Death and the intermediate state

An enemy, already beaten

Christians do not pretend that death is a friend. God made us for life; death came in with sin (The fall). "The wages of sin is death," Paul writes (Romans 6:23), and he calls it an intruder that Christ will finally remove: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26). So there is nothing unspiritual about weeping at a grave. At his friend's tomb, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).

Yet the enemy has already lost. The Son of God took our flesh and blood so that by his death he might break the devil's power and "free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:15). Paul's great chapter on the resurrection ends by taunting death itself.

"Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

1 Corinthians 15:55-57

What makes death deadly is sin, and Christ has borne our sin. For those who belong to him, death still comes, but it is no longer the door to condemnation. How Christ's own rising grounds this victory is the subject of the lesson on the resurrection.

At home with the Lord

What happens when a Christian dies? Theologians call the time between death and the resurrection the ‘intermediate state’. Scripture says less about it than we might like, but what it says is clear. To the dying thief who asked to be remembered, Jesus made a promise.

And Jesus said to him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

Luke 23:43

Paul, writing from prison and unsure whether he would live or die, weighed the two.

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. … I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better indeed.

Philippians 1:21-23

Elsewhere he says that he "would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). In John's vision the martyrs' souls under the altar cry out to God and are told "to rest a little while longer" (Revelation 6:11). Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus also assumes comfort or anguish after death (Luke 16:22-26), though it should be read with care: it was told to call the living to listen to Moses and the Prophets (Luke 16:31), not to map the world to come.

This state is called intermediate because it is not the end; even the martyrs at rest are still waiting. The Christian hope is not finally a soul in heaven without its body, but the whole person raised when Christ returns. So Paul comforted a young church whose members had begun to die.

Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

The church has confessed both parts of this hope together. The Heidelberg Catechism finds comfort in knowing not only that "my soul after this life shall be immediately taken up to Christ its head", but that my body too will be raised and made like his glorious body Heidelberg Catechism, Q57. The Westminster Confession says that the souls of the dead, "which neither die nor sleep", return at once to God, and that the righteous, made perfect in holiness, behold his face, "waiting for the full redemption of their bodies" Westminster Confession, ch. 32. Ambrose says of the promise to the thief: "To be with Christ is life, and where Christ is, there is His kingdom" Ambrose. Matthew Henry adds: "In this world we are compassed with sin; but when with Christ, we shall escape sin and temptation, sorrow and death, for ever" Matthew Henry.

Where Christians differ

The first question is whether the dead are conscious. The Catholic and Orthodox churches and most Protestant churches teach that the dead are conscious as they await the resurrection, and that those who die in Christ are with the Lord. Some sixteenth-century Anabaptists, the Seventh-day Adventists and some others understand death as an unconscious sleep until the resurrection. They stress that a human being is one living whole, not a soul housed in a body, and note how often the New Testament calls death sleep, using the verb koimaō (κοιμάω): "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep" (John 11:11). They point to the Preacher's words that "the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5), and many of them place the comma in Luke 23:43 after ‘today’, since the Greek has no punctuation: Jesus makes the promise today, and keeps it at the resurrection. Most Christians answer that sleep is a gentle picture of the body's death as the living see it, and that Paul would hardly call unconsciousness "far better". Those who hold the sleep view reply that for the one who dies, the very next moment is the resurrection morning with Christ. Both sides agree that death is not the end and that the final hope is the resurrection of the body.

The second question is purgatory. The Catholic Church teaches that those who die in God's grace and friendship but are not yet fully purified are certain of salvation, yet undergo a final purification after death so as to reach the holiness needed to enter the joy of heaven. Purgatory is neither hell nor a second chance, but the last stage of being made holy Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent affirmed in 1563 that purgatory exists and that the souls there are helped by the prayers of the faithful and above all by the Mass, while warning preachers away from subtle questions that only feed curiosity Council of Trent, Decree on Purgatory. Catholics point to Paul's words that a builder whose work burns up "will be saved, but only as if through the flames" (1 Corinthians 3:15) and to the prayer for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12. The Orthodox churches also pray for the departed and believe their prayers help them, but have not defined purgatory as the Western church has.

Protestants reject purgatory. They hold that Christ's work leaves nothing to be purged by suffering after death, for "by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14); at death, by grace, the believer is made perfect in holiness. For all their differences, these traditions agree that without holiness "no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14), and that only Christ's grace can give it.

Grief with hope

Doctrine can sound cold to someone who has just buried a person they love, but this teaching was first given beside a grave. To Martha, four days after her brother's death, Jesus said this.

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

John 11:25-26

And he wept with them. Matthew Henry is right that "Grief for the death of friends is lawful; we may weep for our own loss, though it may be their gain" Matthew Henry. Christians grieve, but not as those without hope. We cannot always know what passed between a loved one and God, and need not pretend to; we can entrust them to a God who is both just and merciful. And for all who are in Christ, the promise stands that not even death "will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

See also How can I bear grief?, Will we recognise each other in heaven? and What happens after death?. The next lesson turns to the day all this waiting looks toward.

Practice