Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 27:2 (Fall 2023)
Article: The Church Triumphant: Affirming The Intermediate State
Author: Joshua Steely

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The Church Triumphant: Affirming The Intermediate State

Joshua Steely1

Abstract: Christian eschatology has classically held to a disembodied intermediate state between the saint’s death and the resurrection at Christ’s return. In the modern era, this intermediate state (and the dualist anthropology it implies) has been challenged from numerous fields of academic study. This article presents the major contemporary objections to the intermediate state, discusses proposed alternatives, and—finding both objections and alternatives unconvincing—lays out the key elements in the biblical case for the classical Christian doctrine.

Key Words: Personal Eschatology, Intermediate State, Substance Dualism, Dichotomy

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Introduction: Christian Hope

What will happen to me when I die?” This is one of the basic and universal human questions, and not a few answers are offered in reply. The atheists say annihilation, but they often enough find some way to romanticize the matter, in defiance of the inevitable nihilism of their worldview. Death is masked, sanitized, or put out of mind by abundant distraction. Religions tend to argue for some sort of afterlife, with great variance about the sort of afterlife, who attains it, and how concretely it may be described.

Christianity has an answer that is beautiful, certain, and concrete—though many of the details remain wrapped up in the mystery of God. But divine revelation has given us a sure knowledge of what waits beyond the stygian curtain of death. The glorious hope that is found in Christ has given courage to

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countless saints and martyrs through two millennia; it remains a blessed well of strength for Christian living and witness today and of peace for Christian dying.

The Christian hope is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of the saving work of God, climactically realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus, those who turn to Christ in faith are united with him by the Spirit for adoption as sons of the Father. They receive the gift of eternal life.2 Spiritually, they are raised to life even now; at the parousia, when Christ returns, they will be raised physically to share in the fullness of his resurrection, glorified and blessed to live in the new heavens and new earth with God forever.

But what about the time between this earthly life and the life to come? What will happen in the meantime, between the death of a saint and the return of his Lord? The classical Christian faith has been that at death ...