Shayla:

Does Acts 2:34 say that believers don’t ascend to heaven upon death?

• Acts 2:34 HCSB For it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself says: The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand.’

Midrash:

Before Christ died and resurrected, the righteous dead went to Paradise. After Christ resurrected, things changed. Now when we die, we go to be with the Lord, for “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Where is the Lord? Stephen answers that question for us.

• Acts 7:55-56 HCSB But Stephen, filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God's glory, with Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, (56) "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"