This is a paper I wrote for my Theology 2 class in the fall of 2012. It is meant to be provocative and challenging. Constructive criticism and differing ideas are welcome. Please be respectful.

ESCHATOLOGY: RECONSIDERING THE INTERMEDIATE STATE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE RESURRECTION

Justin Boothby
TCDH 502 Systematic Theology 2 (02)

December 3, 2012

“With the consummation of God’s kingdom, something new is taking place.”[1]

–Mitchell G. Reddish, Revelation

                                                                                     Introduction

What is death? What is life? Is there immediate life after death or is there a time when “some will sleep” before awakening to the final judgment?[2] Many advocate an immediate life after death scenario, but can this stance be taken seriously? Or is there a waiting process that occurs before the Parousia and Judgment? This analysis will cover three topics: immediate life after death, the intermediate state before the universal resurrection, and the resurrection. Each section will cover the main passages supporting each side.[3] After analyzing those main passages the resurrection will be examined through the lens of the conclusion of the postmortem state.

                                                                     Defining Death and Resurrection

Death

Death is seen by many as a doorway into the next world. Except for Atheism and a few other religions, many beliefs hold to continuance of life after death. For some this afterlife can have positive or negative effects resulting in ones behavior in this life on earth. But at what point is one “dead.” According to The New Encyclopedia Britannica, death is properly defined as, “irreversible loss of function of the organism as a whole.”[4] According to the Ad Hoc Committee at the Harvard Medical School, Black’s Law Dictionary defines death as “The cessation of life; the ceasing to exist; defined by physicians as a total stoppage of the circulation of the blood…”[5] From this definition, death is concluded after one’s motor functions, blood circulation, and brain activity has ceased to exist.

If death is the experience human existence flocks to following this life on earth, what are the implications for those who believe in a resurrection? Can this body be returned to? What if someone dies in a fire or is blown up from a bomb? Before answering these questions, a definition of the resurrection needs brought forth and analyzed.

Resurrection

Resurrection is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the act or fact of bringing someone/something back from the dead.”[6] Used forty times in the New Testament and in other Second Temple Literature, the word αναστασις (anastasis) is refered as raising to better status (Luke 2:34), resurrection from the dead (2 Macc. 7), of Jesus resurrection (Ac 1:22; 2:31; 4:33; Ro 1:4, 6:5; Ph 3:10; 1 Pt 1:3) and of the future resurrection (Mt 22:31; Lk 20:35; Ac 23:6; 24:15, 21; 26:23; 1 Cor 15:12f, 21, 42; 2 Ti 2:18; Hb 6:2).[7] These descriptions show an event that is both historic and futuristic. Donald Bloesch understands the resurrection as it has ocurred in history and therefore “represents an encounter with One who will usher in the eschaton, the day of glory.”[8] If this day of glory ushers in the resurrection and judgment, can those who have “fallen asleep” enter into glory before they are judged?

                                                              Life After Death and Key Scriptures

There are two main approaches to life after death in the protestant faith. This analysis will examine four major passages that support these schools of thought: Luke 16:19-31, Luke 23:43, and  2 Corinthians 5:1-10 with Philippians 1:23.

Luke 16:19-31

This first pericope is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. This parable has several features laced through its intricately formed web of points. One of the major principles within this pericope is a defense against the Sadducees and their lack of belief in the afterlife. However, this is not the main point Jesus emphasizes. The main shot Jesus takes at the Pharisees is their love for money.[9] Nonetheless, one cannot rule out the eschatological implications of the rich man’s words as he agonizes in the place of torment.

Can a proper doctrine of post-life develop from these short words of Jesus? John Cooper suggests this passage speaks for the intermediate state since the resurrection has not yet taken place (evidenced by the brothers still alive on earth).[10] He also mentions that Hades is the “intermediate point on the way to Gehenna.”[11] However, it would not be fitting to say Jesus was teaching about Heaven or Hell (Gehenna). While this story contains the “eschatological reversal”[12], it can hardly posses enough doctrinal evidence to explain an immediate or intermediate life in Heaven or Hell since its main concern deals with morality. Furthermore, this pericope has a contextual application of money, as the shrewd manager and words against the Pharisees’ love of money precedes this story.[13] There still remains one eschatological doctrine one can infer from this passage; people only have one life to make their decision. There was no hope for the rich man and Jesus made that clear. However, there is simply not enough evidence or eschatological weight to deduce a doctrinal position on immediate life after death from this pericope.

