Richard Waverly was a 37-year-old history teacher. One morning he was driving to school, tired after a late night and hungry from skipping breakfast because he and his wife were having a fight. At a busy intersection, he lost control, drove into a telephone pole and was thrown through the windshield. The paramedics said he was dead before he hit the pavement.
Now do you think that Richard Waverly knows that he is dead? Do you think he wishes that he would have told his wife that he loved her before he left that morning?
Those questions are from a 2002 psychological experiment. That story is from a 2002 psychological experiment. There is no Richard Waverly. Jesse Bering told that story and asked those question to seek to measure belief in the afterlife. Large numbers of people responded, “yes, Richard knows that he is dead,” and “yes, Richard does wish that he told his wife he loved her.” What’s interesting is that a good number of those who said, “yes,” also said they didn’t believe in the afterlife. They didn’t believe in the afterlife, but they did believe that Richard knew that he was dead. They didn’t believe in the afterlife, but they did believe that Richard wishes that he would have told his wife that he loved her.
Even people who say they don’t believe in the afterlife find it hard to shake the idea that we exist in some form after we die. They can’t escape the sense that there is something more. Tonight we are going to study that “something more.” We are going to study what God has told us about the afterlife.
We will study this in two points. First: after death. Second: the final resurrection. Our first point in this sermon on the afterlife is “after death” and our second point is “the final resurrection.”
First: after death. That fictional story about Richard Waverly’s car accident is shocking, but it isn’t incomprehensible. None of us were baffled by to hear that car accidents can result in death. None of us heard that word “death” and thought, ‘what is this word “death”? We understand that people die.
So what exactly is death? Medicine tells us that, “an individual who has sustained either irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” Legal codes would add their own criteria. Each of those definitions is valid and has its place in those fields. We, however, need a theological definition because that is our focus. How would we define death? Wayne Grudem offers the following definition, “death is a temporary cessation of bodily life and a separation of the soul from the body.”
That definition assumes that we are simultaneously bodily and spiritual. A fish is bodily without being spiritual. An angel is spiritual without being bodily. We are both and so this definition of death deals with both: death is “the temporary cessation of bodily life and a separation of the soul from the body.”
Now before we consider what happens after this separation of the soul from the body, we need to ask ourselves why we die. Medicine would have its own explanation for why we die which would involve the breakdown of cells; such a definition would be completely accurate. However, we are looking at death from a theological angle and so we would say that, at the end of the day, people die because of sin. “The wages of sin is death.” Why did Richard Waverly die? He flew through a windshield. That’s 100% accurate, but so is that statement, “Richard Waverly died as a result of the fall into sin.”
Now we Christians have already had our sin put to death with Christ. We longer pay any penalty for sin. For us the wages of sin is no longer death. So why do we still die? If the wages of sin is death and Christ has already received those wages on our behalf, why do we still need to die? If your understanding of death is purely medical, that will seem like a silly question, but if your understanding of death takes into account the word of God, you need to wrestle with it.
The Heidelberg Catechism wrestled with it. The Heidelberg Catechism was published in 1563. People died in 1563. Temporary cessations of bodily life and separations of souls from bodies occurred in 1563. People had questions about death in 1563. The Catechism asks, “Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?” and answers saying, “our death does not pay the debt of our sins. Rather, it puts an end to our sinning and is our entrance into eternal life.” We Christians don’t die as a penalty for sin. We die to put an end to our sinning and as an entrance to eternal life.
Now we are ready to tackle the question of what happens at this temporary cessation of bodily life and separation of the soul from the body. We will study three perspectives. The first is the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines purgatory as, ‘“purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven,” which is experienced by those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified.”’ Their Catechism makes clear that, “this final purification of the elect… is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.”
So purgatory is the condition of saved souls who require purification in order to enter heaven. It seems that the doctrine was developed in its recognizable form by the twelfth century in part from one line in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees which speaks of making “atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”
To be all too brief, there is no justification for purgatory in Scripture. We enter God’s presence only by grace and that grace is sufficient to bring us immediately to God’s presence without any period of purification. Furthermore, the idea that anyone would be sufficiently sanctified so as to avoid this purgatory depends on some very faulty assumptions about human perfectibility.
The second perspective on what happens to the soul after death is what is known as “soul sleep.” This perspective gets its name from passages such as Luke’s account of what happened to Stephen when he died; ‘he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.’
This perspective says that the soul remains unconscious, or asleep, until the final resurrection. This view would say that the souls of the dead in Christ are asleep right now. This rests on a particular understanding of human nature which says that we humans were created to exist as body and soul and that it would be unthinkable for a human to exist in any other way. We don’t say that the body in the coffin is truly our loved one and according to this view we shouldn’t say that the soul without a body is truly our loved one. This is a much, much more tenable position than the doctrine of purgatory. Purgatory has no Scriptural justification; soul sleep is within the realm of possibility, but I don’t think it holds up when you look at the specific passages.
I subscribe to the third perspective, which is called the intermediate state. The intermediate state is what lies between death and the final resurrection. It is intermediate of those two. This perspective says that the temporary cessation of bodily life we call death leaves the body in the ground and the separation of the soul from the body brings the believing soul to presence of God. We will deal with the unbelieving souls later in this sermon. These souls will exist without bodies until the final resurrection. That’s not a picture of soul sleep.
The believing dead exist as souls in the presence of God. You see this in John’s vision in Revelation 6, ‘I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”’ That’s a picture of souls existing with God after death and before the final resurrection.
