What Happens After You Die?
Jeremiah McCarthy- February 25th, 2026
Paper Towels and Scotch Tape
I was holding my grandfather’s arm when he took his last breath. He had been taken off life support hours earlier, and we had waited patiently in the hospital room as his breathing became increasingly labored and infrequent. Then eventually it happened… he inhaled one final time, and exhaled that final breath. His heart rate flatlined, his skin paled to an eerie gray, and the wrist I was holding grew cold.
Overwhelmed with grief, I went to hug him goodbye. But I didn’t find myself hugging my grandfather. I found myself hugging a corpse. It became apparent at that moment that he was not there anymore. We all knew it. But that meant we had to ask the difficult question, “Where is he?”
In the following days and weeks, family members and friends offered answers to that question: “He is in a better place,” “He is reunited with Randy,” “He is looking down on us.” Each person dug into whatever religious, spiritual, or intuitive resources they had to find an answer to the question, “Where is he?” and to find comfort and hope in the face of his death.
The way we reach for resources and tools to help deal with death reminds me of the time I sliced my thumb wide open while cutting bell peppers. Due to my lack of first aid knowledge, I used paper towels and scotch tape to bandage my wound. It wasn’t until days later that I finally visited a doctor who properly cleaned, stitched, and dressed my wound. Only then did it truly begin to heal.
The emotional, relational, physical, and spiritual pain connected to death is far more severe than a sliced thumb. Yet so many of us lack what we need to address that pain in a way that brings genuine comfort and hope. We have well-intentioned sentiments, but in the face of death, they feel more like empty clichés. We have the equivalent of scotch tape and paper towels when what we really need is professional aid.
My hope for this article is that it will point you to someone who can provide what that doctor provided me: real help in the face of real pain. The answer we find to the question, “What happens after we die?” affects us deeply as we grapple with the inevitability of death - both of our loved ones and of ourselves.
Bodies and Souls
The answer we give to the question, “What happens after you die?” depends in large part on our understanding of who we are as human beings. What we think a human being essentially is will affect what we think happens when we die. If we understand ourselves to be essentially our bodies without a spirit or a soul, or essentially spirits or souls that only temporarily inhabit disposable physical bodies, or essentially a combination of body and spirit/soul, we will answer this question in different ways. Let’s look at these three options one at a time.
Essentially a body, not soul/spirit
Let’s assume that I am essentially my body, without a spirit or a soul. If I am only a physical body without a distinct spiritual component to my being, then whatever is true of my body is true of me. Therefore, when my body stops, I stop. When I take my final breath and my vital organs and brain activity stop, this will be the permanent end of my individual consciousness and mind. My body will then either decompose beyond recognition or be cremated into unrecognizable ashes. When my body ceases to exist, I cease to exist, because I am my body. If you want a big philosophical term for this belief, you can refer to it as materialism: the belief that matter is the fundamental substance of nature, and that all phenomena—including your consciousness and mind—result from physical interactions. What happens when you die? You permanently stop existing.
Essentially a soul/spirit, not body
Now, let’s assume that I am essentially a spirit or soul that only temporarily inhabits a disposable physical body. Some ancient eastern religions and contemporary western spiritualities teach that our spirits/souls will be either reincarnated or permanently freed from the material world. In many of these religions and spiritualities, the material world is viewed as intrinsically bad or restrictive. If the physical world is bad or restrictive, then death is a doorway to a better life of freedom where we are released from the burden of the material world. What happens when you die? You continue existing as a spiritual entity or energy that either reincarnates into a new physical body or is forever released from the physical world.
Essentially body and soul/spirit
Now let’s assume that I am essentially a combination of body and soul/spirit - that I am composed of material and immaterial components which are both essential to my existence. If this is the case, then what happens when I die is that the physical and spiritual components are separated. What happens when you die? Your spirit/soul and your body are separated, leaving you in an incomplete state of existence. Since this is the view taught by the Bible, and since I am writing this article as a Christian, let me unpack it a little bit more…
The Bible teaches that at death, our souls leave our bodies. Our disembodied souls then enter an intermediate state. Eventually, our bodies and souls will be reunited and enter a final state. The final state refers to where we will spend eternity. The intermediate state refers to what we experience between death and our final state.
The Intermediate State
The apostle Paul once wrote:
We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord… we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6, 8)
When Paul died, he expected to leave his physical body and immediately be spiritually present with the Lord Jesus. If someone’s greatest hope and comfort is being with the Lord, then death loses its intimidation because it is merely the door through which we must pass to enter his presence. However, if being with the Lord is not someone’s greatest hope and comfort, then they will not immediately go to be with him. Rather than going home to the Lord, they will be cast away from him, and away from all of the good, beautiful, and true things found in his presence.
Therefore, when we die, our souls will either be immediately welcomed into the presence of God or immediately cast away into lonely suffering apart from God.
The Final State
Central to the Bible’s understanding of what happens after we die is the belief in a bodily resurrection. This is the belief that Jesus Christ will return to the earth and God will resurrect all of humanity. This means our souls will be reunited with our bodies, bringing us back to life. At this point, everyone will be held accountable by God for what they did with the life he gave them. Romans 2:6-11 says,
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury… For God shows no partiality.
We will all be justly recompensed according to what we have done. According to Jesus, at this final judgment humanity will be separated into two groups - the righteous and the wicked - and sent to two destinations - eternal life and eternal punishment (Matthew 25:31-46). Our final state will reflect our intermediate state, either eternally enjoying God’s presence or eternally cast away from his presence.
Conclusion
As he approached the end of his life, my grandfather and I had many honest conversations. Though he was a lifelong Roman Catholic, he was still afraid to die. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something out there in the terrifying abyss of death that posed a threat to him. Interestingly, facing his own death led him to think a lot about Jesus’s death. Though the Roman Catholic churches he spent his life in were filled with images and statues of Jesus hanging on a cross, it wasn’t until his own impending death became real to him that Jesus’s death also became real. While digging deeper into Jesus’s death, a glimmer of hope occasionally broke through the clouds of depression, anxiety, and fear in the face of his own death. Why?
Nearly two thousand years ago, when Jesus hung on a cross by nails in his hands and feet, slowly dying in unreal pain, two criminals hung similarly crucified on either side of him. Though Jesus was dying as an innocent man, these criminals were dying as a consequence of their own sins. One criminal railed at Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The other criminal, however, said to the first, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then something nearly absurd happened. This crucified criminal, who had just acknowledged that death was what he deserved for his sinful deeds, turned and made a plea to Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered this audacious plea from a condemned criminal with the astonishing words, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:32-47). My grandfather, riddled with fear of what he deserved for 88 years of sins, figured that if this guilty criminal could receive this kind of astonishing mercy from Jesus in his last minutes with such a simple plea, then he could find that same kind of mercy from Jesus in his last days despite all of his sin. My grandfather had hope as he approached his final breath that when he died he would hear Jesus speak the same words to him that were spoken to that criminal two thousand years ago: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
If you would like to discuss these ideas further, we here at Skyline Church in Denver () would love to connect. Please let us know here.