Luke 23:43

William Hasker suggests in his work The Emergent Self a theory of three stages: death, a temporary state of disembodied existence, and the resurrection/judgment on the day of the Lord.[14] Likewise on the nature of human existence, Joel B. Green defines this intermediate state as a “temporary, disembodied existence of the human self, from the time of one’s death to the time of resurrection.”[15] However, these statements fail to examine the words of Jesus carefully since he offers an immediate state of paradise-existence when he says, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” A “temporary, disembodied existence” cannot be found from Jesus in the words on the cross. If there were, Jesus would have said, “Yes, I will remember you on that day.” Instead, he reverses that mindset and says, “No, today you will be with me in paradise.”[16]

This second and most crucial phrase offered by Jesus words on the cross in Luke 23:43, have been the most influential for an immediate life after death scenario.[17] If this is an accurate statement of Jesus’ words, one can assert Luke envisioned an immediate state of life after death.

But what about this word paradise? Danker describes παραδεισος (paradeisos) as “a transcendent place of blessedness.”[18] This word also has roots in the Garden of Eden and becomes highly developed in the pseudepigrapha. J.J. Collins and Daniel Harlow survey this word and note some writings show the garden as “an abode of God and the righteous after Adam and Eve” are banished.[19] Other texts portray the Garden as a place in “Heaven, sometimes as an eschatological reward for the righteous…”[20] The earliest writing of the Garden in the pseudepigrapha comes from 1 Enoch in the beginning of the second century B.C.E. The author of 1 Enoch consistently states this Garden is connected with the righteous. There is a special eschatological purpose for this garden, particularly when the author of 1 Enoch mentions in chap. 25, “a fragrant tree that will be given to the righteous when God ‘comes down to visit the earth for good.’”[21] As N.T. Wright beautifully puts it in his work Surprised by Hope, paradise is “not a final destination but the blissful garden, the parkland of tranquility, where the dead are refreshed as they await the dawn of the new day.”[22] From the many second temple period implications and developments of paradise one can be certain this is a place where the righteous will enter after death.

Wright views the Good Friday scene from a different angle and describes, “the future hope has come forward into the present.”[23] The rebel on the cross asked Jesus the wrong question with the words “when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus responds that it is not a future event but a current one (before this day is over) on Good Friday, the sinner would come into paradise. The concept of salvation founds itself on the idea of Jesus being immediately in and with his followers in an intimate way. However, the barrier of sin hinders those from receiving the fullness of Christ’s presence in the present life. For the sinner on the cross and all those seeking the messiah and repentance of sins, Paradise embodies the fuller existence of God’s glory and presence as a time of “refreshment until the new life dawns.”[24] This conclusion will become more evident in the section below Reconsidering the Intermediate State.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 and Philippians 1:23

In 2 Corinthians 5: 1-10 and Philippians 1:23 Paul says, “To depart the body is to be with Christ.” In his commentary on Philippians, Frank Gaebelein observes, “He foresaw no soul-sleep while awaiting the resurrection, nor any purgatory.”[25] Murray Harris affirms this in his commentary on the 2 Corinthians passage that “as soon as departure from mortal corporeality occurs, residency in the Lord’s presence begins.”[26] According to these passages, Paul seems to imply an immediate transportation from this life to the next, and for Christ-followers, this next life is with Jesus.

Paul longed for the day he could rest in Jesus, but knew his work on earth had not been completed. In its context, these verses do not affirm an escapist eschatology; rather they affirm the anticipation of Christ while completing the tasks he requires of us. The church would do good to remember Paul’s words and life. Some people find it easier to give up and blame Satan for life’s problems, but Jesus doesn’t call his people to that lifestyle. Paul’s passionate fire to share the Gospel burned until his death and the church would do well to do the same.

Reconsidering the Intermediate State

Some have concluded the intermediate state an unnecessary matter within eschatological doctrine, while others have found it worthy of exploration.[27] Donald Bloesch dedicates an entire chapter to the interim state and provides a solid ground for a reexamination of the typical Heaven and Hell stances. He first acknowledges other worlds seen in scripture such as Hades which he also defines as Sheol or the pit evidenced in Psalm 30:3 and Job 10:21-22.[28] Another developing word in Scripture is Paradise, which has already been established above. However, Bloesch believes these realities are part of the interim state. Instead of soul sleep, he asserts Hades is a place where those who have rejected the gospel will go until the judgment of God, while Paradise is where those who follow Jesus will go.[29] He also observes those “saints in the state of glory have still not received all that had been promised (Heb. 11:39).”[30] These interim states of Paradise and Hell have already sealed the fates of those who have accepted or rejected the Gospel, but they wait there until the Parousia.

