That the righteous do not receive the spiritual body at death, is plain from 1 Thess. 4:16,17 and 1 Cor. 15:52, where an interval is intimated between Paul's time and the rising of those who slept. The rising was to occur in the future, “at the last trump.” So the resurrection of the wicked had not yet occurred in any single case (2 Tim. 2:18—it was an error to say that the resurrection was “past already”); it was yet future (John 5:28-30—“the hour cometh”—ἔρχεται ὤρα, not καὶ νῦν ἐστίν—“now is,” as in verse 25; Acts 24:15—“there shall be a resurrection”—ἀνάστασιν μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι). Christ was the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). If the saints had received the spiritual body at death, the patriarchs would have been raised before Christ.
1. Of the righteous.
Of the righteous, it is declared:
(a) That the soul of the believer, at its separation from the body, enters the presence of Christ.
2 Cor. 5:1-8—“if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life ... willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord”—Paul hopes to escape the violent separation of soul and body—the being “unclothed”—by living till the coming of the Lord, and then putting on the heavenly body, as it were, over the present one (ἐπενδύσασθαι); yet whether he lived till Christ's coming or not, he knew that the soul, when it left the body, would be at home with the Lord.
Luke 23:43—“To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise”; John 14:3—“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”; 2 Tim. 4:18—“The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto [or, ‘into’] his heavenly kingdom” = will save me and put me into his heavenly kingdom (Ellicott), the characteristic of which is the visible presence of the King with his subjects. It is our privilege to be with Christ here and now. And nothing shall separate us from Christ and his love, “neither death, nor life ... nor things present, nor things to come” (Rom. 8:38); for he himself has said: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age” (Mat. 28:20).
(b) That the spirits of departed believers are with God.
Heb. 12:23—Ye are come “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all”; cf. Eccl. 12:7—“the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it”; John 20:17—“Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father”—probably means: “my body has not yet ascended.” The soul had gone to God during the interval between death and the resurrection, as is evident from Luke 23:43, 46—“with me in Paradise ... Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
(c) That believers at death enter paradise.