Q37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

A. The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection.

Let’s define a term first—one that is not in this answer but which theologians use to summarize this state in between our death and the resurrection on the Last Day. That is what we call the “Intermediate State.” 

The Soul in the Intermediate State

Before we get to what the intermediate state is like for believers, let’s do away with the doctrine of “soul sleep,” which fails to take into account the way that the word “sleep” is used as a euphemism, throughout the Scriptures, for physical death. For example, “Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David” (2 Kings 1:10). These words are a constant refrain at the death of the kings. 

“The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness” (Isa. 57:1-2).

So immediately after the death of Christ, we are told that “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Mat. 27:52). During his earthly ministry, at the raising of Jarius’ daughter, he said to those doubters: “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping” (Mk. 5:39); And to his disciples, Jesus said, 

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep’” (Jn. 11:11-13). 

Leaving aside soul-sleep, there are other mistakes that can be made by simply neglecting to ask whether or not we really know whether the time of the intermediate state exists as ours does, whether it is even parallel to ours. 

Instead, we ought to stick to what we know from Scripture—which, as I said, consists in five things said about the soul. When the believer dies, we can say five main things about his soul: (1) We will be separate from our body. (2) We will be conscious. (3) We will be with the Lord. (4) We will be perfected in holiness. (5) We will be far better off than our present state.

First we (that is, our soul) will be separate from the body. Start with Paul’s words to the Corinthians:“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We have to take care that we do not overcorrect the Gnostic escape from the body as such with a refusal to escape from the bodies we have. There is a massive difference! Paul called our present fleshly habitation: “this body of death” (Rom. 7:24). So this is a great benefit at death, that the believer will be rescued from the present state of the body.

Second we will be conscious. Think of the words of Jesus on the cross, to the thief next to Him: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Now whether Jesus meant the word PARADISE in its literal sense or simply figurative for being in God’s presence, I do not pretend to know. But it at least implies an immediate transport of conscious experience from death to being with Christ in that blessed state, or as out answer here says of the second benefit, they DO IMMEDIATELY PASS INTO GLORY. 

Third we will be with the Lord. That was already flatly stated by the two verses already examined. But in addition, when Paul says about the Last Day, “that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thess. 4:14), what else does this mean? It means that when Jesus returns, he is bringing with him all of those believers who have died, and thus have been with him where he is in the intermediate state.

Objection 1. But why would Jesus bring those in that better place with Him to this place?

Reply Obj. 1. Two reasons. Ultimately, because He is restoring creation (Rom. 8:20-29) for a “new heaven and new earth” (Rev. 21:1). But more immediately, Paul speaks of all the saints marveling at Christ’s destruction of the wicked at that Last Battle (2 Thess. 1:5-10).

Fourth we will be perfected in holiness: “[You have come] to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). This is the first of the benefits mentioned in the Catechism answer: MADE PERFECT IN HOLINESS. 

Fifth we will be far better off than our present state. On the most simple level, that state is better being free from all danger forever: “the righteous finds refuge in his death” (Prov. 14:32). Paul says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phi. 1:23). Watson commented on the Apostle’s words here, 

“To a believer death is great gain. A saint can tell what his losses for Christ are here, but he cannot tell how great his gains are at death … To show fully what a believer’s gains are at death were a task too great for an angel; all hyperboles fall short of it; the reward of glory exceeds our very faith.”1

So these are five things we can clearly say about the believer’s soul at the instant of death and that state which follows. Now Watson had his own list of eight which overlaps and yet includes items that Scripture mentions, but which we must admit are difficult to trace out. He said that, “[1] Believers at death shall gain a writ of ease from all sins and troubles … [2] the glorious sight of God … [3] shall enjoy his love … [4] shall gain a celestial palace, a house not made with hands … [5] the sweet society of glorified saints and angels … [6] perfection of holiness … [7] a royal magnificent feast … [8] honor and dignity; they shall reign as kings.”2

As to unbelievers, there is less explicitly said. However, all bodies and souls will be reunited at the resurrection on the Last Day (cf. Jn. 5:29, 1 Cor. 15:52). 

