Paidion wrote:
If it isn't necessarily that, what is it then? Is he saying his spirit drops his body of flesh and soars to heaven to be with God? If so, I don't see how that fits his statement in
1 Cor.15 :16-18 "For if the dead are not raised, ...then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished."
In what sense would they have perished, if they flew off to heaven?
And 1 Cor.15: 32 "If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
The implication is that if the dead are not raised, there is no afterlife. But there would be an afterlife if we take off to heaven immediately after death.
1st Cor. 15 is crystal clear that people are raised with a body of pneumas.
1 Corinthians 15:42-50 (ESV)
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Before that, the righteous dead are described as souls under the alter of heaven. They appear to be able to see God and the events in heaven, but their final vindication at the parousia and resurrection hasn't happened yet:
Revelation 6:9-11 (ESV)
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
10 They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.