Intermediate state

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In Christian eschatology, the intermediate state or interim state refers to a person's existence between their death and resurrection. This period is "intermediate" between death and the last judgment.

As long as Christians looked for an imminent end of the world, they had little interest in an interim state between death and resurrection. Later, the Eastern Church came to admit of such an intermediate state, but refrained from defining it, so as not to blur the distinction between the alternative definitive fates of heaven and hell. In the West there was much more curiosity about the intermediate state, with evidence from as far back as the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (203) of the belief that sins can be purged by suffering in an afterlife, and that the purgation can be speeded up by the prayers of the living. Eastern Christians too believed that the dead can be assisted by prayer.[1]

Some Protestant theologians have posited "soul sleep", an unconscious state of the dead lasting until the resurrection, thus reducing the intermediate state to practically nothing and eliminating the particular judgment of each soul.

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[edit] Jewish background

The Hebrew Bible speaks about sheol, the underworld to which the souls of the dead depart. The doctrine of resurrection is mentioned explicitly only in Daniel 12:1-4 although it may be implied in several other texts. Later Judaism accepted that there would be a resurrection of all men (cf. Acts 24:14-15) and the intertestamental literature describes in more detail what the dead experience in sheol. According to the book of Enoch, the righteous and wicked await the resurrection in separate divisions of sheol, a teaching which may have influenced Jesus' parable of Lazarus and Dives.[2]

[edit] Christian teaching

[edit] Foretaste of final state

See also: Particular judgment

Some theological traditions, including most Protestants and Eastern Orthodox, teach that the intermediate state is a disembodied foretaste of the final state. Therefore, those who die in Christ go into the presence of God (or the bosom of Abraham) where they experience joy and rest while they await their resurrection (cf. Luke 23:43). Those who die unrepentant will experience torment (perhaps in hell) while they await final condemnation on the day of judgment (2 Peter 2:9).

I. 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, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.[4] Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledges none.

– Westminster Confession 1646, chapter XXXII, Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead

[edit] "Soul sleep"

Main article: Soul sleep

A minority of Christians, including Martin Luther[3] and smaller denominations such as Seventh-day Adventists[4], deny the conscious existence of the soul after death, believing the intermediate state to be unconscious "sleep". In this case, the person is not conscious of any time or activity and would not be aware even if centuries elapsed between their death and their resurrection. They would, upon their death, cease consciousness, and gain it again at the time of the resurrection having experienced no time lapse. For them, time would thus suspended, as if thy moved immediately from death to resurrection and the General Judgment.

[edit] Hades

Main article: Hades in Christianity

The intermediate state is sometimes referred to by the Greek term hades, even in other languages. The term is equivalent to Hebrew sheol and Latin infernum (meaning "underworld").

[edit] Purgatory

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven, a final purification to which it gives the name "purgatory"[5]

[edit] Limbo

Main article: Limbo

Roman Catholic theologians have given the name "limbo" to limbo as a hypothetical fate of infants who die without baptism. The just who died before Jesus Christ are also spoken of as having been in limbo until he had won salvation for them.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article purgatory
  2. ^ New Bible Dictionary 3rd edition, IVP Leicester 1996. "Sheol".
  3. ^ "Christian Song Latin and German, for Use at Funerals," 1542, in Works of Luther (1932), vol. 6, pp. 287, 288
  4. ^ 28 fundamental beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists[1], number 26 "Death and Resurrection".
  5. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030-1031

[edit] See also

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