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What happens at death? To where do people go when they die? What is the solution to death? These perennial questions are frequently being asked of Christians but sadly most of the time the answers given are not biblical. The question is not, what does the church teach about this, but, what does the Bible teach about this. The following entry was taken from the New Bible Dictionary of 1982 (not so new anymore) which says some marvelous things about the state of the dead under the article on eschatology. I found encouragement in this excerpt, I pray you will as well.

Richard J. Bauckham, “Eschatology” in The New Bible Dictionary: Second Edition, ed. J. D. Douglas, (Leichester: InterVaristy Press, 1982), pp. 345-346.

The Christian hope for life beyond death is not based on the belief that part of man survives death. All men, through their descent from Adam are naturally mortal. Immortality is the gift of God, which will be attained through the resurrection of the whole person.

The Bible therefore takes death seriously. It is not an illusion. It is the consequence of sin (Rom. 5.12; 6.23), an evil (Dt. 30.15, 19) from which men shrink in terror (Ps. 55.4f.). It is an enemy of God and man, and resurrection is therefore God’s great victory over death (1 Cor. 15.54-57). Death is ‘the last enemy to be destroyed’ (1 Cor. 15.26), abolished in principle at Christ’s resurrection (2 Tim. 1.10), to be finally abolished at the end (Rev. 20.14; cf. Is. 25.8). Only because Christ’s resurrection guarantees their future resurrection are Christians delivered from the fear of death (Heb. 2.14f.) and able to see it as a sleep from which they will awaken (1 Thes. 4.13f.; 5.10) or even a departing to be with Christ (Phil 1.23).

The OT pictures the state of the dead as existence in Sheol, the grave or the underworld. But existence in Sheol is not life. It is a land of darkness (Jb. 10.21f.) and silence (Ps. 115.17), in which God is not remembered (Pss. 6.5; 30.9; 88.11; Is. 38.18). The dead in Sheol are cut off from God (Ps. 88.5), the source of life. Only occasionally does the OT attain a hope of real life beyond death, i.e. life out of reach of Sheol in the presence of God (Pss. 16.10f.; 49.15; 73.24; perhaps Jb. 19.25f.). Probably the example of Enoch (Gn. 5.24; cf. Elijah, 2 Ki. 2.11) helped stimulate this hope. A clear doctrine of resurrection is found only in Is. 26.19; Dn. 12.2.

‘Hades’ is the NT equivalent of Sheol (Mt. 11.23; 16.18; Lk. 10.15; Acts 2.27, 31; Rev. 1.18; 6.8; 20.13f.), in most cases referring to death or the power of death. In Lk. 16.23 it is the place of torment for the wicked after death, in accordance with some contemporary Jewish thinking, but it is doubtful whether this parabolic use of current ideas can be treated as teaching about the state of the dead…