Is there life after death?

I have not heard anyone said they got a postcard or a call from those who've gone on before. Neither have we really had any visitors from the 'beyond'... or have we?

Can we be certain, or at least be confidently suspicious, that there is really quality life beyond this life?

Gossip tabloids have made a mockery (and a fortune) on this subject for years. It just goes to show how eager humans are to learn about life after death.

Yet we keep looking in the wrong places and keep coming up with the wrong answers all the time.

What is death?

Death is called a sleep - John 11:11 - 13

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." 

12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 

13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

Life after death - what does the Bible say about it?

 Jesus was resurrected with a real body - Luke 24:39

"Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

We will be transformed as Jesus was, having the same body as He had at His resurrection - Philippians 3:20, 21

20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 

21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Job and others in the Old Testament also had the same hope - that they will be resurrected with renewed bodies (same persons) when Jesus comes - Job 19:25-27

25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. 

26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 

27 I myself will see him with my own eyes-I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

So it is clear that there will be life after death... 

Jesus was resurrected with a real body. He was not some disembodied spirit,, He had flesh and bones, he also ate and associated with His disciples just happened before His death.

We also have the promise that we will be given new bodies just like Jesus' resurrected body, and Job knew that all along (before New Testament times).

The question is: When will all this happen? Is it immediately after we die, a few days after, or when? - 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Here is another of my favorite passages in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54

51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Note the important points reiterated here: (1) Death is a sleep, (2) The righteous will be raised from their sleeping state at the coming of Christ ("at the last trumpet"), and (3) given imperishable bodies.

The "Life after Death" experience begins after Jesus returns

There is life after death. More accurately, there will be life after death, BUT not before Jesus comes. 

Even David, whom the Bible calls a man after God's own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22), is still sleeping today - Acts 2:34-35 

For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, " 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

So, what really happens when we die?