Do Christians Go To Heaven When They Die?

There is often vigorous debate about where Christians go when they die.
I am currently writing an essay on this topic, which may well become a chapter in a future book, so I thought I would share a brief excerpt with you here.

Most Christians believe they go to heaven to be with Jesus the moment they die, although I'm not sure many of them could verify that position from the Scriptures.

Quite a few Bible Scholars use Old Testament passages to show that everyone (including Christians) go to the grave, where they sleep unaware of anything, until the rapture or the second coming of Jesus (depending on the eschatology timetable they subscribe to).

To me, having received eternal life (Greek - life of the Age) MUST make a difference between the immediate destination after death of those who are followers of Christ and those who are still un-reconciled to God.
And Paul hints at this in various places .....

But I find an interesting hint in Paul's description of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God WILL BRING WITH JESUS THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN HIM. [NIV]

Jesus can only bring with him those who are already with him when he is about to come.
These are they who have been separated from their bodies at death - their souls/spirits going to be with Jesus in heaven and their bodies remaining on earth to be buried or cremated.

When Jesus comes, he brings these departed souls/spirits with him, raises their bodies, and re-unites their body, soul and spirit. Being "complete" again, as are the living saints waiting for this event, Jesus gathers both the departed and the living to be together with him in the air.

He then transforms the bodies of all those being raptured into their resurrection bodies, as 1 Corinthians 15 tells us. These bodies, we are told in several places, will bear the divine image of Jesus.

And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
[1 Corinthians 15 : 49  NIV]

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son
[Romans 8 : 29  NIV]

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
[1 John 3 : 2  NIV]

I wonder if Peter, James and John were given a preview of what this body would be like when they saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain.
After they had seen this, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after He was resurrected. (Matt 17 : 1 - 9)
Why?
My guess: because Jesus' mission was to introduce Jews to their anticipated, earthly Messianic Kingdom, and himself as their Messiah, they would not understand anything about a transfigured, heavenly body until He had led the way into that realm on resurrection morning.

However, I have digressed.
The point of this excerpt is to demonstrate that St.Paul gives a clue that those in the Body of Christ were in heaven with Christ before the Rapture, and therefore must have been previously, spiritually translated to heaven on the occasion of their earthly death.

Blessings, Barry