Objection 83: Paul declared that when he died he would go immediately to be with Christ. (See Philippians 1:21-23.)
The passage states:
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;”
It is important to emphasize that Paul is talking about what he will experience when he dies. There is very little difference between what Adventists believe and popular theology as it relates to the experience of death. Popular theology holds that when you die, your soul, which they believe is a disembodied consciousness, goes to heaven to be with the Lord. Adventists believe that when you die, you have no consciousness of the passing of time, so that in the next instant after you die, you are resurrected in a glorified body and you meet the Lord, who has come down at his Second Advent.
(If you have ever had surgery and been under general anesthesia, you understand the experience of death. You are too far under to have dreams, so you wake up—in your experience—the instant after you lost consciousness, with no lapse of time in your experience.)
In both cases—in terms of your consciousness, your experience of events—the moment you die, you go to be with the Lord Jesus. There are differences, of course, including that Adventists believe we will meet Jesus in a glorified body, whereas popular theology maintains that we go to him as a disembodied consciousness. But in terms of what we experience when we die, there is very little difference between the Adventist position and popular theology.
So when Paul says, “I desire to depart and be with Christ,” he is not endorsing the immortal soul doctrine, he is describing what he will experience: When he dies, in the very next instant of his experience, he will be resurrected with a glorified body and rise to be with the Lord Jesus.
We must not interpret Paul as contradicting Paul. Paul clearly taught that the resurrected dead and living saints go to meet Jesus at the same time. (1 Thess. 4:16-18) And he clearly stated that the change from mortality to immortality takes place for both the living and the resurrected saints at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. (1 Cor. 15:51-54; 2 Tim. 4:8) If we are reading Paul to contradict what Paul clearly stated in other places, there is something radically defective with our exegesis.
We would be reading Paul to contradict not only his other writings, but the clear statements of Christ Jesus Himself, who clearly taught that he would receive his disciples at His Second Coming. (John 14:3 [“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”] Mat. 24:30-31 [“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”] Rev. 22:12 [“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”]).
Paul understands that the resurrection awaits the second coming of Christ, and that only at the Second Coming will we receive our glorified bodies and go to be with the Lord. But he also understands that the dead in Christ have no consciousness of the passing of time so that, experientially, we die and in the next instant we go to be with the Lord. Paul understands both the actual chronology, and what the dead experience. Read in this light, the passage presents no difficulties. Let us not require Paul to be speaking systematically on all occasions; let’s allow him to speak informally about what he will experience when he dies.