• By portraying the rich man as lost and the beggar as gone to heaven, this burst the then-held popular opinion-bubble that wealth necessarily comes from God, and that poverty equals God’s judgment against a person.

• The rich man called out to Abraham as his father. The Jews of that day were convinced the link to Abraham was an assurance of salvation. Jesus, through the parable, makes it clear that a birthright connected to Abraham doesn’t save.

• That leads to Jesus’ main point of the parable. He wanted the Pharisees to understand that genuine repentance that leads to eternal life comes by, not witnessing miracles, but by faithfully adhering  to the word of God; in this case represented by Moses and the prophets.

Luke 23: 43—“Truly I [Jesus] say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.” Based on this, doesn’t it mean that the thief that Jesus is speaking to immediately went to heaven that day?

Though the Bible is inspired, its punctuation is not. Originally written, there wasn’t any punctuation. The words ran together. Centuries later, translators divided the text with punctuation, creating sentences and paragraphs.

The comma in the above verse should’ve been placed after “today” and written as “Truly I say to you today, you will be with Me in paradise.” This is the correct version, proved by Jesus’ statement to Mary on Sunday morning. In John 20: 17, He said to her, “I am not yet ascended to My Father.” Jesus did not go to heaven on that previous Friday at His death; nor did the thief.

2 Corinthians 5: 8— “… prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Clearly, this indicates instant transference to heaven, doesn’t it?

When one dies there isn’t a consciousness of time passing by. What Paul is saying is that when the saints’ eyes are opened after death, the first thing seen is the Lord.  A person, righteous or unrighteous, could be dead for six thousand years, and when the resurrection occurs, and his or her eyes are opened, it will seem as though only an instant has gone by.

I Peter 4: 6—“For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.” This says that the gospel was taken to the grave and preached to dead people, meaning their souls lived, doesn’t it?

No! The context is that the gospel “was” preached to them during their lifetimes when they were then able to follow God’s ways.

I Peter 3: 18-20— “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient, when the patience of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved through the water.” Isn’t this saying that Jesus went and preached to lost souls in hell between the time of His crucifixion and resurrection?

This passage says that Jesus preached through the Holy Spirit in Noah’s day to the spirits who were then living. The “spirits in prison” refers to people who were bound by Satan; living people held captive, as attested to in Isaiah 42: 6, 7 and Luke 4:18.

Rev. 6: 9, 10—…I saw underneath the [heavenly] altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God….and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long O Lord…will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Doesn’t this show that souls do not die and are now living in heaven?

This is figurative, symbolic language, from which most of the book of Revelation is comprised. It is written in the same figurative way as is the cry of Abel’s blood in Genesis 4:10, “…What have you done [God asks Cain]? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”

The souls in the Revelation passage are a reference to people who had been slain for their faith, but who remain in the grave. To think that people are literally living under an altar is absurd.

The State of the Dead

When a person dies, the body turns to dust again, and the spirit returns to God. There isn’t some conscious entity with a memory and feelings floating around somewhere with knowledge of and participation in anything that’s going on among the living here on earth nor in heaven. The dead don’t know anything. (Ecclesiastes 9: 5, 6, 10; Psalm 115: 17; Job 14: 21).

Stories about ghostly hauntings; spirits returning from the dead; and mediums talking to the dead are really encounters with fallen angels (demons) who have an agenda to bring people into and trap them in the occult.

Death, in the Bible, is spoken of as a kind of unconscious sleep. This is confirmed by the lips of Jesus; “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, then he will recover.”  Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought He had spoken of literal sleep. So Jesus then spoke to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” John 11: 11-14.

Throughout the Bible, the dead are alluded to as having fallen asleep, e.g., Dan. 12: 2; Job 14: 12; 1 Thess. 4: 15; 2 Peter 3: 4. Probably, the Lord chose to call it a “sleep” because all who die will awaken from this first death—some to life, in the first resurrection; others to condemnation, in the second resurrection.

With the exception of Moses and Jesus, there are none who’ve died who are now in heaven. Nor is there any who have died who are now in hell. They are all asleep in their graves awaiting their resurrections.

The Apostle Peter drove this point home to those who were confused about the state of the dead during his time. Speaking about one of Israel’s greatest – the man after God’s own heart – Peter explained that King David hadn’t ascended to heaven, but that he was still in his grave

The Afterlife

The righteous who have fallen asleep in Jesus will be resurrected upon the second coming of Jesus (I Thessalonians 4: 16). At that point, they will be given incorruptible, immortal bodies (I Corinthians 15: 52, 53).

Incidentally, the resurrection wouldn’t have any purpose if people were taken to heaven at the moment of their death. The resurrection is to fulfill Jesus’ promise to return and take the righteous to heaven where He abides (John 14: 2, 3).

The unrighteous, who of course are unsaved, are resurrected a thousand years later to face their judgment of condemnation into the lake of fire (Revelation 20: 5, 15; 21: 8). This resurrection, too, wouldn’t make any sense or have a purpose if people were thrown into hellfire at the moment of their deaths.

The Second Death

Revelation 2: 11; 20: 6, 14; 21: 8 speak of the unsaved as perishing in the “lake of fire,” which is identified as the second death. From this death, there isn’t a resurrection; it is eternal death. It is the one that Jesus tasted for all mankind, of which the saved won’t have to face.

The second death is the wages of sin.