Where Do We Go When We Die?

For those of us who’ve lost loved ones or faced serious health issues, we can’t help but wonder about life after death. Where do we go when we die? And how do we know? What about heaven and hell? Are they real? And are they immediate?

It seems like every religion, culture, and scientist says something different.

But God doesn’t leave us guessing about where we go when we die, despite the speculation.

The Bible says we don’t go anywhere after we die—at least not right away. All human beings stay in the grave in a sleep-like state until one of two resurrections. At Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, He’ll raise those who accepted His gift of eternal life. And 1,000 years later (after the Millennium), He’ll raise those who rejected eternal life with God.

But that can still be a lot to process. So let’s unpack this whole concept and look to the Bible for the rest of the answers:

• Do we “go” anywhere after we die?
• Will there eventually be life after death?
• Do we have a choice in where we go?

Let’s start by exploring what Scripture actually says about what happens after death.

So, where do we go? Is there life after death?

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Many religions believe we go straight to heaven or “hell” when we die, and that our souls will exist separately from our bodies.

Or that we enter an in-between state of “purgatory” for purification before entering heaven.

Or that we start another round of life, but with a new “vessel” and new life circumstances.

But the Bible says that when we die, we rest in the grave. We’re totally unaware and unconscious until Jesus resurrects us at His Second Coming or after the Millennium.

Here’s one part of Scripture that describes the resurrection of the dead at the Second Coming:

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.

 

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

 

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, ESV).

It says God “will bring” the dead to life, as in, sometime in the future.

Let’s look at a few examples of death described as sleep:

• “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20, ESV).

  Jesus died on the Cross, came back to life, and returned to heaven. And because of His sacrifice, He’ll return to us one day, wake up those who died while aligned with Him, and take them to heaven.

• “After saying these things, He said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.’ The disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died’” (John 11:11-14, ESV).

  Lazarus was in the grave, “asleep” in death, when Jesus resurrected him. Jesus didn’t refer to Lazarus as being in heaven. And when He brought Lazarus back to life, He didn’t tell him to come down from heaven, but to “come out” of the tomb (John 11:43).

  It’s also worth noting that no one who was brought to life in the Bible—Lazarus included—reported seeing anything after death.

  If they had gone to heaven or even had an out-of-body experience, they likely would have mentioned it. Yet the Bible gives no account.

• “Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David” (1 Kings 2:10, ESV).

  This explains that even David, a “man after [God’s] own heart,” is in the ground here on Earth until Jesus returns. That’s why the Apostle Peter explained, “David did not ascend into the heavens” when he died (Acts 2:34, ESV).

  And the Bible specifically mentions the rare exceptions of humans who are in heaven, like Enoch (Genesis 5:24), Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), and possibly Moses (Matthew 17:3).

• “And falling to his knees [Stephen] cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he had said this, He fell asleep” (Acts 7:60, ESV).

  We know this “sleep” describes death, because the Bible calls this an “execution” (Acts 8:1, ESV).

• “Everyone was crying and mourning for her. But he said, “Stop crying, because she is not dead but asleep. They laughed at Him, because they knew she was dead” (Luke 8:52-53, CSB).

  People in Jesus’ day (like in our day) struggled to understand death described as sleep. Yet, that’s how Jesus often described it.

• “Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt” (Daniel 12:2, CSB).

  Even this Old Testament prophecy says that when we die, we return to the dust—where God first formed Adam. And we’ll awake (that is, come back to life) at either the resurrection of the saved or the resurrection of the unsaved.

For some of us reading this, the idea of resting in the grave until Jesus returns is a new concept. And it can leave us with a lot of questions.

For example, what about the beliefs that our souls leave our physical body when we die? Or that we go straight to heaven or an eternally burning hell?

Let’s talk through a few Bible verses to help answer those:

• Hebrews 12:1 talks about “a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us” (CSB). Some interpret these witnesses as the souls of those who’ve departed and watch from above. But many Bible historians disagree. They note that the word “witnesses” here actually refers to the testimony of those who lived faithful lives before us, recorded in Hebrews 11. The accounts of their lives in the Bible stand as witnesses to us—encouragement on our own journeys of faith.¹

• Luke 16:19-31 is another passage sometimes used to support the idea of immediate life after death, separate souls, or an eternally burning hell. But it’s important to note that this was a parable. And when Jesus told parables, it was to give object lessons—not literal accounts of events. This parable even mentions a location in the “bosom of Abraham,” which is clearly symbolic rather than a literal place.

