There is a great lack of the experience of the divine fellowship in today's Christianity. For this reason, hardly anything is spoken concerning the fellowship of the divine life. Mostly, people preach the gospel by telling people that when they are saved, they will go to heaven after they die. The word about going to heaven after one dies, however, is completely inaccurate. When a person dies, he does not go to heaven but to Hades (Luke 16:22-23; Acts 2:27, 31). The believers will go to the pleasant section of Hades called paradise, and the unbelievers will go to the unpleasant section of Hades (2 Cor. 12:4; Luke 23:43; 16:22-23, 25-26).
According to the Bible, the saints do not go to heaven after death but to paradise. The thought that the saints go to heaven after death is part of the leaven added to the three measures of meal by the woman in Matthew 13:33. This woman is the Roman Catholic Church which took many pagan practices, heretical doctrines, and evil matters and mixed them with the teachings concerning Christ to leaven the whole content of Christianity. Today most of Christianity preaches a gospel which has been fully leavened.
Today as believers we have been redeemed, but the effect of death still remains with us. Physical death causes our spirit and soul to be separated from our body. This separation is the effect of death. The spirits and souls of the dead believers are in paradise waiting for the day of resurrection (John 5:29a), the day in which their bodies will be redeemed and transfigured (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:51-52). By resurrection and in resurrection the spirit, soul, and body of each of the dead believers will no longer be separated.
Today, the apostle Paul still remains separated from his body. His body is probably buried somewhere around Rome, the place of his martyrdom, but his spirit and soul are in paradise. This effect of death will be erased by resurrection at the Lord's coming. The Lord will exercise His marvelous, sovereign, mighty power to raise up Paul's dead body from the earth, to change it, and to reunite Paul with his transfigured body. This erases the effect of death. Only resurrection life can conquer the effect of death (1 Cor. 15:54-55).
In Philippians 1:23 Paul said, "But I am constrained by the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for it rather is much better." To be with Christ is a matter of degree, not place. While Paul was desiring to be with Christ in a higher degree, he was already with Him continually. Through his physical death, he would be in paradise with Christ to a fuller extent than he enjoyed in this earthly life. Even with this realization, Paul preferred to remain on the earth for the sake of the Philippian believers (vv. 24-25).
I would prefer not to leave my body through death. I would rather have my body transfigured, having it conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21), at the time of the Lord's coming back. At the resurrection of the dead saints or the transfiguration of the living ones, the corruptible and mortal body will put on incorruption and immortality (1 Cor. 15:52-53). At that time death will be swallowed up in victory (v. 54).
The proper teaching concerning the rapture of the saints is missing in Christianity. The proper teaching concerning the divine fellowship is also missing. The Lord needs a full recovery of all the unleavened divine truths.