Bloesch is careful not to advocate a sort of “soul sleep” or intermediate state where the soul is separated from the body,[31] but rather embraces a resurrected body before the consummation of Christ.[32] At the Parousia Hades (temporary) will be thrown into Hell (eternal) (Rev 20:14) and paradise (temporary) merges with Heaven (eternal) into the eternal place of God (Rev 21:1-4). This Parousia of Christ undoubtedly ushers in a new resurrection, a permanent and eternal glory through Christ. This stance will be the format for which the resurrection will be examined.

                                                                                             Resurrection

What does the resurrection look like? Will it be, as Bloesch suggests, a bodily resurrection in Paradise before the universal resurrection? Or will it be as Origen has contemplated, a spiritual resurrection only? Before exploring the form of resurrection, this analysis will examine the second temple period and see what major eschatological implications were already being made during the time of Christ and the early church.

Jewish and Second Temple Period Thoughts on the Resurrection

Unfortunately, the Hebrew Scriptures are less than thorough on their development of an effective eschatology of the postmortem state. Green comments the Hebrew Bible “has not worked out in what we may regard as a philosophically satisfying way the nature of physical existence in life, death, and afterlife.”[33] However, early Judaism provides a glimpse of eschatological philosophies in the three major groups from the second temple period: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.

Josephus and the New Testament are clear about the Pharisees belief in a resurrection.[34] At this resurrection the righteous will live in the eternal presence of Yahweh while the wicked suffer an eternal punishment because of their decisions and actions within life.[35] The Sadducees had a different eschatology from the Pharisees. All three of the synoptics paint the Sadducees with a disbelief in the resurrection. Furthermore, there can be little doubt of the Sadducees eschatological bent toward a resurrection, especially with Paul in Acts 23. Third and finally are the Essenes, the eschatological aesthetic group attributed to living in the wilderness who separated themselves from the daily routines of the Greco-Roman culture. Josephus claimed this group believed in an immortal soul.[36] However, Collins and Harlow offer a less than optimistic view of Essene afterlife developments. They claim, “The understanding of the afterlife remains unclear in the Qumran texts, but the number of copies of Daniel in their library…suggest an expectation of life beyond the grace.”[37]

This small window into second temple period eschatology suggests Judaism could not develop a respectable eschatology on the resurrection. It is the suggestion of this analysis that the reason stems from the lack of the Messiah who had not yet appeared. The Jewish culture was based in living for the current life and exalted a full-life. Their concept of death was bleak and shadowy due to their ‘Sheol’ or ‘Pit’ concept. Psalm 30:9 and 115:17 create a morbid picture of life after death with no distinction between righteous and wicked, furthering their bleak death ideas. However, lacking of eschatological development does not leave this analysis empty. It exemplifies what theories did and did not exist before and during the time of Jesus and the apostles. As noted above in the section on Luke 23:43, some key words are formed during the second temple period thus giving readers a clearer picture to understand the language used in the New Testament.

Ontological Issues of the Corinthian Society and the Christological Implications of the Resurrection

Within the Pagan society of Corinth lies a deep ontological issue of life after death and the resurrection. As Paul put it, some did not believe in the resurrection.[38] Paul denounces their pattern of thinking and relates it to the slippery slope effect. Paul opens with the words, “You Fool”, but this language does not intend a phrase common to Western thinking. Instead, as Gordon Fee notes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, “one stands as the ‘fool’ in the OT sense – as the person who has failed to take God into account.”[39] The Corinthians have forgotten what the Lord has done, is doing, and will do. If there is no resurrection then Christ was not resurrected, and if Christ is not resurrected then everything he has done is useless as is their faith.[40] However, Paul’s foundation for a new creation finds similarities in the Genesis 1-3 account.[41] With that being said, Paul intends to convince his audience the fall of man has been reversed by Christ. Where there was death, there is life. Where the body died, the body is now restored in glory through Christ. Since Christ was the “first fruits” of the resurrection so those who follow Christ shall experience the same event.

