The Location of the Dead in Christ Relative to Christ at the Right Hand of God

2 Corinthians 5:8 expresses the confidence of believers that to be "absent from the body" is to be "present with the Lord." Other passages teach that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Your question is whether this implies that deceased believers are gathered in the same "place" with Christ at the right hand of God, and how these ideas can be conceptually reconciled.

A helpful text for visualizing the heavenly scene is Revelation 5. John describes a throne scene:

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." (Revelation 5:11--12)

Here we see the Lamb in the immediate throne-room of God, attended by angels, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders. While Revelation 5 focuses on heavenly beings, it clearly places the Lamb in the sphere of the throne.

Revelation 7 then widens the picture to include a vast redeemed multitude:

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb..." (Revelation 7:9)

This multitude is "before the throne, and before the Lamb." If, as many interpreters hold, this scene includes the raptured body of Christ (including those who died and those caught up alive), then we have a biblical picture of believers in the presence of the enthroned Lamb.

Now, two clarifications are important.

1. Anthropomorphic language about God's "right hand." Scripture speaks of Christ seated at the right hand of God. Yet God is spirit. To speak of a "right hand" is to use human-like (anthropomorphic) language to describe rank, authority, and honor rather than to map out literal physical coordinates of God's body. "Right hand" conveys the idea that Christ occupies the position of supreme honor and executive authority alongside the Father.
2. "Present with the Lord" and spatial language. When believers die and are "present with the Lord," their presence is described in personal and relational terms more than in strict spatial geometry. Nevertheless, Revelation 7:9 does not hesitate to employ spatial language---"before the throne, and before the Lamb"---to affirm real proximity to Christ in the heavenly court.

Putting this together, we can say:

• Christ is at the right hand of God, the position of highest honor and authority in the heavenly throne-room.
• Believers who are absent from the body are present with the Lord; Revelation 7:9 gives a scriptural picture of redeemed people "before the throne, and before the Lamb."
• Therefore, it is reasonable to affirm that, yes, there is indeed a "crowd" of redeemed people with Christ where he is, in the presence of the throne.

We need not say that believers are themselves literally "at the right hand of God" in the same technical sense Christ is. Rather, we say that when they die or are raptured, they go to be with the One who is at the Father's right hand, in the heavenly court depicted in Revelation. Deceased believers---our loved ones in Christ---are properly thought of as being before the throne and before the Lamb, in the same heavenly sphere where Christ now is.

This allows us to hold both truths together: Christ uniquely occupies the right-hand position of honor, and yet he is surrounded by a growing company of redeemed men and women who are truly with him in that heavenly setting.