The Body in the Intermediate State

We might think this is a curious expression about believers at death: THEIR BODIES, BEING STILL UNITED TO CHRIST. Why speak in the way of “rest in” that grave if there is corruption? And the Scriptures are clear that the bodies of believers are the same as bodies of unbeloevers in that sense.

“And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:26-27).

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God” (2 Cor. 5:1).

Yet in those two passages, decay of the flesh is background scenery. The tone is one of hope. Paul uses the expression “tent” for the earthly body for the reason we have already seen about the soul. In this life, it is made but a dwelling. Returning to that passage in Isaiah that gave us a hint against soul sleep, its second verse also gives us perspective on the redeemed body: “For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness” (Isa. 57:1-2). But how can a redeemed body be a corrupt body? Paul says,

“that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God … And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:21, 23).

So even though redemption proper was accomplished by Christ’s work the first time, we understand that when something is purchased, there is the payment made, the payment accepted, but then also the thing obtained. If it is the ultimate Redeemer, we can be sure that the whole thing that was paid for will be a whole thing obtained. So that the obtaining on the Last Day is also called a “redemption of our bodies. The rest of Paul’s answer comes at the end of his argument in 1 Corinthians 15 in the language of glorified bodies. So let’s put it this way: No amount of decay—None; not even if every element in every bone deteriorated—can upset the obtaining of that whole redemption of bodies obtained. 

And this helps us with one very practical question that emerges when considering the body in the intermediate state. Is burial the only acceptable practice for the body, or is cremation permissible? Some will even ask: Is cremation a sin? Many Christians will make the case that burial more clearly testifies to the future resurrection and final hope (1 Cor. 15; Jn. 5:29). That is true. However, the Scripture nowhere makes a practice an explicit obligation. Moreover, God has grace in our many different financial circumstances, grace for disputes that may emerge with unbelieving family members over method, and most importantly, God is more than powerful enough to gather and raise the body of believers who have been cremated on the Last Day. So God never loses track of our bodies anymore than of our souls. We must remember that he created the whole universe and upholds it by the “word of his power” (Heb. 1:3) and that “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). So in summary, we can say that burial more clearly testifies to the resurrection in the present, but that it would go beyond Scripture to call cremation a sin.

The Difficulty of the Believer Still Facing Death

Objection. But if death is a penalty for sin, and Christ took our whole penalty, then why must believers still die? Does this not refute call into question the Double Jeopardy Problem that the Reformed often cite? If God’s cannot justly pour out his wrath a second time upon anyone in hell when He had meted out that same punishment in full upon His Son, then why does the same not apply to physical death, which is part of the same curse?

Dabney rejects the answers to this that appeal to (1) it being necessary to complete sanctification or else (2) that the laws of nature and even the kingdom’s law of faith-over-sight, would all be violated “if so visible a difference were placed between saints and sinners.” These he does call “partial explanations,” but as whole answers, they are unsatisfactory. Instead, “bodily death is a necessary and wholesome chastisement for the good of the believer’s soul.”3 Now he goes on to distinguish between (a) the natural evil in any chastisement proper, especially that extreme penalty of death, on the one hand, and (b) the “wise and kindly exercise” of God in his acting upon it, on the other hand. He also makes it clear that chastisement in this sense is neither retributive nor meritorious. 

But one is still left to ask: For what purpose, the chastisements? Dabney’s reflections are helpful here:

“Now that death may actually be in prospect, death must actually occur. And when the closing scene approaches, no doubt in every case where the believer is conscious, the pains of its approach, the solemn thoughts and emotions it suggests, are all used by the Holy Ghost as powerful means of sanctification to ripen the soul rapidly for Heaven.”4

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1. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 291.

2. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 291-93.

3. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 818.

4. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 819.