Do the Righteous go to Heaven?

The Fate of the Righteous: Resurrection, Immortality, and New Creation

This is Article 5 of a Six-Part series on Christian Eschatology: The Immortal Soul, Dualism, Post-Death State, and Eternal Consequences

Article 1: The Immortal Soul

Article 2: Dualism

Article 3: Sleep, not Death

Article 4: The Fate of the Unrighteous

Article 5: The Fate of the Righteous 

Article 6: The Culminated Hope

Is this Heaven?

We have already discussed the fate of the unrighteous in the Final Judgment: annihilation of the self, the body, identity, complete cessation of existence. What, then, awaits the righteous, the faithful, those who are exempt from annihilation through of Jesus Christ?

That, too, has been distorted in the many centuries following the post-apostolic era. We have already clarified that there is no immediate ascension to Heaven or an intermediary location of Paradise. Instead, the dead sleep, awaiting the return of Christ. But what then?

If the fate of the wicked is destruction, the fate of the righteous is not simply “survival,” nor is it conscious, disembodied existence in Heaven. The consistent Scriptural witness is that God grants immortality to His people through resurrection, ushering them into a renewed creation where Heaven and Earth are united, and where embodied life—redeemed, glorified, incorruptible—is the final and eternal state of all who belong to Him.

The biblical vocabulary is unambiguous: life, incorruption, immortality, glory, resurrection, inheritance, new heaven, and new earth. Every aspect of Scripture is resurrection-centered, without any claim of an intermediate Paradise or immediate ascension to Heaven. For the Christian, hope is only ever outlined as bodily resurrection and the inheritance of God’s Kingdom.

This hope exists already in the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah speaks of life from death, never mentioning heavenly ascent or intermediate state. “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise” (Isa 26:19). The prophet Daniel, too, speaks of death’s reversal: “Many of those who sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life…” (Dan 12:2). The psalms also speak of bodily resurrection: “You will redeem my life (nephesh) from the grave.” (Ps 49:15). In Daniel 12:2, the righteous receive חַיֵּי עוֹלָם (chayyei olam)—“everlasting life.” The wicked, meanwhile, receive חֲרָפוֹת לְדִרְאוֹן עוֹלָם—“shame and everlasting contempt”—not conscious torment.

The language of Scripture is resurrectional, never Platonic. Pagan metaphysics do not apply to the hope of Christian salvation.

Platonic Paradise?

Our Lord and Savior repeatedly taught eternal life through resurrection. Jesus never once teaches that humans are inherently immortal. He consistently grounds eternal life in resurrection. In John 6, Jesus repeats “I will raise him up at the last day” four times in one discourse (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54). The structure is always the same: faith leads to the reception of eternal life when raised on the last day.

There is no eternal life until resurrection.

Jesus does not say, “He already has an immortal soul that survives death.” Instead, He says, “I will raise him.”

This pattern saturates apostolic ministry. In John 5:28–29, we see the familiar sequence: resurrection unto eternal life: “All who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good to the resurrection of life (ζωή), those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” The Greek term ζωή (zoē) is the same “life” of John 1, John 3:16, and John 10:10.

Life is tied to resurrection, not to disembodied postmortem existence.

In Luke 20:35–36, Jesus provides many details for how the righteous in Him exist post-resurrection. He says those deemed worthy of “the age to come” and “the resurrection from the dead”:

“cannot die anymore” (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται)

“are like angels” (ἰσάγγελοι)

“are sons of the resurrection”

“Cannot die anymore” means the inability to die, not a natural immortality already possessed. Immortality is acquired at resurrection and does not exist prior. The gift of immortality as a consequence of righteousness is, in fact, one of the signatures of Christian belief.

Resurrection remains the key.

The Apostle Paul expanded on the theology outlined by Christ. Immortality is not possessed, but is “put on” at resurrection. In virtually every word he spoke, Paul dismantles the pagan model of the immortal soul.

We find the definitive text in 1 Corinthians 15. In the resurrection chapter, Paul uses several key Greek terms:

φθορά (phthora) – corruption, decay

ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia) – incorruption, imperishability

θνητός (thnētos) – mortal

ἀθανασία (athanasia) – immortality

Paul says: “This mortal (θνητὸν) must put on immortality (ἀθανασία)” (1 Cor 15:53–54). This is the opposite of Platonic anthropology. In Plato, the soul is immortal and sheds the body, but to Paul, the mortal puts on immortality at resurrection. Again, immortality is not inherent. It is clothed upon us in resurrection.

Paul’s imagery is that of transformation. We are sown in weakness, then raised in power. Sown in dishonor, but raised in honor. Sown in mortality, then raised in glory. Sown a natural body (σῶμα ψυχικόν), but raised a spiritual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν). Critically, a “spiritual body” is still a body, not a disembodied existence. The adjective “spiritual” (πνευματικός) describes the Spirit's animating power, not the absence of materiality.

Paul further described the pursuit of immortality as one of the leading goals of Christians. In Romans 2:7, Paul says that the righteous seek: δόξαν (glory), τιμὴν (honor), and ἀφθαρσίαν (immortality). If immortality was something we already possessed, there would be no need to seek it. The wicked do not receive immortality—therefore no eternal torment, which would require immortal soul-endurance.