  But what about “Hades” mentioned in verse 23? Does it refer to an eternally burning hell where we end up if we don’t believe in Jesus?

  Here’s how professor of theology Robert M. Johnston, Ph.D, puts it:

  “While awaiting the resurrection, the sleeping dead are not in heaven, but in Hades, which must (like Sheol in nonfigurative passages) mean the grave.”²

  In short, “Hades” was a word that biblical authors used to reference “the grave.” That’s why Jesus said, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18, ESV).

  In the parable of Luke, Jesus doesn’t seem to be describing a literal afterlife, but warning the religious leaders that the decisions we make in this life become final when we die and enter the grave.³

• Revelation 6:9-10 speaks of the souls of those who died for Christ crying out to God from under an altar. But the language used in Revelation is often symbolic or figurative.

  In the book Living by Every Word, prominent seminary professor Howard G. Hendricks and his son William D. Hendricks give 10 principles for distinguishing between literal and figurative speech in the Bible. Principle three says, “Use the figurative sense if a literal meaning is impossible or absurd.”⁴

  Like the two-edged sword coming out of the Lord’s mouth in Revelation 1:16, the souls of martyrs sitting beneath an altar appear figurative, not literal.

• In Philippians 1:23, Paul speaks of his “desire is to depart and be with Christ” (ESV). When we wake up after sleeping, it’s like no time has passed. So when we die, even if we rest in the grave for a hundred years, it’ll feel like we’re meeting Jesus the very next moment.⁵

• In 2 Corinthians 5:8, Paul says he “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (ESV). This verse, when read without context, can make it seem like the soul departs from the body.

  But let’s look at another verse used to defend the idea of going straight to heaven. Because together, these two verses give us a different picture:

• In 2 Timothy 4:6–7, Paul talks about departing from this life, which some think he means the faithful go straight to heaven. But he follows it up by saying, “There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved His appearing” (verse 8, CSB).

  By this last statement, Paul clarifies that Jesus will one day appear (return) as a righteous judge to resurrect all those who believe and grant them eternal life. And the Bible makes it clear that this judgment of the righteous will take place at the end of the world—at Jesus’ Second Coming (Matthew 25:31-32).

  Not after each individual death.

  So the words “departure” in this verse and being “away from the body” in the one above can simply mean Paul felt prepared to leave this life. And he looked forward to heaven—regardless of the time lapse in the grave.

• Isaiah 57:1-2 and Revelation 14:13 say we’ll enter into peace and rest after death. And many take this to mean we immediately go to heaven. Eventually, Christ’s followers will go to heaven. But the language in this verse is more consistent with what Jesus was trying to explain—that when we die, we’ll rest in the grave until His Second Coming.

The belief of being completely at rest in the grave instead of going to heaven, hell, or purgatory when we die isn’t new. In fact, many Protestant reformers recognized this as they began to search the Bible for themselves:

• William Tyndale (1494-1536) argued against purgatory, as well as an immediate heaven or hell.⁶
• Martin Luther (1483-1546) argued that dead people sleep and have no awareness.⁷
• John Frith (1503-1533) also argued against purgatory.⁸

Though the dead rest now, Jesus will one day bring everyone who dies back to life. That was the whole point of His sacrifice (John 3:16).

But as Jesus’ friend (and Lazarus’ sister) Martha pointed out, this will happen “in the resurrection on the last day (John 11:4, ESV).⁹

Let’s see how the Bible describes this sleep-like death.

What will this “sleep” be like?

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As far as we can tell from the Bible, death is like a deep sleep—an unconscious state. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther described it as a “profound slumber,” like what we experience between when we go to bed exhausted at night and wake up feeling fresh the next morning.¹⁰

It’s not something unknown or scary. It’s something we experience every night. We wake up six to eight hours later. But it’s like no time has passed.

The Bible tells us exactly how uneventful this sleep is.

King Solomon, the wisest of all human beings (1 Kings 3:12), said, “the dead know nothing… Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, ESV).

Solomon also said, “There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10, NKJV).