Scripture includes other statements that point to this intermediate state including Jesus’ parable about the poor and rich men who died; “The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.” Jesus imagined that beggar existing in conscious form after death and before the final resurrection. Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross make most sense when read as the thief’s soul departing the body immediately upon death to be with God; “I tell you the truth: today you will be with me in paradise.” Paul’s words to the Philippians seem to assume that he expected to be with Christ immediately upon death, “for 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 better by far.”
Now this intermediate state—existing as a soul without a body—is intermediate. It doesn’t last forever and isn’t meant to last forever. There is a final resurrection; that’s our second point: the final resurrection. When Christ returns, souls and bodies will be reunited by way of resurrection. This was incredibly counterintuitive when the good news of the resurrection was first spread by missionaries such as Paul. The pagans thought it was insanity. Greek philosophy denigrated the body considering it to be a house of pain with evil desires. If you were finally rid of that, why would you want another one? Now, if you’ve got chronic pain, you can see their point. If you know the power of your own flesh, you can see their point. However, the answer to this problem is not to get rid of the body. The answer is to get a perfected soul and a perfected body. The souls in the intermediate state exist as perfected souls. They are waiting for the perfected body.
The soul is incomplete without the body. Speaking of that incompletion, Paul referred to the body as a tent, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Paul was saying that we don’t want to exist only as a soul. This means the souls who exist with God right now are incomplete. That’s not to say they are suffering or ashamed. It is simply to say that they are incomplete. They will be completed by way of the resurrection.
As we said this resurrection will occur at the return of Christ. As Paul explains, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
The final resurrection will reunite the body and the soul and this will usher in the final judgment. As Jesus put it, “a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.” Daniel 12 says the same, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” In so many ways, the New Testament simply provides some additional shading to the lines sketched by the Old Testament.
So both the righteous and the unrighteous will be resurrected at the return of Christ. We’ve considered the state of the souls of the righteous until that resurrection, but what about the souls of the unrighteous? It seems that they have been in hell. Peter assumes that the unrighteous exist in torment until the final judgment. He writes, “if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment… if this is so, then the Lord knows how… to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.” Jesus’ parable about the death of the rich and poor men assumes the same. It says that upon death the rich man was, “in Hades, where he was in torment.”
So the righteous are already with God before the final judgment and the unrighteous are already in hell before the final judgment. This begs the question, what is the final judgment all about? No soul that is currently with God has any reason to fear that the final judgment will end in their damnation and no soul that is currently in hell has any reason to fear that the final judgment will end in their salvation, so what is the final judgment all about?
Before we answer, let’s study what we are told about the final judgment; Revelation 20:11-12, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” Paul describes this same moment saying, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Everyone is judged on the basis of two kinds of books. There is the book of life, which includes the names of those who have given themselves over to God by way of faith, and there are the other books which record what people have done during their lives. These deeds are more than enough to condemn those without faith in Christ. Having one’s name written in the book of life will be more than enough to justify those with faith in Christ.
That’s a picture of the final judgment, but if souls were already in hell before the final judgment and the righteous were already with God before the final judgment, why resurrect them for this final judgment?
Well, first, the final judgment is an in-history event for everyone. The final judgment isn’t each man on his own merits, standing before St. Peter. It is a public justification or condemnation in which the criteria of judgment is the same for all.
Second, the final judgment ushers in the new creation. The souls with God now are not in the new creation. They are awaiting the new creation which doesn’t come until after the final judgment. The final judgment opens the door for the perfection of their joy. It also opens the door for the perfection of anguish for those in hell. Just as it will be better to be in the new creation than in the intermediate state so it will be worse to be in hell with a body than simply in hell as a soul.
Third, the final judgment makes God’s verdict public, which is a vindication for the righteous. Think about Stephen for a moment. He was publicly condemned and executed by the Sanhedrin. The final judgment will make clear to all, including the Sanhedrin who killed him, that Stephen was in the right and that the Sanhedrin was in the wrong. That vindication matters to anyone who has been condemned by the world.
Think about John the Baptist. He was executed by Herodias because he had confronted her and her new husband Herod on their adulterous relationship. John never saw her held accountable for what she did to him. John’s friends never saw her held accountable for what she did to him. God’s final judgment condemnation of Herodias’ sin will matter for them. The public nature of the final judgment matters.
Richard Waverly was a 37-year-old history teacher. One morning he was driving to school, tired after a late night and hungry from skipping breakfast because he and his wife were having a fight. At a busy intersection, he lost control, drove into a telephone pole and was thrown through the windshield. The paramedics said he was dead before he hit the pavement. Richard Waverly is just a test question. He won’t experience the final judgment. You will.
You can know the outcome beforehand. You can know that final judgment outcome today. You can know today that you will be with God when you die. That’s part of justification by faith in Christ. The one on the great white throne is the one who was on the cross. Your judge is your savior. That’s why Paul could say, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” If he lived, he lived justified. If he died, he died justified. That is the only reason anyone has for facing the afterlife unafraid. Amen.
“Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”
Acts 7:60, ‘“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.’
Revelation 6:9-10, ‘I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”’
Luke 16:22-23, “The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment…”
Philippians 1:21 and 23, “for 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 better by far.”
Luke 23:43, “I tell you the truth: today you will be with me in paradise.”
Mark 12:26-17, ‘Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!’
2 Corinthians 5:4, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”
1 Thessalonians 4:16, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
John 5:28-29, “a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.”
Daniel 12:2, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”
2 Peter 2:4 and 9, “if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment… if this is so, then the Lord knows how… to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.”
Revelation 20:11-12, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”
2 Corinthians 5:10, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.””