In his book Jesus the Messiah, Robert Stein notices Jesus’ resurrection had an affect on the disciples, which “involved the rise of faith and its beneficial consequences…the promise of a future resurrection.”[42] The life, death and resurrection of Christ prompted the beginning of a new age. Because of the fulfillment of the law, the kingdom of God was now breaking into history at full force. Even though some believed it would end with his death, Jesus knew better. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom on earth, but it has yet to come in its fullness. Paul used this already/not yet eschatology to fuel his writings and his life. Schwarz mentions that Paul “was looking forward to being resurrected with him [Jesus] and living with him in a manifest way (2 Cor. 4:14; 1 Thess. 4:14).”[43] This event is a continual present/future result of a life with Christ. The Christ-follower is expected to live out his or her life now as part of the inheritance with Christ while expecting the bodily resurrection already experienced by Christ in fulfillment of Yahweh’s eschatological purposes.

Form of Resurrection

What does this resurrection look like? What does life after death really entail? Paul answers with parables the Corinthians would have understood. Even though Corinth was a thriving metropolis driven by its trade and transportation businesses serving as the major seaport in Greece, it had a huge agricultural industry as well.[44] Kenneth Bailey observes the parable of plants, birds, and fish were used because the Corinthians would have understood that language.[45] Paul uses sarks (flesh) to relate the perishable flesh, but also comments that unless this flesh dies it cannot receive its new life.[46] When the people of earth resurrect, they will enter into a new realm of life and given a new vessel for which to enter into this life. But is this first resurrection a bodily one or spiritual?

The early patristic father, Origen, believed it was “absurd” to say the future life will have any ounce of flesh and blood, but rather it “will be replaced by a spiritual body.”[47] Modern scholars such as Rudolph Bultmann would agree and suggest the resurrection of Jesus is merely a mythical event and resuscitation of a corpse.[48] However, theoretical physicist and priest John Polkinghorne in his book The God of Hope and the End of the World suggests that Jesus’ resurrection was a “foretaste” and “seminal event from which the whole of God’s creation” will be resurrected.[49]

Paul claims “flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom.”[50] He is right; the body of humans at the present moment cannot inherit the kingdom of Yahweh. However, they don’t receive the same body. Once again, if someone is killed from a fire or explosion, or if they are cremated, they don’t receive the same body. Instead, God restores their body and brings newness to their lives. Though this newness may be a different way, since the believers on the road to Emmaus failed to recognize Jesus, Christ-followers still receive a renewed bodily existence.[51] To echo the words of Paul, “Why do you forget what God can do?”

The resurrection of Jesus was clearly more than a spiritual one. The Lucan narrative records a resurrected Jesus eating fish, and Luke emphasizes that he ate this fish in the presence of the disciples. John 21 also suggests Jesus ate and drank with the disciples following his resurrection. If one takes these passages at their worth, the assumption of a spiritual-only resurrection would be incorrect. Jesus’ resurrection came with a fully functioning restored body and his followers should expect nothing less for themselves.

From the Temporary Intermediate State to Eternal Glory

The Paradise/Heaven Hades/Hell paradigm creates an interesting view on the resurrection. In life after death in paradise, the person receives a new body that is immortal. While there is life after life after death, as N.T. Wright has suggested, the body is still immortal and no longer subject to pain, suffering, or death.[52] The trap of dualism forgets the creativity of Yahweh. If the Lord has created man, both body and soul, and restores man body and soul (as Jesus has been restored), the resurrection both in Paradise/Hades and in Heaven/Hell become as Paul would say, “a natural body and spiritual body.”[53]

                                                                                          Conclusion           

The resurrection and post-life have received a lot of attention but can one truly know what happens after death? The answer found in this analysis is, “We have an idea, but we don’t know everything.” As Wright has mentioned, “God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life.”[54] We hope for what we have not seen and this hope drives us to pursue the presence of God daily, for we know that is what we will be doing forever. I believe Bloesch and N.T. Wright provide a succulent eschatology on the intermediate state. However, for Christ-followers, death means life with Christ in one way or another. I believe that is the idea for death. As Paul put it, “To leave the body is to be with Christ.” Our eschatology, whether we believe in the Paradise/Heaven Hades/Hell paradigm is not of importance. The importance stems from the hope in Christ and the design of eternal life through him where there is no pain, sorrow or death. If hope is to be our main goal within eschatology, we must also remember to share that hope with others. And the Christ-follower must understand what comes from this hope: Jesus as king of the universe, eternal life with Christ and a renewed and resurrected body with no more fear, pain, death or sorrow.