And another Old Testament author said, “It is not the dead who praise the Lord, nor any of those descending into the silence of death” (Psalms 115:17, CSB).

We won’t be angry, jealous, or worried—or even wise and praising God. We’ll be completely at rest until Jesus returns (John 5:28).

For those who’ve pictured loved ones looking down on them from heaven, this sounds like a tough concept at first.

But it’s a merciful move on God’s part.

It means those who have passed away aren’t watching their family members suffer on this sinful earth, watching spouses remarry, or suffering while their loved ones live on. They don’t have to watch life go on without them. They’re simply in a peaceful state of rest.

For everyone who dies, it’ll be like no time has passed when they wake up. At the Second Coming, they’ll get to join Jesus in the sky, followed immediately by their loved ones.

This picture fits the loving God described in the Bible (John 3:17).

Now, let’s talk about what happens to our souls during this sleep state.

Where does the soul go?

Put simply, our “soul” doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, the Bible doesn’t describe human beings as divided creatures with a separate body and soul. Rather, God made us as unified beings. We are souls. Instead of our “souls” leaving us, the Bible suggests that God’s sustaining breath of life departs from us.

The Bible says God created us from dust and gave us His breath of life to sustain us (Genesis 2:7). And when we die, our breath returns to Him—something He can easily return to us at the two resurrections.

There’s a common belief that when we die, our souls continue to exist separate from our bodies. This belief supports the idea that our souls are brought to heaven or enter into a place of fiery torment. Or that our souls continue roaming on earth as ghosts. But according to the Bible, our spirits can’t exist apart from our bodies.

Here’s how physician and theologian Philip Rodonioff describes it:

“The ‘breath of life,’ also known as the ‘spirit,’ returns to God (Eccl. 12:7; Ps. 146:3, 4). The Bible does not teach that people have a separate conscious immortal part of their being that continues to exist after death.”¹¹

Solomon said that when we die, “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7, ESV).

And when Jesus raised the little girl from the dead, “Her spirit returned, and she got up at once” (Luke 8:54-55, CSB).

The spirit these verses describe is God’s breath of life—the same life-giving breath He gave Adam.

As human beings, we’re a bit like lightbulbs.

A lightbulb still looks like a lightbulb when it’s not plugged in. But to come alive, it must be plugged into electricity—its source of life.

God is our source of life. He sustains us.

When we die, our breath and our memory return to Him. And our bodies “dwell in the dust” (Isaiah 26:19, NKJV).

But we know when Jesus returns at His Second Coming, He’ll give new breath and perfect bodies to those who accepted His sacrifice for their sins (Philippians 3:20-21).

When we choose Christ and get to know Him in a personal way, we learn that we can trust Him.

He has our blueprints and can rebuild us as He originally created us. God knit us together in our mothers’ wombs in the first place (Psalms 139:13). And Jesus reminds us, “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted” (Matthew 10:30, CSB).

Will we eventually have life after death?

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Yes we will—but it won’t happen immediately after we die. The Bible says Jesus will restore the dead to life, but over two separate resurrections 1,000 years apart. Jesus will grant the first group eternal life because they chose life in Jesus. And though Jesus will raise the second group to life, they’ll die a second and final death because they chose against the life Jesus offered them.

The first time Jesus resurrects people will be at His Second Coming—an event everyone will see.

He’ll wake up (or resurrect) those who accepted His salvation when they were alive. They’ll become brand new, along with any believers still living when He returns (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). And they’ll all go to heaven with Jesus to reign for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4b).

Here’s what the Bible says about both resurrections:

“The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with Him for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:5-6, CSB).

After 1,000 years, Jesus will wake up (bring back to life) those who chose not to follow Him in their lifetime. John 5:29 calls this “the resurrection of judgment” (ESV).

But the Bible says when they awake, they’ll still fall for Satan’s influence (Revelation 20:7-8).

And since they aligned with Satan’s fearful, selfish way, instead of God’s loving, selfless way, they won’t be able to withstand God’s presence. To them, God’s glory will be like “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). And they’ll die along with sin, Satan, and the angels that were loyal to him (Revelation 20:9-10).

That’s what hell is. It’s not a place, but an event.

