Theological Term of the Week

intermediate state
The condition or mode of being in which the soul exists between the time of death and the time of the resurrection of the body.

• From scripture:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  (Philippians 1:21-23 ESV)

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,  for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:6-9 ESV)

• From The Westminster Larger Catechism:

Question 86: What is the communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death ?

Answer: The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is, in that their souls are then made perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls. Whereas the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, till the resurrection and judgment of the great day.

• From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

In the intermediate state, believers are not simply in contemplative repose. Nor are they lost souls wandering throughout the realm of shadows or crossing back and forth over the river Styx ferried by Charon. Rather, they are made part of the company assembled at the true Zion, with “innumerable angels in festal gathering” and “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, and to Jesus , the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Able” (Heb 12:22—24).

Learn more:

1. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary: Intermediate State
2. Blue Letter Bible: What Happens to a Believer after Death?; Do Believers Experience All God’s Promises in the Intermediate State?
3. Matt Perman: What do you believe about the intermediate state?
4. Loraine Boettner: Death, Immortality and the Intermediate State
5. Wayne Grudem: Death and the Intermediate State (mp3)
6. Joseph A. Pipa: Death and the Intermediate State (audio)

Related terms:

• glorification
• heaven
• hell

Filed under Salvation

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Round the Sphere Again: Vocation

Called to Be Contributors
At EFCA Today, Dave Hubner lists four observations from the first chapters of Genesis that should shape our vocational theology. 

1. Work is good.
2. Work is meaningful.
3. Work is essential.
4. Work is sacred.

Read the whole piece.

Not a Higher Calling
The abuse of “full-time Christian service”.  

It disturbs me that today that we don’t encourage our young people that employment is indeed a godly pursuit. A young man with $30,000 worth of student debt, instead of choosing to pay that debt down, stands up and asks his congregation for support to go on a short term missions trip.  We give it to him. Why do we let him think the “higher calling” is to stay in debt, ask for more money, and go on a missions trip?  Because it’s seen as full time service, which is viewed as just a little cut above the rest. 

(Kim at The Upward Call).

A Real Union, Not a Legal Fiction

In Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, the authors have this to say about the doctrine of union with Christ and it’s critical importance to the doctrine of penal substitution: 

Union  with Christ is important for the doctrine of penal substitution, for it is on the basis of this union that our guilt is justly imputed to him, and that we are credited with his righteousness and receive all the benefits of his perfect life, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. As Calvin puts it:

First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become our and to dwell within us … the holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.

This means, of course, that when Christ received the punishment for our sins, he did not do so as an unrelated third party. He was justly punished for sins that became his on account of his union with sinners. Similarly, when his righteousness was imputed to us, it required no ‘legal fiction’, for his righteousness truly became ours. This answers the objection of some critics who complain that penal substitution is unjust.

As I see it—and I’ve writen this in the margin of the page this is quoted from—union with Christ not only makes penal substitution coherent, it also makes it an argument for definite atonement. If Christ “was justly punished for sins that became his on account of his union with sinners”, then atonement it specific to those who are united with him.

There also an interesting footnote for this quote: 

[W]e would distinguish between the union between Christ and believers conceived in God’s mind in eternity and the union we enter into by the Spirit when we put our faith in Christ. Plainly, it is the former union that grounds the imputation of our sin to Christ at the point of the accomplishment of our redemption at Calvary, for only this was then in existence. However, our faith union by which the benefits of Christ are applied to us is not something wholly different, but an outworking of this former union.

Now that I’ve read that, the distinction of the two different kinds union with Christ—the union concieved in God’s mind in eternity in contrast to the union worked by the Spirit at the time of faith—seems obvious, but I’d never thought of it before. 

Sometimes the footnotes in books are the best part.