What Happens One Minute After You Die?

We all have to confront this question at some point: What happens after you die? It’s a serious subject we should not stray from. 

Christians should talk about life after death—Heaven and Hell—because the Bible does.

Everyone Will Die and Enter the Afterlife

The statistics on death are clear: One out of every one persons will die. No one escapes it. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1–2 reminds us, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die…” (NIV).  

Every day, roughly 175,000 people leave this life for the afterlife.  Death is going to come. And that should not be a morbid thought, but a sobering thought. 

So what happens one minute after we die? It depends. 

Christians Immediately Go Into God’s Presence

If you’re a Christian, you immediately go into the presence of God. Scripture reminds us that when we are gone from our body, we are with the Lord: “…to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 NKJV).

In Philippians 1:23, Paul talks about “…having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (NKJV). He uses a term that can be translated “far far better.” See, Heaven is way better than earth.

And  it’s an immediate thing. The moment you close your eyes on earth, you open them in Heaven. When you take your last breath on earth, you take your next breath in Heaven. That is the hope of the Christian—and only for the Christian.

 But what about the non-believer?

The Non-Believer Will Enter Hell After Death

Even the non-believer will enter the afterlife. It is for everybody, no matter what. The difference is that you’re either going to Heaven or Hell.

What is Hell like?  People in Hell suffer. The fact that the rich man (see Luke 16) spoke of torment indicates that suffering is a very real thing in the hereafter. That word is used four times in the text of Luke 16.

And remember—when you go into the afterlife, there are no stopovers. There’s no purgatory, nor is there a state of “soul sleep,” where you go into sort of a suspended animation. And no, there is no reincarnation.

No, you go immediately into the afterlife in Heaven or Hell. No stopovers. 

 Far more Americans believe they’ll go to Heaven than those that believe they’ll go to Hell. But according to Jesus, more people are on their way to judgment. He said, “‘You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it’” (Matthew 7:13-14 NLT).

Tragically, the vast majority of people today are not headed to Heaven—but that is their choice.

But How Could a God of Love Send Someone to Hell?

I know what you’re thinking— How could a God of love send someone to hell!? Isn’t that an inconsistency on God’s part? 

It was C.S. Lewis who said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell…”

God is simply giving people what they really want.

 People only get in the afterlife what they most wanted. You wanted to be away from God. You had no place for God. Now God, in His infinite justice, sends you where you wanted to go. 

God does not send people to Hell;  We send ourselves there. In fact, Scripture says He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV).

God Wants to Spend Eternity with Us

The Bible is clear: God loves us and wants to spend eternity with us. But He also gives us the freedom to choose.

One of my favorite verses is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (NKJV).

Whoever—That means anyone, anywhere, can believe and be saved.