And it’s what the verse we read earlier meant by “the second death” (Revelation 2:11, Revelation 21:8). True death is eternal separation from God—our source of life (Acts 17:25).

Jesus plans to make the world brand new, a place “where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13, NKJV).

But to restore Earth to its sinless state, sin can no longer exist. God’s glory will go out like fire to consume sin, and it’ll destroy all those still attached to it.

This will be a final judgment—an eternal death. But not an eternal burning.

The Bible shows that, like any fire, it will burn out (Malachi 4:1). And the wicked will simply not exist anymore (Psalms 37:10, 20; 68:2).

God doesn’t want any of His beloved children to stop existing. That’s why He sent His Son into the world—so that we can have everlasting life if we accept it. After all, we’re “fearfully and wonderfully made” by Him (Psalms 139:14, NKJV).

Eternal death was only meant for Satan and his evil angels—the instigators of sin and death (Matthew 25:41).

But God won’t force anyone to accept Him or the perfect life He promises on the New Earth. He gives us the freedom of choice.

If we choose to belong to Christ now, while we’re still alive, we can have confidence that we’ll be resurrected at Jesus’ Second Coming:

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:22-23, ESV).

The Biblical Research Institute puts it this way,

“It’s Jesus’ resurrection that gives us that hope that we will one day be raised from the dead [and] be transformed to live in God’s presence forever.”¹²

Do we have a choice in where we go? (Yes!)

The Bible says when we die, we’ll all sleep in the dust, waiting for our Savior to return and rebuild us. But where we go when Jesus wakes us up is a personal choice we make now, while we’re alive.

Jesus called death on this Earth “sleep” because it wasn’t meant to be permanent. It’s not final for those who choose Jesus—the way to eternal life (John 11:25–26).

That’s why King David called the death of God’s faithful servants “precious” (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).

Jesus reminds us over and over to choose Him. He’s the only one who can make death temporary. And He has the power to free us from eternal death:

“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:39-40, ESV).

 

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, ESV).

 

“Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15, CSB).

We’re in a world that’s dying because of sin. But God made it clear that He wants all His children to take the life preserver (Ezekiel 18:31-32).

When we take hold of Jesus, we don’t need to fear death.

In His mercy and compassion, God has shown us through the Bible that death is simply a deep sleep. An unconscious state.

And when we awake, it’ll be like only a moment passed. We’ll meet our loved ones as we saw them only a moment ago. And we’ll live forever with Jesus where there’s no more death or sadness (Revelation 21:4).

How can we find reassurance that we’ll receive eternal life when we wake up?

It’s simple. By building a relationship with Jesus—“the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, NKJV). Get to know Him and His promises through His Holy Word (Bible study) and through prayer.

We can come to Him just as we are and accept His promise to save us. He’ll teach us to depend on Him each day and let Him into every part of our lives.

Want more reassurance about what happens when we die?

Related Articles

1. “Hebrews 12:1 Commentary.” Precept Austin. November 26, 2024, Commentary under the “witnesses” subhead. [↵]
2. Johnston, Robert M., PhD. “After Death: Resurrection or Immortality?” Ministry Magazine, International Journal for Pastors. September 1, 1983. [↵]
3. Rodríguez, Ángel M., ThD. “Luke 16:19-31.” Biblical Research Institute. Accessed October 1, 2025. [↵]
4. Hendricks, Howard G., and William D. Hendricks. 1991. Living by the Book. Moody Press, p. 261. [↵]
5. Smith, Uriah . 1897. Here and Herafter. Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, D. C., p. 35. [↵]
6. “Soul Sleep.” Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias. [↵]
7. Ibid. [↵]
8. Samworth, Herbert. “John Frith – Part 2.” Tyndale’s Ploughboy. May 23, 2019. [↵]
9. Bradshaw, John. “Spiritual Life & Death.” It Is Written. October 31, 2022. [↵]
10. Letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, Jan. 13, 1522, quoted by Jules Michelet, The Life of Luther, translated by William Hazlitt, 1862, p. 133. [↵]
11. Rodonioff, Philip, MD, MA. “Waking Up to Eternity: What the Bible Says About Life After Death,” Adventist News Network. [↵]
12. “Hope Beyond the Grave: Why the Resurrection Still Matters.” Biblical Research Institute. April 18, 2025. Video, 0:33:36. [↵]

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