Here are resources on Intermediate State taught in Sunday School at Lowell Church.
An Evangelical Understanding of God and His Word
BRUCE WARE
First of all is the Bible’s teaching on what is called the Intermediate State. This is simply the state of people’s existence after physical death. We all understand that because of sin we die in this world. That was stated by God in the Garden of Eden, “In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.” The New Testament confirms this in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” In Romans 5 Paul has said, “Through sin death entered the world.” We understand that apart from the coming of Christ when we will be raptured and taken to be with him, more on that in a few moments, we can all expect to die in this life. The question becomes then, what happens after that?
A. Unbelievers
Essentially for unbelievers they can anticipate, whether they know it or not that they may be experiencing right upon their physical death torment and punishment as they await the final judgment of Christ.
There are a couple of passages that indicate this. is the first one we will look at. Peter says here, “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment awaiting the day of judgment.” Here is a very clear statement that those who are unrighteous are not in some kind of unconscious experience, soul sleep, or something like this, but rather they are consciously experiencing punishment awaiting this day of judgment. The term that is used there that they are under punishment is a present passive participle indicating the ongoing nature of this punishment they are enduring.
Another passage that I believe is relevant to this is Luke 16 where Jesus tells the story here of the rich man and Lazarus. You may recall this. Beginning at verse 19, the rich man enjoyed many benefits in this life. The poor man Lazarus used to lay at his gate covered with sores and longed to be fed with crumbs that came from the rich man’s table. But now they both have died and the rich man is in Hades, it says, while the poor man is at Abraham’s bosom. We read this concerning the rich man, in verse 24 it says, “He cried out and said ‘Father Abraham have mercy on me, send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger into water and cool off my tongue for I am in agony in this flame.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received good things and Lazarus bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able to do so, and that none may cross from there to us.’ And then the rich man in Hades said, ‘Then I beg you father send someone to my father’s household for I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will not come to this place of torment.’ And Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’”
A couple things about this are interesting. One is it is very clear that this is happening in the intermediate state. This is not a statement of the final judgment. This is not hell as we read about it or the lake of fire as we read about it in Revelation 20, but rather this is a time period between this man’s physical death and the coming of Christ. How do we know that? Because he appeals to go and speak to his brothers who are still out there. Other people have not died yet. This is prior to the end of the age. Another thing interesting about this is that it is very clear that this man is conscious and experiencing torment during this time. He wishes for just a drop of water to be brought to him and nothing of the sort can be done; there is this chasm fixed. Finally notice that because this chasm is fixed there is no way in which one could transfer from one side to the other, that is, people who are in this horrible place of torment cannot move to the place of Abraham’s bosom of blessing nor the reverse.
So it seems to be clear from this that our ultimate destiny is secured at the point of our physical death, that is, there is no point after our physical death in which that can be changed. Hebrews 9:27 confirms this when it says, “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this comes the judgment.”
B. Believers
For believers the picture is similar in once sense, that is, there is conscious existence, ongoing existence that takes place between the time of one’s physical death and the second coming of Christ, but the quality of life is dramatically different. The picture we have in the New Testament of what believers anticipate being with Christ is so glorious and wonderful.
Listen to these passages. For example, in Luke 23:42-43, Jesus, to the thief on the cross who had trusted in him, said to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Even using the word “paradise” indicates this place of joy and blessing where he will immediately be with the Lord.
Philippians 1:21-23 Paul sort of debates in this passage whether he should die or whether he should remain living for the benefit of the believers and he says this in verse 21, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I don’t know which to choose, but I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ for that is very much better yet to remain on in the flesh is necessary for your sake.” Here it is clear that he means when he says, “depart and be with Christ,” he means by that his physical death because in the next verse he says, “yet to remain on in the flesh.” So Paul understands what it means to die as a believer is this joyous reality of departing and being with Christ for that is very much better.
This is confirmed in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 where Paul says, “Therefore being always of good courage and knowing that while we were at home in the body,” that is, living physically in our physical bodies, “we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. We are of good courage I say and prefer rather to be absent from the body,” that is, die physically; our bodies go to a grave, “and to be at home with the Lord.” So the prospect for believers is a very joyous one that at the point of physical death we are with the Lord and enjoying the pleasures of his presence and company.
The New Testament clearly places our ultimate hope not at the point of our physical death, but at the point of the return of Christ and our resurrection to the fullness of what God has for us. Let me put it this way; as wonderful as the intermediate state is for believers, we are with the Lord, it still falls short of the fullness that God has for us when we are given glorified bodies and restored fully into the image of the risen Christ to live with him forever. Our real hope is the blessed coming of the Lord when the resurrection takes place. The intermediate state is simply a step in that direction but not the fullness of what God has for us.
