Since there is no conscious awareness in death, it doesn’t matter if ten billion years elapse before you are resurrected back to life. As far as your ability to know, to be aware, to realize anything is concerned as soon as you breathe out your last breath you are changed from mortal to immortal. Again, a great deal of time might pass between the moment your heart stops beating and you are resurrected in a marvelous spirit body, but, as far as you are concerned, as much as you can discern or perceive, your heart stops and in the next instant of awareness you live again regardless of how much time passes. If the resurrection occurs in the year 2045, those who died in 1765, or 1544, or 1924 will feel as though it is still the year, the month, the day on which they died!!!! It was this knowledge that prompted Paul to write, “For I am in a strait (difficult place) betwixt (between) two (desires or choices), having a desire to depart (this present physical existence), and to be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippines 1:23). Paul knew and taught that there was no knowledge of passing time in death. The believer departs this life and, as far as their ability to know, discern, and comprehend, they are immediately with their Lord even though thousands of years will have passed between the moment of their breathing their last and their returning to life at the time of the resurrection of believers.
When Jesus Christ stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and cried out, “Lazarus, come forth,” the man had been dead for four days. Had he died on Monday, not in a coma, but conscious and knowing that it was a Monday, when Jesus resurrected him on Friday, Lazarus would have stepped out of the tomb fully expecting it to still be Monday. He would have been mystified to learn that it was now Friday! (Of course we don’t know what day of the week Lazarus died. We only know that he was dead for four days. See John 11:39-44).
It was probably this knowledge that prompted the apostle Paul to write that he was “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (See 2 Corinthians 5:8). Note well, that Paul did NOT say to be absent from the body IS to be present with the Lord. He knew a great deal of time might elapse between the moment of his death and the resurrection of believers. All he was saying was that he was not fearful of no longer having a physical, fleshly body, but was willing to be forever separated from a fleshly body and to be present with the Lord in an eternal, immortal spirit body. Paul had just explained that in these physical bodies we groan and are burdened as these physical bodies suffer disability and pain. (See 2 Corinthians 5:1-4). Paul looked forward to the day our mortality is swallowed up in life. And in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians Paul explained that this event would occur at the time of our resurrection – NOT at the moment of our death! Death is swallowed up in victory at the time of our resurrection – NOT at the moment we die!
Christ’s Servant (Galatians 10-12),
Donald Wiley