If to be absent from the body for me is to be with the Lord - still "in Christ" and "living together with him" as I am already now - then I must exist between my death and the resurrection.
Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting
Traditional Christianity has held fast to an ontological distinction between body and soul mainly because it follows from the doctrine of the intermediate state.Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting
Since the beginning Christians have embraced anthropological dualism (or trichotomy) because they believed that persons survive bodily death. The Christian defense of the body-soul distinction has in large part been motivated by the doctrine of the afterlife.Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting