The Believer’s Intermediate State After Death

By Larry J. Waters

[Larry J. Waters is Associate Professor of Bible Exposition, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

“Life after death, for many Christians, means existing only in the memory of their families and of God. Scientific, philosophical, and theological skepticism has nullified the modern heaven and replaced it with teachings that are minimalist, meager, and dry.”[1] Is this true? When a Christian dies, is he then in an unconscious state awaiting the resurrection? Or does he have a conscious existence living in heaven in an intermediate state between death and the resurrection?

Some scholars have recently resurrected the concept of materialism, now labeled the materialist view. It assumes that each deceased person is in an unconscious, even nonexistent, state between death and the resurrection.[2] The materialist also denies a division of the soul/spirit and the body. For example Howard states, “In terms of biblical psychology, man does not have a ‘soul,’ he is one. He is a living and vital whole.” The parts, he adds, “have no independent existence.”[3]

 Green writes that “death must be understood not only in biological terms, as merely the cessation of one’s body, but as the conclusion of embodied life, the severance of all relationships, and the fading of personal narrative. It means that, at death, the person really dies. . . . There is no part of us, no aspect of our personhood, that survives death.”[4] At death one’s body and soul/spirit cease to exist until the resurrection.

However, as Lewis states, “Throughout the centuries Christians have believed that each human person consists in a soul and body; that the soul survived the death of the body; and that its future life will be immortal.”[5] Ryrie concludes, “For the believer the state after death is one of conscious bliss while awaiting the resurrection . . . . It could not be otherwise, for the believer at death is ushered into the presence of God immediately.”[6]

Defining Terms

The Intermediate State

The intermediate state refers to the existence of a believer between death and the resurrection. It is “the manner of existence of the human soul and spirit in the interval between death and resurrection.”[7] Grudem defines death as “the temporary cessation of bodily life and a separation of the soul from the body. Once a believer has died, though his or her physical body remains on the earth and is buried, at the moment of death the soul (or spirit) of that believer goes immediately into the presence of God with rejoicing.”[8] Habermas and Moreland state, “Traditionally, the intermediate state refers to the state of individuals between the time they die until they are reunited with their own resurrected bodies. In this state the person enjoys conscious fellowship with God while waiting for a reunion with a new, resurrected body.”[9]

Soul Sleep

This view “teaches that when believers die they go into a state of unconscious existence, the next thing that they are conscious of will be when Christ returns and raises them to eternal life.”[10] Passages used to support this view are Matthew 9:24; 27:52; John 11:11; and 1 Corinthians 15:6, 18, 20, 51.[11] The difference between soul sleep and the materialist view is that materialism denies the existence of a soul/spirit.

Materialism or Materialist View [12]

As stated earlier, materialism holds that man is totally a material being. This is sometimes referred to as monism. Christian monism can be defined as “seeing human persons as unified, embodied wholes consisting of nothing more than their material ‘stuff.’”[13] “This is the central thesis of materialism. Materialism . . . comes in several varieties; currently the most popular variety is the mind-body identity theory. This theory does not deny that humans have both mental and physical attributes but says that both are attributes of the same thing—namely, the living human organism. A human being is his body, and the body is the person.”[14] This view is also referred to as the physicalist or materialist view. This expresses the same theory but with emphasis on contemporary neuroscience and philosophical-scientific assumptions that attempt to shed light on theological questions.[15]

Green disagrees with Cooper, a dualist, who offers Old Testament support for the existence of a soul/spirit and body (Job 24:19; Pss. 9:18; 16:10; 30:4; 31:18; 49:16; 55:16; 86:13; Isa. 5:14).[16] Green offers his own interpretation of the the Old Testament information followed by his interpretations of Luke 16:19-31 and 23:42-43. He concludes that the biblical writers had no firsthand knowledge of post-death survival. He accuses Cooper of being presumptuous, and he dismisses a dualist interpretation of these passages as well as Luke 24:36-49 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-10.[17] Heaps observes that Green “resorts to false either/ors, and eloquently restates his position as if that constituted proof. For example he dismisses one study of afterlife in the Old Testament by observing that this is not a primary OT concern . . . similarly, he seems to assume that because soul/body/spirit words are used in various ways, the study of such terminology is irrelevant. Some pertinent passages were conspicuously absent (Matt. 10:28; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9-11; Luke 20:38; 1 Thess. 5:23), or dealt with summarily (Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8).”[18]

Scripture also opposes the view that no clear distinction was held between the material and immaterial part of man. The mere number of Scripture occurrences speaks volumes of this distinction. For instance, “heart” occurs 172 times in the New Testament and 683 times in the Old Testament; “soul” 47 times in the New Testament and 256 in the Old Testament; “spirit” 384 times in the New Testament and 227 in the Old Testament; “mind” 98 times in the New Testament and 98 times in the Old Testament; “flesh” and “spirit” together 11 times in the New Testament and 5 times in the Old Testament; “soul” and “spirit” together three times in the New Testament and once in the Old Testament; “heart” and “soul” together seven times in the New Testament and 26 times in the Old Testament; “mind” and “spirit” six times in the New Testament and once in the Old Testament. Also combinations of “heart,” “mind,” “body,” “strength,” and “spirit” are used in Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; and Luke 10:27.[19] The biblical authors gave no indication that the terms must be taken as synonymous or dismissed as superfluous.[20]

In contrast to the materialist view Hodge explains the historical Protestant doctrine on the state of the soul after death.

The Protestant doctrine on the state of the soul after death includes, first of all, the continued conscious existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body. This is opposed, not only to the doctrine that the soul is merely a function of the body and perishes with it, but also to the doctrine of the sleep of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection.

The former doctrine belongs to the theory of materialism, and stands or falls with it. If there be no substance but matter, and no force but such as is the phenomenon of matter; and if the form in which physical force manifests itself as mind, or mental action, depends on the highly organized matter of the brain, then when the brain is disorganized the mind ceases to exist. But if the soul and body are two distinct substances, then the dissolution of the latter does not necessarily involve the end of the conscious existence of the former.[21]

Dualism

Christian dualism is the belief that human beings possess both body and soul/spirit and that when the body dies, the soul/spirit continues to exist in a conscious state until the resurrection and the reception of a resurrection body.[22] Dualism is a broad philosophical and theological term that has many varieties. As Hasker explains, philosophically it was,

first developed in Greek philosophy, notably Plato . . . Descartes [is] by far the most influential dualist of modern times. . . . Dualism begins by taking quite seriously the fact that human beings have both physical properties and mental properties—as opposed to theories like idealism and behaviorism which collapse the two types of properties into one. Furthermore, dualism gives a clear and straightforward explanation of the existence of the two types of properties: physical properties, it says, are properties of the body, while mental properties are properties of the mind. (Dualists sometimes use the word “soul” instead of mind; according to dualism the two words refer to the same thing.)[23]

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga offers a helpful explanation.

I know it is all the rage today to be a materialist, that human beings are their material bodies, their brains, or something inside of their brains. But I don’t believe that for a minute. I don’t believe that is right. If I were a material object, I would have to be my body, or my brain, or some part of it. But it seems to me to be perfectly conceivable that I can exist when my body doesn’t. I am saying that it is in fact possible to exist when my body does not. The distinction between my body and me exists, because I can actually conceive of me not being the same as my body, then that very fact supports me not being the same as my body.[24]

Plantinga’s premise is that if a person can conceive of existence outside of or beyond the body, then that is enough proof, philosophically, that people are something more than their bodies. John Hick gives two reasons for decline in the belief in a soul/body distinction. “This considerable decline within society as a whole, accompanied by a lesser decline within the churches, of the belief in the personal immortality clearly reflects the assumption within our culture that we should only believe in what we experience, plus what the accredited sciences certify to us.”[25]

Many people believe that what science cannot observe and substantiate does not exist. Since neuroscience cannot observe and measure a soul, its existence is denied. “A belief is true only if it can be tested scientifically—observed, measured, quantified, and so forth. But here again, the soul does not appear to be an entity that the so-called ideal sciences, physics and chemistry, can quantify and measure.”[26]

The Westminster Confession of 1646 holds to the traditional view of Protestant orthodoxy and a dualist anthropology regarding the intermediate state.

The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see 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, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens . . . waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast in to hell. . . . At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and . . . the dead [believers] shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls for ever.[27]

Dualism recognizes both nonmaterial and material aspects of human beings. Also it allows “full scope for the scientific study of nature [and] it recognizes the existence of an immaterial or ‘spiritual’ part of man, so that certain aspects of human life (for example, morality and religion) cannot be fully comprehended by scientific study alone.”[28] In fact dualism “seems to harmonize quite well with a religious, specifically with a Christian, world view.”[29] Several biblical references support this claim.[30]

Examination Of Select Biblical Passages [31]

Matthew 10:28

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Jesus was reminding the apostles that the religious leaders were accusing Him of working by the power of the devil when He cast out a demon (Matt. 9:34). Jesus’ point was that if the religious leaders falsely accused Him, they certainly would do the same to His disciples. But the apostles had no need to fear the religious leaders. Jesus wanted to encourage them by pointing out that their enemies could destroy the physical body (10:28), but not their souls. Verses 29-32 confirm the value the Father placed on them, and they state that Jesus would acknowledge them before the Father, even though they might be physically killed for their faith in Him. “If the mission is the will and work of God through the disciples, they need not fear. The worst that human persecution can bring, in any event, is the death of the body (σῶμα). But a human being, made in the image of God, is more than a body, being a combination of both body and soul (ψυχή).”[32] Nolland states, “Talk of killing ‘the body’ already implies that there is more to a person than the body.”[33] Blomberg adds, “Physical death thus pales in comparison with the prospect of eternal punishment. ‘Body’ and ‘soul’ point to a fundamental dualism in human beings.”[34] “In this life, of course, body and soul are closely united, and God will eventually reunite them in the resurrection body. But Scripture consistently teaches that the two are separated at death (see Luke 23:43; 2 Cor 5:1-10; Phil 1:23-24). ‘Kill,’ like ‘destroy,’ does not imply annihilation but eternal suffering, as the qualification ‘in hell’ makes clear [Matt. 10:28].”[35]

The duplication of καὶ in the last part of verse 28 (καὶ ψυσὴν καὶ σῶμα), translated “both soul and body” or “not only soul but also body,” argues for a distinction between the two.[36] If Jesus had meant that the material body is the complete person, why did He not use another construction? Instead He separated the material from the nonmaterial, and referred to the two as distinct parts of the complete person. “Jesus [says] that God can destroy both soul and body in hell (cf. Isa. 10:18) . . . . The expression refers to the whole person, and the whole person is body and soul . . . . Jesus is speaking of the destruction of all that makes for a rich and meaningful life, not of the cessation of life’s existence.”[37]

Matthew 17:3

“And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”

Christ’s transfiguration was a preview of His glory and the confirmation that He was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. “Moses and Elijah appeared from heaven in some visible form and talked with Jesus (thus demonstrating that conscious existence follows death). Luke wrote that Moses and Elijah talked with Jesus about His coming death (Luke 9:31).”[38] As Blomberg observes, Moses and Elijah

were key representatives of the law and prophets, they lived through the two major periods of Old Testament miracles, they were key messianic forerunners whose return was often expected with the advent of the Messiah, and they were often believed never to have died but to have gone directly to God’s presence . . . .Of course, both men, as “Old Testament saints,” are still awaiting their final resurrection. Nothing here indicates that they had actual bodies when they appeared; God’s servants throughout Old Testament times apparently had some consciousness of God’s presence even after they died and remained in a disembodied state.[39]

S. Lewis Johnson comments, “First, there is an answer to Job’s query, ‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ (Job 14:14). Men have always sought to seize every hint and probability that nature might give to indicate that life survived the grave. . . . It is just possible that the incident tells us much more than that there is a life beyond the grave. It surely stresses the fact that the life beyond the grave is a conscious life. It may also point to the fact that the dead are conscious of the living. . . . Can we not posit something of the same for those who are with the Lord?”[40]

Matthew 22:32

“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (cf. Luke 20:37-38; Exod. 3:6).

The Sadducees, who did not believe in a resurrection of the dead nor an afterlife, had asked Jesus about a woman who had been widowed and had married seven times. They asked whose wife she would be in the resurrection and afterlife. Jesus answered that there will be no marriage in heaven but that all believers will be “like angels in heaven” (v. 30). Jesus addressed their fallacious thinking by citing Exodus 3:6.

The repetition of “the God of” is interesting because of the pres-ent tense of the verbs: “I am” and “He is” coupled with the negative “not . . . of the dead,” and the positive “but of the living.” The text does not say, “He was the God of.” If there is no afterlife, the past tense would have certainly been used. The fact that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the crowd “all took it for granted that God is the God of the patriarchs tells us something about the patriarchs as well as about God. He is the God . . . of the living, and in this context the living must be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”41 “Only living people can have a God.”42 As Hagner explains, “This implies that they are still alive since it would mean little to say that God ‘is’ (εἰμί, present tense) the God of dead men. The concluding explanatory words following the quotation make just this point: οὐκ ἔστιν [ὁ] θεὸς νεκρῶν ἀλλὰ ζώντων, ‘he is not the God of the dead but of the living.’ . . . If God is the God of the patriarchs, they are by implication alive after their death . . . and thus the ground is prepared for the reality of the future resurrection.”[43]

Hendriksen adds, “Ps. 73:24-26 . . . clearly teaches the blessed after-death existence of the believer’s soul in heaven. . . . Two facts certainly point in that direction: a. the creation of man as ‘body and soul’ (Gen. 2:7), and b. this very passage, ‘He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’ Note also that Abraham believed in the possibility of a physical resurrection (Heb. 11:19).”[44]

Luke 16:22-23

“The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”

The discussion in Christian literature on Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus is extensive.[45] Regardless of one’s approach to the story the reader must face the question, “If Jesus did not want people to think they would remain conscious after death, why would He choose to tell a story that hinges on that notion?”[46] Why did Jesus tell this story if this is only about the rich and poor and the love of money and religious hypocrisy on the part of the Pharisees? Why discuss torment, thirst, visual contact with Abraham, regret, concern for the rich man’s brothers, and the state of both Lazarus and the rich man? “Since the experiences of the rich man and Lazarus occurred immediately after their death, the most natural interpretation of the passage would be that it refers to the intermediate state between death and resurrection.”[47] “This story,” Erickson continues, “actually refutes . . . the idea that unbelieving humans cease to exist at death. There is no explicit basis for believing in a later annihilation. In fact the opposite would seem to be the case.”[48]

John Gill supports this claim. “The state of both these is summed up in a few words (XCS81993Luke 16:25). ‘But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented;’ even ‘now,’ immediately after the death of both. That this respects the intermediate state between the death of the body and the resurrection of it, is clear, from what the wicked man petitioned, . . . [it] shows the . . . state of men before the resurrection, and as taking place immediately upon death.”[49]

Luke 23:43

“And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’”

When Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one rejected Him and one accepted Him as his Savior. The major interpretive problem here is whether a comma should be placed before or after the word “today” in Jesus’ sentence. Some say Jesus said, “I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”[50] Others say Jesus said, “I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”[51] No punctuation is in the Greek, but the natural reading of the verse agrees with the second rendering.[52] “Today” means “this very day,” and “with me” means a beautiful place associated with genuine, close fellowship with Christ (cf. John 17:24). Morris says, “Not only would he have a place in the kingdom, whenever that would be established, but that very day he would enter Paradise.”[53] “Paradise” is the Septuagint translation of “garden” in Genesis 2:8 and 13:10, and it eventually came to refer in Jewish theology to the residence of the righteous dead or heaven.[54]

The future paradise was identified with the garden of Eden, thus leading to the view that it existed in between the creation and the final age in hidden form. It came to be regarded as the intermediate resting place for the souls of the righteous dead. . . . It is used as a symbol for heaven and its bliss in 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7. In the present passage it represents the state of bliss which Jesus promises to the criminal directly after death. The use of σήμερον [today] thus presents no problem; it refers to the day of crucifixion as the day of entry into paradise.[55]

Acts 7:55-56, 59

“But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ . . . And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ “

Near the end of Stephen’s sermon before the Sanhedrin, an angry mob took him outside the city to stone him. As they were accusing him of blasphemy, Stephen became so absorbed in his vision that he started to describe excitedly what he was seeing. What he said took his enemies back to a conversation the religious leaders had with another prisoner, Jesus. During one of His trials Jesus was asked, “‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’ And Jesus said, ‘I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power’ “(Mark 14:61-62). Being at the right hand of God was a statement of deity, one that the Jewish leaders considered the epitome of blasphemy. Stephen said he saw Jesus at the right hand of God the Father. Even more striking than Stephen’s using the phrase “the Son of Man” (the only time in the New Testament it was spoken by anyone other than Jesus), was his vision of the Savior standing next to God.[56]

At the point of his death Stephen said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He did not say, “Lord, I’ll see you in a few thousand years.” “Just before Stephen died, he said, ‘Lord, receive my spirit.’ He did not say, ‘Receive my body.’ You can’t have a decaying body in a [heavenly] home.”[57] Stephen knew who waited for him, because his eyes saw Jesus.[58]

The similarity to Jesus’ dying words is unmistakable.[59] Jesus knew who waited for Him when He said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Having said that, He “breathed his last” and “he fell asleep” (v. 60). That sleep, of course, “does not mean cessation of existence or awareness, because we learn later in Paul’s writings that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:1-10).”[60] Also Stephen died, knowing that the one standing and waiting for him in heaven would receive his spirit.[61] How could Stephen look to Jesus in the hour of his death and then expect to be separated from Him for some vast period of time? Stephen’s body (not his soul/spirit) sleeps in death (cf. John 11:11; 1 Thess. 4:13, 15).[62]

2 Corinthians 5:1-8

“For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

This section “briefly summarizes what Paul had earlier written to the Corinthians about the nature of the resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:34-54).”[63] Paul assured the Corinthian believers “that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (v. 4). This present life is compared to nakedness, humiliation, and weakness. “The immediate context suggests that being naked refers to a disembodied state, a soul stripped of its body.”[64] While it is true that Paul was referring to mortality versus immortality,[65] he was also referring to a state in which the believer is “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (v. 8; cf. v. 6). This would argue for a consciousness beyond the death of the body, either in a disembodied state or with some undefined intermediate form for an undetermined amount of time. Clark says, “As all human souls are made for this glory, therefore all are considered, while here, to be absent from their own country. And it is not merely heaven that they have in view, but the Lord; without whom, to an immortal spirit possessed of infinite desires, heaven would neither be a home nor a place of rest.”[66] Bruce states, “In the consciousness of the departed believers, there is no interval between dissolution and investiture, however long the interval might be measured by the calendar of earth-bound human history.”[67]

Philippians 1:21-24

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.”

Paul was a prisoner of Rome, chained to a Roman soldier. He debated which course would honor the Lord more—to “depart and be with Christ” or to “remain in the body” and continue to minister to the Philippian church and other churches as well. Paul’s concern was that he might be facing death, and he was contemplating God’s will regarding his future, confident that he would be delivered either by physical release or by martyrdom. Martyrdom and “departing to be with Christ” was his personal desire, but the choice was not really his. Surely Paul was thinking of more than release from the “troubles of this earthly life”[68]; he was anticipating being immediately with Christ.[69] The gain (κέρδος) for him must be related to his departure and being with Christ (v. 23). “Only death can give us the gift of eternity . . . death escorts us into the presence of God . . . . Death might temporarily take our friends from us, but only to introduce us to that land in which there are no good-byes.”[70]

Hawthorne observes that Paul “makes the two infinitives share one article in Greek—τὸ ἀναλῦσαι καὶ σὺν Χριστῷ εἶναι, ‘the departing and being with Christ’—thus binding the two together.”[71] Clearly Paul believed that his death would result in his being with Christ. However, Hawthorne presents three views: (1) Christians “sleep” until the second coming with no intermediate life; (2) the resurrection of Christians will take place at death, not at some future time; and (3) Paul saw an intermediate state in which deceased believers are “with Christ” and “in a state of companionship with Christ in glory.”[72] Hawthorne recognizes that Paul does not elaborate or speculate on the nature of the “interim condition or intermediate state” other than to say that “it exists and that it signifies union with Christ.”[73] “Paul is viewing the intermediate state as one in which there is no interruption in Paul’s relationship with Christ but an enriching of it, akin to 2 Cor 5:6-8. Cousar refers to Lincoln (Paradise Now and Not Yet, 106), who remarks: ‘It is clear from a comparison of Phil 1:23 with 3:20, 21 that the state into which Paul will enter at death is far better, bringing with it a greater closeness of communion with Christ.’”[74]

Keener writes, “Philosophers often argued that death was neutral, not evil; it was either annihilation or the migration of the soul from one place to another. Paul sees it as an evil (1 Cor 15:26) but also as a way to pursue Christ undistracted. Most Palestinian Jews emphasized the future resurrection of the bodies of the righteous but believed that the souls of the righteous dead were meanwhile in heaven with God; Paul agrees with them.”[75]

The double comparative in the Greek (πολλῷ μᾶλλον κρεῖσσον “much more better;” or with γὰρ “for it is very far better”)[76] stresses that Paul saw his position after death as a state far better than presently being in the body. Would nonexistence, a two-thousand-year-or-more wait, or an improbable immediate resurrection (contrary to 1 Cor. 15:51-58), be what Paul was thinking? This is unconvincing. Why would Paul “passionately desire” to die (depart) rather than “abide in the flesh” and “cling to this present life with all its inconveniences?”[77] Hodge says, “Two things are here perfectly plain; first, that Paul regards the state of the soul after death as more exalted than its condition while in the flesh. This he distinctly asserts. And, secondly, that this change for the better takes place immediately after death.”[78]

1 Thessalonians 4:14

“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”

Here Paul wrote to defend his ministry and motives from his critics and to encourage the Thessalonian believers to persevere. The most substantial need of the church was for clarification regarding the events surrounding the return of Christ. Paul wanted to assure the church that those who had died in Christ would return with Him and that they would be raised to share in the glorious reign of Christ. The rapture of living believers who would meet in the air those who were with Christ (4:13-18), was a major emphasis in Paul’s preaching.

The bodies of deceased believers (1 Cor. 15:18) will be resurrected, as was Christ, and will be reunited with their souls (at the rapture) to return to earth with Christ at His second coming. The key phrase is “bring with him.” “Bring (ἄξει) is used instead of ἐγειρεῖ shall raise up.”[79] “Literally the Greek word means ‘will bring’ or ‘will lead,’ . . . in English ‘bring’ includes the idea of movement toward a given point of reference. In this context ‘bring’ therefore would imply ‘God will move down from heaven to earth with Jesus and with those who have died believing in him.’”[80] The Thessalonian believers apparently believed that deceased believers were somehow separated from Christ. Paul assured them that they are with Christ now and will be reunited with their bodies at the rapture (1 Thess 4:16).[81] “Like many Jewish people, Paul believed that the soul lived in heaven till the resurrection of the body, and that soul and body would be reunited at the resurrection (2 Cor 5:1-10).”[82]

Conclusion

Other pertinent passages include 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 12:23; and Revelation 6:9-11, but space does not allow discussion of these verses. However, enough material has been presented to draw the following conclusions. First, the examination of the philosophical material shows that there are various interpretations about the state of a person after death. Specifically they are three. (1) Between death and the resurrection the believer has no consciousness. (2) The soul/spirit cannot exist without the body; therefore the whole person is dead and nonexistent until the resurrection. This is the denial of a nonmaterial part of humankind. The body simply dies and eventually is resurrected in a new bodily form. There is no existence at all between death and the resurrection, because humans are only material. (3) Annihilationism rejects any afterlife and soul sleep is a dream state until the resurrection.

None of these explanations is plausible from either a philosophical or biblical point of view. An investigation of select passages from the Scriptures reveals several facts. First, the passages examined give a clear indication that believers have cognizant existence between death of the body and its resurrection. “There is between death and resurrection an intermediate state in which believers and unbelievers experience, respectively, the presence and absence of God. While these experiences are less intense than the final states, they are the same qualitative nature.”[83] Second, this conclusion lends itself to encouragement and comfort for those who have deceased loved ones who are believers, for believers who have died throughout the centuries, and for believers facing death. Existence of the believer between death and the resurrection is pastorally significant. This fact enables the minister to comfort those who are grieving and those who wonder about the state of those who have died.

Many pastors and parents have been asked at a graveside, “Where is Grandma now? What is she doing? Is she with Jesus already? Are she and Grandpa back together? Does she know what we are doing?” These questions are not the product of idle speculation or curiosity; they are of crucial importance to the individual posing them. An opportunity to offer comfort and encouragement is available to the Christian who is informed on the matter.

“Death, though it would appear to be man’s greatest enemy, would in the end, prove to be his greatest friend. Only through death can we go to God.”[84] Romans 8:38-39 clearly states, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (italics added).

Notes

1. Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 352.
2. Materialism holds that man is completely a material being. “Materialism, like dualism, comes in several varieties; currently the most popular view is the mind-body identity theory. This theory does not deny that humans have both mental and physical attributes but says that both are attributes of the same thing—namely, the living human organism. The human being is his body, and the body is the person” (William Hasker, Metaphysics: Constructing a World View [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983], 69-70).
3. J. K. Howard, “The Concept of Soul in Psychology and Religion,” in Faith and Thought 98 (1970): 74. J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae refer to Howard’s position as the “recreation position.” “Thus at death a person becomes extinct, and at the general resurrection God recreates the person, not from preexisting materials but out of nothing . . . the new person has no soulish or bodily materials in common with the person who died. This is inconsistent with biblical teaching” (Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000], 225-26). Moreland and Rae also refer to two other positions: (1) the “perspectival position,” which teaches that “when the believer dies, he goes to be with Christ and receives a resurrection body . . . there is no time gap between death and bodily entrance into Christ’s presence; and (2) “soul sleep” which “claims that in the time interval between death and the resurrection, persons exist in a state of sleep or unconsciousness” (ibid., 226-27).
4. Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 179. For a good evaluation of Green’s views see Scott B. Rae’s review of Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, in “Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith” (September 2009), http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7049/is_3_61/ai_n35534502/?tag=con-tent;col1 (accessed August 26, 2011). Other authors who agree for the most part with Green include Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Warren Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Maloney, eds., Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998); and Kevin Corcoran, Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialistic Alternative to the Soul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). G. E. Ladd states that “man is not, as the Greeks thought, a dualism of body and soul” (The Last Things [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 30).
5. H. D. Lewis, Christian Theism (Edinburgh: Clark, 1984), 125. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.15.6 (2:998). See also John Calvin, “Psychopannychia,” in Tracts and Treatises, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 3:413-90. First Enoch 22 and 2 Esdras 7 refer to the dead as “souls” and “spirits” that are active in the intermediate state.
6. Charles C. Ryrie, Biblical Theology of the New Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1959), 348.
7. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), 4:413.
8. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 816.
9. Habermas and Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, 222. See also Ron Rhodes, The Wonder of Heaven (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2009), 44.
10. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 819. See also Calvin, “Psychopannychia,” one of his earliest writings against this view.
11. Passages that contradict this erroneous interpretation include Luke 23:43; John 11:12-13; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; and Hebrews 12:23.
12. This is also referred to as physicalism or the physicalist view.
13. Scott B. Rae, review of Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, in “Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,” 1.
14. Hasker, Metaphysics: Constructing a Worldview, 69-70.
15. Rae, review of Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, in “Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,” 1.
16. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 152-53.
17. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 152-80.
18. Phil Heaps, review of Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, http://www.amazon.com/review/R2-OO8XDGFHRH53/ref=cm_cr_pr_view pnt #R2OO8XDGFHRH53 (accessed August 26, 2011).
19. These figures are based on searches using Logos Bible Software, and Scripture references are from the New American Study Bible.
20. These terms on the immaterial part of man seem to be used interchangeably. However, the immaterial terms (“heart,” “soul,” “spirit”) are never exchanged for the material term (“body”).
21. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (New York: Scribner, 1871; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 3:713.
22. Dualists believe that each human is both material and nonmaterial. That is, each person is a soul/spirit and has a body of flesh. Dualists believe that at the resurrection the body and the soul/spirit will be reunited forever. It is not within the scope of this article to discuss arguments about the trichotomous (body/soul/spirit) and the dichotomous (body/soul) makeup of mankind, nor to consider whether the believer in his intermediate state has an interim body or is in a non-body state. However, from the passages examined below one could certainly conclude that the departed are recognizable, which would necessitate some bodily form. For discussion of this issue see William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), 470-71 and n. 453. Moreland and Rae state, “The soul/spirit is an immaterial entity that grounds and unifies conscious, living functions; that constitutes personal identity; that can survive physical death in a diminished form in the intermediate state; and that, eventually, can be reunited with a resurrection body. We acknowledge that certain New Testament texts use psychē (soul) or pneuma (spirit) as a synecdoche of part for a whole (cf. Lk 12:19). However, there are obvious texts where these terms are most naturally taken to refer to an immaterial self” (Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics, 33). The term “soul/spirit” is used throughout this article to represent the immaterial part of man.
23. Hasker, Metaphysics: Constructing a World View, 65-66. The term “dualism” is not being used here to refer to the idea that God and the material universe have existed eternally side by side or that there are two ultimate forces, God and matter, in the universe. Dualism as a reference to the constitution of humans is sometimes referred to as substance dualism or two kinds of substance, that is, physical and mental (soul).
24. Alvin Plantinga, interview by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, You Tube, uploaded October 14, 2009; at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0. Plantinga’s explanation is much more involved and available elsewhere, but it is noteworthy at this point that Plantinga, one of the foremost philosophers today, does not accept materialism and defends dualism.
25. John H. Hick, Death and Eternal Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 92.
26. Habermas and Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, 38.
27. The Westminister Confession XXXII. Also the 1677/1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter XXXI, states the following, “Of the State of Man after Death and of the Resurrection of the Dead”: “1. The Bodies of Men after Death return to dust (Gen 3:19; XCS81993Acts 13:36) and see corruption; but their Souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately (Ecc 12:7) return to God who gave them: the Souls of the Righteous being then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ, and behold the face of God, in light (Lk 23:43; 2 Cor 5:1, 6, 8; Phil 1:23; Heb 12:23) and glory; waiting for the full Redemption of their Bodies; and the souls of the wicked, are cast into hell; where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to (1 Pet 3:19; Lk 16:23, 24) the judgment of the great day; besides these two places for Souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledges none. 2. At the last day such of the Saints as are found alive shall not sleep but be (1 Cor 15: 51, 52; 1 Thess 4:17) changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the self same bodies, and (Job 19:26, 27) none other; although with different (1 Cor 15:42, 43) qualities, which shall be united again to their Souls for ever. 3. The bodies of the unjust shall by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor; the bodies of the just by his spirit unto honor (Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29; Phil 3:21) and be made conformable to his own glorious Body.”
28. Hasker, Metaphysics: Constructing a World View, 67. This is the one factor that distinguishes humans from animals.
29. Ibid. Also one view, mentioned only briefly above, that is not developed in this presentation is the concept that the believer receives a resurrection body immediately on death. This view is rejected as a viable possibility both scripturally and throughout church history.
30. See Psalms 16:9; 17:15; 73:24-26; Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Matthew 10:28; 17:1-3; 22:32; Luke 16:19-28; 20:38; 23:42-43; John 14:1-3; Acts 7:53-59; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8; Philippians 1:22-24; 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 5:23; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 6:9-11.
31. Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.
32. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1993), 285-86. “A Jewish parallel can be seen in 4 Macc 13:14: ‘Let us not fear him who thinks he kills.’ The fear of God as judge is referred to in Heb 10:31 and Rev 14:7 (cf. Jas 4:12a)” (ibid.).
33. John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 436.
34. Craig Blomberg, Matthew, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 177.
35. Ibid., 177-78. See also I. H. Marshall, “Uncomfortable Words: VI. ‘Fear Him Who Can Destroy Both Soul and Body in Hell’ (Mt 10:28 RSV),” Expository Times 81 (1969-70): 276-80.
36. Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 495. See also Hendricksen, The Gospel of Matthew, 470-71.
37. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 263.
38. Louis A. Barbieri Jr., “Matthew,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1983; reprint, Colorado Springs: Cook, 1996), 59.
39. Blomberg, Matthew, 263. See also Desmond T. Alexander, “The Old Testament View of Life after Death,” Themelios 11 (1986): 41-46.
40. S. Lewis Johnson, “The Transfiguration of Christ,” Bibliotheca Sacra 124 (April–June 1969): 137-38.
41. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 561.
42. Marshall, Luke, 743.
43. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1995), 642.
44. Hendriksen, The Gospel of Matthew, 806. He also points to Psalm 16:9-11 and Daniel 12:2, which suggest a bodily resurrection. See also Job 14:14; 19:25-27; Psalms 17:15; 73:24-26; Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37:1-14; and Hosea 6:2; 13:14.
45. The concern here is not to discuss the many and varied interpretations of the story or to argue whether this is a parable with a limited point or a true story with main and secondary applications, but to see how it relates to the discussion about the intermediate state.
46. Randy Alcorn, personal communication, June 16, 2011.
47. Millard J. Erickson, “Is Hell Forever?” Bibliotheca Sacra 152 (July–September 1995): 264.
48. Ibid., 272.
49. See John Gill, “Of the Separate State of the Soul until the Resurrection, and Its Employment in That State,” in Doctrinal Divinity, book 7, chap. 3, http://www.pb-ministries.org/books/gill/DoctrinalDivinity/Book_7/book7_03.htm (accessed November 19, 2011). Mal Couch offers these lessons about the story: “(1) There is consciousness after death, (2) there is a bliss for the righteous and torment for the wicked, (3) there is regret for what is done in life, (4) great spiritual consequences follow after death, (5) the die is cast in this life, with no ‘second chance’ in view, and (6) the witness of the prophets . . . is sufficient so that one can know the truth” (The Gospel of Luke: Christ, the Son of Man [Chattanooga: AMG, 2006], 173).
50. Trent C. Butler is an example of those who hold this view. “Jesus promised the thief immediate consciousness today of life in the eternal kingdom. Does this require an intermediate state, as some would teach? To say this is to say that Jesus went to an intermediate state, and that paradise means an intermediate state. Yet, we know that Jesus went to rule with his Father in heaven” (Luke, Holman New Testament Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000], 396). See also John Nolland, Luke 18:35-24:53, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 2002), 1152.
51. Those who hold this view include Louis Godet, Edward William Shalders, and M. D. Cusin, A Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke (New York: I. K. Funk, 1881); and Robert H. Stein, Luke, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 593. And I. Howard Marshall writes, “The use of σήμερον . . . refers to the day of crucifixion as the day of entry into paradise” (The Gospel of Luke, New International Greek Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 873). And Darrell L. Bock observes, “This emphasis on the current day involves an immediacy that Luke likes to use (2:11; 4:21; 5:26; 13:32-33; 22:34, 61). . . . It seems . . . that some sense of moving immediately into an intermediate state, conscious of God’s blessing, is alluded to here” (Luke,Volume 2:9:51-24:53 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996], 1857).
52. J. Reiling and J. L. Swellengrebel, A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), 735. They write, “sēmeron met emou esē en tō paradeisō ‘today you shall be with me in paradise.’ sēmeron contrasts with the future of Jesus coming as king. The predicate with esē may be met emou, or, en tō paradeisō, preferably the latter. Then met emou refers to the situation in which he will find himself in paradise, viz. ‘in the company of Jesus’ “(ibid.).
53. “Not only would he have a place in the kingdom, whenever that would be established, but that very day he would enter Paradise” (Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], 359).
54. Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 749-50. See also Morris, Luke, 359; and Couch, The Gospel ofLuke, 223. Butler wrote, “The earliest Greek translators of the Old Testament used the Greek term for paradise for God’s garden (Gen. 2:8-10). In the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha written between the Old and New Testaments, ‘paradise’ takes on a new meaning in Jewish thought. It becomes associated with the blessing of final judgment (see 2 Esdras 4:7; 6:2; 7:36, 123; 8:52). This meaning appears three times in the New Testament (Luke 23:42; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7). This ideal end-time garden was described in terms of Genesis 2; Isaiah 41:18-19; 51:3; 58:11; 60:13; Jeremiah 32:41; Ezekiel 31:8-9; and Psalm 1” (Luke, 395).
55. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text, 873.
56. Kenneth O. Gangel wrote, “Did he stand to welcome the first martyr in honor? Did he stand to assume the posture of a witness in a heavenly court pleading Stephen’s case there? Or was he standing as Daniel saw him (7:13-14), the Ancient of Days ready to step into a judgmental rule against all nations who rejected him? We can only conclude it may have been all of these or none of them. Certainly the last fits in well with the judgmental message Stephen had just concluded. If it had been his intent to evoke the Danielic image, his hearers would have had no difficulty grasping the connection” (Acts, Holman New Testament Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998], 110).
57. Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute after You Die (Chicago: Moody, 1997), 64.
58. Ibid., 24. “We have every reason to believe that a person may see Christ in the twilight zone between life and death. Before Stephen was stoned God gave him a glimpse into heaven (Acts 7:56). This experience was unique in that it happened before Stephen died, not at death. Here was positive encouragement that heaven was waiting to receive him!” (ibid.).
59. John B. Polhill, Acts, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 209.
60. Gangel, Acts, 111-12.
61. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman, 1930), 3:99. Robertson notes that “receive my spirit” (δέξαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου) is an aorist middle imperative stressing urgency and asking that the spirit be received now (ibid.).
62. Stanley D. Toussaint, “Acts,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, 371. See also John Calvin, Acts, Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Agnes Software, 1998), on Acts 7:59.
63. David K. Lowery, “2 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, 565.
64. David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 260. Garland points out that “such an image would have been readily understood in a Hellenistic context (see Plato, Cratylus 403B; Gorgias 523E–524D). Philo describes the death of Moses in this way: ‘He began to pass over from mortal existence to life immortal and gradually became conscious of the disuniting of the elements of which he was composed. The body, the shell-like growth which encased him, was being stripped away and the soul laid bare . . . and yearning for its natural removal hence’ (On the Virtues 76). He also describes his death as, ‘settlement away from home’ (On the Virtues 77). Some interpret 1 Cor 15:37-38 as referring to the soul stripped of its physical body at death to receive a new spiritual body” (ibid.).
65. Lowery, “2 Corinthians,” 565.
66. Adam Clarke, Second Corinthians, Clarke’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Agnes Software, 1999), on 2 Corinthians 5:6.
67. F. F. Bruce, quoted in Larry J. Kreitzer, “Intermediate State,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph Martin (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 440.
68. Albert Barnes says, “And to be with Christ . . . was the true reason why he wished to be away. It was his . . . anxious wish to be with him; his firm belief that in his presence was ‘fullness of joy.’ Paul believed that the soul of the Christian would be immediately with the Saviour at death. It was evidently his expectation that he would at once pass to his presence, and not that he would remain in an intermediate state to some far distant period. The soul does not sleep at death. Paul expected to be with Christ, and to be conscious of the fact—to see him, and to partake of his glory. . . . To be with Christ is synonymous with being in heaven, for Christ is in heaven, and is its glory. We may add, that this wish to be with Christ constitutes a marked difference between a Christian and other men. Other men may be willing to die, perhaps be desirous to die, because their sorrows are so great that they feel that they cannot be borne. But the Christian desires to depart from a different motive altogether. It is to be with Christ—and this constitutes a broad line of distinction between him and other men” (Barnes Notes on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983], 1025-26).
69. Peter Thomas O’Brien gives the following examples: Paul’s “imprisonment” (1:7, 13, 14, 17), his “affliction” (1:17; 4:14), sharing Christ’s sufferings (3:10; cf. 1:29), the “struggle” for the gospel (1:30), his “need” (2:25; 4:16), “grief” (2:27 [twice]), “humiliation” (3:21; cf. 4:12), “deprivation” (4:11-12), and “hunger” (4:12). For him to die would thus mean an end to his “conflict” (1:29), his “sorrow upon sorrow” (2:27), and his “affliction” (4:14). While this may be true to some extent, the clear statement of Paul about dying being “better” is not release from pain, sorrow, and trouble, but being with Christ (v. 23) (The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 123).
70. Lutzer, One Minute after You Die, 47.
71. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 2004), 59.
72. Ibid., 60. Hawthorne provides a long discussion of these views referencing Artur Weiser, The Psalms, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 178; Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul (New York: Macmillan, 1958), n.p.; Earle E. Ellis, Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 35-48; and W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: SPCK, 1948), 319.
73. Hawthorne, Philippians, 60.
74. Ibid., 61.
75. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 559.
76. Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2002), 3:425.
77. Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 46.
78. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:729.
79. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 4:40.
80. Paul Ellingworth and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 97.
81. Alternate interpretations are presented by D. Michael Martin, 1, 2 Thessalonians, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 143-44; Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead (London: Epworth, 1958), 48-57; and O. Michel, “Zur Lehre vom Todesschlaf,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 35 (1936): 285-90. R. E. Bailey dialogues with both authors and asserts that the New Testament position is simply that “the Christian is one whose life is hid with Christ in God from where he awaits . . . the Parousia” (“Is ‘Sleep’ the Proper Biblical Term for the Intermediate State?” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 55 [1964]: 161-67). Bailey concludes by quoting D. P. Althaus with approval: “We know nothing before the resurrection (but) that death and the dead are in God’s hand. That is sufficient” (ibid., 167). However, other biblical passages indicate much more concerning death as man’s enemy and discuss where the dead are now.
82. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, 592.
83. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1184.
84. Lutzer, One Minute after You Die, 46.