Reference the Rapture: If the dead will rise up first, where are they now? I thought the souls and spirits of believers were already with Christ. Also, how does this relate to believers who have been cremated?
Paul says that those who are deceased or presently absent from the body are present with the Lord in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:8). However, Paul clearly believes, as in 1 Corinthians 15, that the final form of the afterlife involves having a resurrection body that is received after the Lord returns. As for the cremated, this is hardly a problem, since the God who made all creation out of nothing can certainly make a new body for a cremated person he raises from the dead.
—Ben Witherington III