Scripture tells us,
in a stark and realistic way:
"It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment." Heb., 9:27.
Man consists of both a material body and a spiritual soul.
These form one substantial personality,
death dissolving the partnership of body and soul.
Obviously, however, once dead,
the material body cannot answer for the kind of life a person has led in this world.
It is no longer a conscious living organism.
If there is to be a judgment immediately after death,
it is only the soul or spirit of man that can be there to encounter it,
retaining its spiritual powers of memory, intelligence and will.
What happens at death, then,
is that the body begins to disintegrate while the soul survives,
to be judged by God.