (Purgatory) before entering Heaven. If the person is NOT in a state of grace, they go to Hell.

People who say that the sould sleeps until Christ's second coming are ignoring the parable of the rich man and lazarus.