DEATH DETHRONED – INTERMEDIATE by Dr. Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson, NC
Introduction: According to the Pew Research from 2021, nearly three quarters of American adults believe in heaven. Also, while most American adults believe in hell, it’s not quite as much as they do in heaven. When asked “what do you think the afterlife is like,” one-in-five people (21%) believed in an afterlife where “one’s spirit, consciousness or energy lives on after their physical body has passed away, or in a continued existence in an alternate dimension or reality.” About 17% of those surveyed who believe in neither heaven nor hell but do believe in an afterlife hold to the opinion that when people die, they have something like a nirvana or an enlightenment on the other side. Others claimed that people’s energy just rejoins the universe, or they enter “a period of peace without suffering.” About 33% even believed in some form of reincarnation. As if once through this world is not enough! Unless the problem of sin, sorrow, and death is fixed permanently, I don’t want to come back again! Do you? As you know, we’re in our new series leading into Easter titled DEATH DETHRONED, where we are looking at Death and the Afterlife, and what Jesus has done for us. Today our focus will be on the Intermediate State. We’re going to learn how Jesus has opened the door for us to enter immediately into the presence of God when we die and be under his care.
2 Corinthians 5 6 “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
Context: What Paul is referring to here is the “Intermediate State.” The “Intermediate State,” is “the period between death as an individual phenomenon and the final judgment and consummation” (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 3rd edition, 429). When it comes to the Intermediate State, people have all sorts of ideas as to what it means:
- Some believe that at death we are spiritually resurrected. There is no physical bodily resurrection coming for us (Murray Harris).
- Others believe that when we die, we fall asleep. It is “Psychopannychy” or “soul sleep.” It is based on their understanding of soul (nephesh) as only physical life.
- Yet others believe that those who are good with the church but have some sins committed unintentionally and/or without full consent (venial sins) are sent to temporal punishment until they are purged of their sin (purgatory).
- Probably the worst one is where some believe that the unbelievers just get annihilated on the other side, cease to exist.
All these are misinterpretations of what the Bible says about the Afterlife, and some even heretical. So, how should we study the Bible? As I mentioned last time:
- We must study carefully what the Bible has to say. This requires us to understand the original language, word meanings, proper grammar, and proper context.
- We must study the progressive revelation of the Bible. The message in the Old Testament does not contradict the message in the New Testament, but there is a progression. The Old Testament is like your elementary school and the New Testament is like your high school. If you try to skip elementary school and try to get into high school, you may not know have the basic components of knowledge. If you stay only in the elementary school, you will only go so far and even misunderstand the truth.
- We must look at everything through the grid of Creation, Fall, and Redemption.God made everything wonderful, but something tragic happened when sin came into this world. Jesus came to redeem us and the whole creation.
Again, what we believe about the Intermediate State matters because it changes the way we live now, and it changes the way we die one day. Something else – it also helps us to know where our loved ones in Christ are, who have gone on ahead of us. God has not left us to wonder, doubt, or fear for them.
With that said, let’s dive in and try to understand what the Bible has to say about the Intermediate State and what Jesus has done for us (See Morey, Death and the Afterlife):
1. While human beings are a unity of body and spirit, our spirits will temporarily exist apart from our physical bodies when we die.
Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” That elementary school verse gives us what theologians call functional holism and holistic dualism. It implies that human beings are both body and spirit. Some people see human beings as just Material or just Spiritual. Both these views are reductionist and do not line up with the Bible. We are both body and spirit. Both are important and will matter in eternity.
Having said that, there is a period when our Immaterial part will exist apart from our Material part for a temporary period after death. The Hebrew word for “living being” is Nephesh = Soul. It is found about 754 times. It is used in various ways. It is more than just the life principle. It refers to our ability to think, to feel, to will, and to worship. It is our transcendent self that lives on when our physical body dies. Genesis 35:18 “And so it was, as her (Rachel’s)soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin.” 1 Kings 17 21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.” 22Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived.
Also, when the LXX translators came across “nephesh,” they translated it as “pseuche” most of the time. This is because “pseuche” had the idea of the immortal soul that could exist without the body. We don’t have time to examine all the other designations for this immaterial part of us: heart, spirit, mind, etc. Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ ” Having said this, He breathed His last.Jesus set the model for us as to how our spirit leaves our body.
Question: What do you believe about your self?
2. Both our Mind and Body need redemption through Christ, immediately and ultimately.The redemption of the Mind begins at salvation and will be completed in the end. Not many have a problem with that, but they don’t always believe that about the body. The redemption of the Body also begins at salvation and will be completed in the end. How do we know that it has begun? 1 Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body (soma) is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” How do we know it will be completed? Philippians 3 20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who will transform our lowly body (soma) that it may be conformed to His glorious body (soma)…”
In his elementary school language, even Job believed this! Job 19 25 “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God,”
3. Believers and Unbelievers before Christ went to the same place but different levels, and they were conscious.
- Sheol. Only found in the Hebrew Old Testament. Both Righteous and the Unrighteous went here.
Psalm 89:48 “What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave (Sheol)?”
Genesis 37:35 And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave (Sheol) to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.
Job 24:19 “As drought and heat consume the snow waters, So the grave (Sheol) consumes those who have sinned.”
It’s worse for the unbelievers in Sheol. Psalm 9:17 “The wicked shall be turned into hell (Sheol), And all the nations that forget God.”
There are different levels in Sheol. Deuteronomy 32:22 “For a fire is kindled in My anger, And shall burn to the lowest hell (Sheol); It shall consume the earth with her increase, And set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
It was a conscious place. Isaiah 14 9 “Hell (Sheol) from beneath is excited about you, To meet you at your coming; It stirs up the dead for you, All the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones All the kings of the nations. 10 They all shall speak and say to you: “Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us?”
- Hades. Greek word for Sheol and also found in the NT.
Matthew 11:23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
Even Jesus talked about the good section of Sheol/Hades – Luke 16:23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Luke 23:43 And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
- Other Synonyms for the bad section of Sheol and Hades.
Abbadon – Revelation 9:11 And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.
Pit – Isaiah 14:15 “Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Abyss – Revelation 20:3 and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.
Tartarus. Just for the Genesis 6 fallen angels – 2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
We will talk about Gehenna and the Lake of Fire in a later message in this series.
4. Jesus Christ has released the Believers from Sheol/Hades and taken them to the presence of God where all believers now go.
Acts 2:31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. There is a misunderstanding of this in the Apostles Creed where it mentions that Jesus descended into hell. That’s not true. He paid the price on the cross. His descent into Hades/Sheol was for a different purpose.
To proclaim against the fallen angels who tried to corrupt the seed in Genesis 6 – 1 Peter 3. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
To lead the believers out of Hades/Sheol into the presence of God – Ephesians 4. 8Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” 9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?
Philippians 1:23 “For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”
Revelation 6:9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
Now the saved are in the presence of the Lord, waiting for the resurrection of the body.
Are you saved? Where will you go when you die?
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