June 1st: The Intermediate State

Speaker: Chris Laws

What precisely happens to body and soul - of unbelievers and believers - at death? Is it true the soul sleeps?

Belief in immortality of the soul all but universal. Eccles 3.11 “God has set the world [eternity] in their heart.
'Eternity' in almost all other versions. Heb =  concealed, “vanishing point”, of unknown duration
100s times translated everlasting, forever, eternity; 4x 'world'.
Men sense things go on after death. Conscience tells them of judgement.
They see many abilities never fully developed in this life – cut short. We are made for more than this brief span.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH?
Men cannot see beyond grave, a “vanishing point” which seizes their curiosity. Concealed. Human ideas abound.
RC purgatory – people paid fortunes to deliver departed loved ones from it. Basis – one passage in Apocrypha.
Near-death experiences. Explosion of interest in occult. Guesswork.
But we are privileged to know rather than guess. God has revealed what happens.

BODY AND SOUL
Man is made of two components, body and soul. Trace three stages:

1. At birth a body and a soul combine to form a human being.
Genesis 2.7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
He differs from animals because he alone has a “living soul”.
He differs from the angels, because his soul is made to exist with a body.

2. At death body and soul are separated.
Ecclesiastes 12.7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
BCF speaks of “souls separated from their bodies”.

3. At the end of time, the great resurrection of all dead bodies then the Last Judgement:
Body and soul will be re-joined, and be sent to Heaven or hell.
John 5.28 “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of evil.”
For believers it will be a glorified body.
Philippians 3.21 “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.”

What happens between death and resurrection? The intermediate state.
The body is decomposed; but what of the soul?

SHEOL
Sheol = “the world of the dead”. Translated grave or hell about 50:50 in AV.
The OT seems to teach all go to a common place of the dead
Became a popular opinion – everybody goes to Sheol or Hades (NT).
It was supposedly borrowed from the Greek idea of the underworld – a dreary world of shades.

Ecclesiastes 3.19 “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts…as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all have one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast. All go unto one place.”
The verse cannot mean there is a common place to which all souls go at death because the beasts do not have a soul.
This verse is about the body.
Fall of man means physical death is our destination like the beasts.
Saved and unsaved outwardly suffer the same fate; the body goes to the grave.
So what happens to the soul?

SLEEP OF THE SOUL
Is the soul conscious? The Bible seems to teach the soul sleeps at death.
Deuteronomy 31.16 “The Lord said unto Moses, Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.”
Acts 7.60 Stephen “fell asleep”.
1 Thessalonians 4.13 “I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that ye sorrow not...”

But souls do not sleep.
Luke 25.43 “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Enjoying fellowship with Christ, not sleeping.
Revelation 6.9-10 “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long?” Not asleep!
Luke 16: “Send Lazarus to my father's house...” His soul was conscious whilst his brothers were still alive.
2 Corinthians 5.6 “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” Present with Christ.

But what about: “Ecclesiastes 9.5, “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything”?
Surely unconscious? Read on: “...neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.”
This verse means they do not know anything about what is happening on Earth.

So what does the Bible mean by “sleep”? What of those who “sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess 4.14)?
A picture –
Body has rest from labour, activity when it dies. Rest from pain.
Just as sleep is temporary and we wake, the body rises.

WHERE DO SOULS GO?
Disembodied saved souls are “with Christ which is far better” (Philippians 1.23), ie in Heaven where He reigns.
So for the thief on the cross, paradise = Heaven, not another place. Saved souls go straight to Heaven.
For believers death becomes the doorkeeper to Heaven.
Unbelieving souls go straight to hell at death, the “prison house of the lost” awaiting final judgement.
Luke 16.23 “The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes...”

Now we can see why Sheol means the grave, and for the unbelieving it means hell also.
BCF 31.1: “The bodies of men after death return to dust, and undergo corruption, but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ…the souls of the wicked are cast into hell…The Scripture acknowledges no other state than these two for souls separated from their bodies.”

WHY IS THERE NO DIFFERENCE OUTWARDLY AT DEATH?
The physical benefits of Calvary have yet to come. 1 Corinthians 15.26 “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Believers have to face sickness and death. Why? For sanctification.

STATE OF SAVED DISEMBODIED SOULS
1. They rest; live; see Christ's face; hear; gladly serve like the angels; rejoice.
2. They cannot see us – taught nowhere, or hear our prayers, nor can we contact them.
Not spectators: “...compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12.1). Witnesses, examples.
3. They will know each other. In Luke 16 the rich man recognises Lazarus.
4. Is there time in Paradise? Revelation 10.6 “And the angel…sware…that time should be no longer.”
“Time” = delay. Time is up!
Revelation 6.11 “How long?” Told “they should rest yet for a little season”.
Different time scale? “yet for a little season”. 2000 years so far.
5. Do they have memory? The rich man remembered his brothers. Saints remember salvation, and sing the new song.
Won't we be sad then at the unsaved missing in Heaven?
No – our true relations and friends with us. Christ will wipe away all tears.
6. A second chance? No. “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgement” (Hebrews 9.27).
The great gulf fixed of Luke 16.

INTERMEDIATE STATE ENDS WITH REDEMPTION OF THE BODY
Greeks taught death is release of soul from prison of body.
Bible teaches opposite: the human soul is constructed to indwell a body, and will do so everlastingly.
The new body is the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5.14).
What of those alive when Christ returns? 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17 “the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
They will miss the intermediate state.

1 Corinthians 15.51 “We shall not all sleep [physically die], but we shall all be changed.” 
The infinite value of the soul – which will neither die nor sleep!