In his letter to the Philippians Paul wrote about his struggle with this life: he knew the Philippians needed his help and he wanted to provide that help, yet at the same time he desired to depart from this life and "to be with Christ”:
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. (Philippians 1:23, 24)
Knowing that Christ is now in heaven, at God’s throne, it is easy to conclude that Paul believed he would go to heaven when he died… then he would be with Christ. But that conclusion is directly contrary to what Paul himself taught others about the afterlife. We have already seen (WillYouGoToHeaven.info home page) that there is to be a resurrection when Christ returns, at which time the faithful will be rewarded. The apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Thessalonica about the afterlife. He explained that believers who were "asleep" in death were not lost but were waiting to be resurrected to eternal life at a particular time in the future. Here is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17:
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [precede, or take the place of] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Paul did not believe he would go to heaven when he died. As he stated above, he believed the faithful who had died would rise from death at Christ’s return. From then on he and the rest of the faithful would be with Christ. They would join Christ in the clouds, in the air – not in heaven where God’s throne is. From then on they would be with Christ who, as prophecy shows, will be on His way to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem: returning to establish the Kingdom of God right here on Earth with His resurrected saints:
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives... and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints [holy ones] with thee. (Zech. 14:4,5).
We have seen that the dead have no consciousness: they know nothing and have no awareness, as described in Ecclesiastes 9:5: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing.” Paul knew that from the moment he died until his resurrection he would have no consciousness and no experience of time, even though many years might pass. Upon his resurrection it would seem, to him, like only an instant of time had passed since his last moments of mortal life. So Paul was not afraid of death; he knew it would bring him one seeming moment away from his resurrection and the company of Christ. That is what he meant when he wrote:
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. (Philippians 1:23, 24)