Friday, February 3

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Friday

To finish our week of reflection on the Biblical doctrine of the final judgment, I thought I would attempt to answer a very important question that someone asked me after a recent sermon.  The question is simply this, if the final judgment is a future reality for all people, then what happens to those who have died or will die prior to judgment day?  This is a good question.  What is the status of all of the people who have died whether righteous or wicked?  Are they already in heaven or hell?  Are they unconscious until the final resurrection and judgment?  Are they in purgatory trying to earn their way out?  Where are they?

First of all, let me say that the Bible does not give us a crystal clear picture of every detail about what happens when we die.  Those of us on this side of the grave can at best, as the Apostle Paul said, “see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13).  The best way to describe what the Bible teaches about where people are after death, but prior to the final judgment is what theologians call the "intermediate state".  Basically, the intermediate state means that we have a conscious, but disembodied existence until the final resurrection and judgment.  Those who die and are believers in Christ will be consciously with Christ as disembodied souls.  Those who die and are not believers will be consciously suffering apart from Christ as disembodied souls.  Both believers and unbelievers are waiting until the final resurrection and judgment for their eternal state.  Some have held that during this time we are unconscious or possibly even go out of existence.  However, I do not think that this is biblical.  The biblical evidence is that our soul continues on after death (after our bodies die) and that we remain conscious in the intermediate state while awaiting our final destiny of either resurrected existence in the new heavens and new earth or eternal torment apart from God.

The Apostle Paul speaks directly about this reality in his second letter to the Corinthians…

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.  – 2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Here Paul considers three possibilities and he gives his preference in a kind of descending order. First, he prefers that Christ would come and clothe his mortal body with immortality so that he would not have to die and be an incomplete, disembodied soul. But if God does not will that, Paul prefers to be absent from the body to living on here, because he loves Christ more than he loves anything else. To be absent from the body will mean to be at home with the Lord; a deeper intimacy and greater “at homeness” than anything we can know in this life.  Finally, if God wills that it is not time for the second coming or time for his death, then Paul will walk by faith in Christ and not by sight.

We should all examine ourselves in light of this amazing passage. Ask yourself these questions;  Do I share these biblical priorities and values in life? Do I long mainly for the second coming? And secondly, do I long to be at home with Christ even if it costs me the surrender of my body? Finally, am I committed to walk by faith until he comes or until he calls?

Jeff Frazier