It is taught that if we "accept Jesus" we will be made like Him when we die, and go to live for eternity in a land where there is no more opportunity for sin against God. The sin question is settled by physical death. Deliverance from the bondage of sin comes through physical death. The "last enemy," physical death, has become our redeemer.

Yet there is no evidence in the Scriptures that any spiritual improvement will take place in us as a consequence of, or at the time of, our physical death. The position of the Scripture is that every individual will be rewarded in the Day of Judgment according to his behavior on the earth. The Scriptures are almost silent concerning the period of time between our physical death and the appearing of Christ in the clouds.

The assumption is, what we are in personality we are. There is no basis in Scripture for believing physical death will change what we are. When we awake in the Day of Judgment we will be unchanged in personality. In fact, what we have become during our lifetime on the earth will be revealed in that day.

The testimony of Christians who have been given insight into the spirit realm, into life after death, is that we experience no change when we die other than the relief of being shed of our earth-bound body.

Sundar Singh, a noted Christian visionary, testified that we go to the area of the spirit realm for which we are suited. Other Christian writers who have had visions of life after death confirm that we are placed according to our spiritual development, that the spiritual world is not divided only into the deepest Hell and the highest Heaven but into gradations of Heaven and gradations of Hell.

Given that the Scriptures do not speak to the contrary, given such grouping of people by spiritual development and calling takes place to a certain extent while we still are alive on the earth, and given such placement is reasonable and compassionate, it is our point of view that all persons—Christian by belief or not—will, when they die, pass into a realm suited to their spiritual development, there to await the Day of Judgment.

This is not to say that some are not lost to God by the time of physical death, or that the wicked will not go immediately into the flames of Hell, there to await the white-throne judgment. It appears evident from the Scriptures that such is the case. Our point is that there are others—a great "sea" of people—who will not be placed in the Presence of God and the Lamb at physical death, or cast into the burning flames, but will find themselves with people of similar development.

It is the writer's point of view that the occasion of physical death does not result in the grouping of people into two uniform companies; rather, it results in the careful defining of each individual's progress, or lack of it, in godly character. Let's hope that such is the case.

God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Would you rather be with people who are somewhat like what you are used to or people who are totally different?

If you are not happy with your present group maybe you better change or else find a different bunch. You might be stuck with them for a while. (from It Is Time for a Reformation of Christian Thinking)