QUESTION: When a person dies, does his spirit stay in the grave or does it go to heaven (Ecclesiastes 12:7)?

ANSWER: When a person dies, the spirit goes neither to the grave or heaven! It goes by God’s direction to Hades (one of the words translated as “hell” in the King James Bible), which denotes the “place of disembodied spirits.” This is where Lazarus and the rich man of Luke sixteen went upon their deaths. (This is also where Christ and the “thief on the cross” went when they died. Christ did not ascend to the Father and heaven until forty days after His resurrection - John 17:20 & Acts 1:3. In Acts 2:34, we learn that David is still not ascended into the heavens, because he, too, remains in Hades). Lazarus was carried by angels into the part of Hades referred to as paradise or Abraham’s bosom, while the rich man awoke in the part of Hades referred to as a place of torments! Each of these will remain where they are until the general resurrection of the dead (John 5:28-29). The same is true of David and the “thief on the cross.” In the resurrection, their spirits (and all the dead) will leave the Hadean world and rejoin their changed bodies (I Corinthians 15:51) to stand before Christ in judgment (II Corinthians 5:10). The righteous (those obedient to Christ) will then go to Heaven (Matthew 25:24). The unrighteous (the disobedient) shall be cast into the lake of eternal fire and brimstone (Matthew 25:41 & Revelation 20:14-15)!