As we have explored elsewhere, only God has immortality. He cannot die, is immune to aging, and will always exist. In 1 Timothy 6:16, Paul states explicitly that God “alone has immortality” (ὁ μόνος ἔχων ἀθανασίαν). Humans have no natural possession of immortality. Thus, the righteous receive immortality as a gift. The wicked cannot be tormented eternally because immortality is not given to them in Scripture.

The biblical trajectory ever aims towards the New Creation. It begins with Creation, then the Fall, to the Redemption, and will end in the New Creation upon the Messiah’s second coming. The eternal state is that of this New Creation, not in ascension to Heaven, nor eternity in Hell. In the biblical narrative, the culmination of all things does not result in the ascension of disembodied souls drifting upwards, but with Heaven descending to our realm. Revelation 21 reads: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth… And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.” The verb καταβαίνουσαν (“descending”) is intentional: the movement is Heaven-to-Earth.

In this New Creation, God dwells with us, His children. Revelation 21:3 tells us:

“Behold, the dwelling of God is with humanity.”

“He will dwell with them.”

“They will be His people.”

The Greek σκηνώσει (“He will pitch His tent”) evokes the tabernacle. In Scripture, the divine presence of the Lord does not dwell in Heaven, but resides on earth with His resurrected faithful.

God Dwells with His People

 A belief in eternal, conscious torment actually confuses the fate of the faithful in the New Kingdom. In Revelation 21:4, we read that “Death shall be no more.” A state of eternal torment requires the ongoing presence of death-like conditions, at least as it is understood within the metaphysical worldview.

But the text says death and its conditions are abolished. This aligns perfectly with the teaching of Christ and the redemptive arc of all Scripture. The resurrection life of the righteous is free from the possibility of suffering—a reality only possible in embodied immortality and the removal of all death, pain, and torment.

The material—and not metaphysical—nature of the end of the age is further reinforced through Edenic imagery that saturates Revelation 22. The tree of life reappears (22:2), the curse is removed (22:3), and we, His faithful servants, see the very face of God (22:4). This is not ethereal cloud-existence, detached and removed from a defeated and destroyed physical world. Scripture, Christ, and the Apostles describe a restored creation, physical yet glorified, reminiscent of Eden but surpassing it.

When Jesus described the fate of the faithful, He did not say that they would inherit Heaven, or some ethereal realm. In Matthew 5:5, Jesus’ beatitude, He says: “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Earth, not Heaven. In Psalm 37, which Jesus quotes, we see several contrasts between the wicked and the righteous. The fate of the wicked is to “cut off” and will be “no more.” Meanwhile, the righteous will “inherit the land” and “dwell in it forever.” Biblical eschatology ends on Earth, not in Heaven. These declarations obliterate the spiritual etherealism required to assert an immediate Heaven–Hell framework. The New Kingdom is a material reality, located in the physical world. It is not an abstract location of disembodied, spiritual existence.

In Christianity, eternal consequences are rooted firmly on the resurrection. Life itself is tied to the example of Christ and His resurrection. Jesus says, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). Eternal life flows from His resurrection, meaning that the righteous participate in His life (Col 3:4), not in an immortal essence of their own.

It is also through this resurrection that the faithful are made imperishable and incorrupted (1 Cor. 15:42) as we bear the image of the Heavenly One (1 Cor. 15:49). The “heavenly body” is not a bodiless soul; it is the transformed humanity of Christ applied to His people. Just as Christ was born in the flesh, died, and was then resurrected in glory, so too will His faithful. Christ provided the archetype, an example of faithfulness and ultimate reward, and since He died and was resurrected, so too shall we.

Let us put the exegesis together:

Humans are mortal (Hebrew anthropology in the Old Testament).

Immortality is God’s gift, not man’s nature (1 Tim 6:16).

Jesus teaches resurrection, not soul survival, as the gateway to eternal life (John 6).

Paul teaches immortality is put on at resurrection (1 Cor 15).

The righteous inherit the Earth in a renewed creation (Matt 5:5; Rev 21–22).

Therefore, the eternal consequence for the righteous is embodied, incorruptible, joyful life in a renewed creation, not disembodied existence in Heaven.

This stands as the perfect counterpart to annihilationism. The wicked are consumed, perish in absolute lack of existence. The righteous rise, are glorified, and live forever in the presence of God. This is Christianity’s original, resurrection-shaped hope.

The Way of Life leads to the New Creation.

The Way of Death leads to annihilation.

There is no intermediate state, and there also is no immediate ascension to Heaven or descent into the eternal horrors of Hell. Scripture teaches us that the righteous sleep, will rise in glorified bodies, and will then inherit the New Creation, dwelling in the presence of God.

This is difficult for many Christians to accept, but once we begin to understand precisely what that means, we realize that it is a blessedness that we cannot otherwise contextualize in our limited perception. If you feel that these many truths are unsettling—as I once did—I invite you to read the final article in this series: Article 6: The Hope of Christian Eschatology.

Keywords/Phrases: biblical resurrection Christian eschatology immortality in Christianity new heaven and new earth resurrection vs heaven bodily resurrection biblical view of eternal life annihilationism vs eternal life what happens to the righteous after death sleep of the dead

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