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.

Theological Term of the Week

simplicity of God
The quality of God wherein he is not composed of parts, but unified and indivisible; also called unity of God.

• From scripture:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, [7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7 ESV)

• From The Belgic Confession:

Article 1: The Only God 

We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God — eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty; completely wise, just, and good, and the overflowing source of all good.

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

God himself is a unity, a unified and completely integrated whole person who is infinitely perfect in all of these attributes.

…In terms of practical application, this means that we should never think, for example, that God is a loving God at one point in history and a just or wrathful God at another point in history. He is the same God always, and everything he says or does is fully consistent with all his attributes. It is not accurate to say, as some have said, that God is a God of justice in the Old Testament and a God of love in the New Testament. God is and always has been infinitely just and infinitely loving as well, and everything he does in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament is completely consistent with both of those attributes.

…Moreover, the doctrine of the unity of God should caution us against attempting to single out any one attribute of God as more important than all the others. At various times people have attempted to see God’s holiness, or his love, or his self-existence, or his righteousness, or some other attribute as the most important attribute of his being. … It is God himself in his whole being who is supremely important, and it is God himself in his whole being whom we are to seek to know and to love.

1. Blue Letter Bible: What Is Meant by the Simplicity of God?
2. Kevin DeYoung: Theological Primer: The Simplicity of God
3. Thomas Boston:  Of the Unity of God
4. Jules Grisham: Divine Simplicity
5. R. C. Sproul, Jr: The Lord Is One: The Simplicity of God (audio)
6. Dr. James Dolezal: God Without Parts: The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (mp3)

Related terms:

• aseity
• immutability

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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.

Theological Term of the Week

bibliolatry
The worship of the Bible instead of God. (While technically it may be possible to commit bibliolatry, high esteem for and submission to the Bible is not bibliolatry, but rather worship of God through reverence of and obedience to his revelation to us.)

• A proper attitude toward scripture from scripture:

I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you.

Blessed are you, O LORD;

teach me your statutes!

With my lips I declare

all the rules of your mouth.

In the way of your testimonies I delight

as much as in all riches.

I will meditate on your precepts

and fix my eyes on your ways.

I will delight in your statutes;

I will not forget your word.

(Psalm 119:11-16 ESV)

• From The London Baptist Confession 1689:

Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scriptures

5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God…

• From Freedom and Authority by J. I. Packer:

[I]f Jesus was God incarnate and spoke with personal divine authority, and if by sending the Spirit he really enabled his apostles to speak God’s word with total consistency. it follows that both Testaments (that which his gift of the Spirit produced as well as that which he knew and authenticated) ought to be received as “the very words of God” and as “God-breathed and … useful … so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped” (Rom. 3:2: 2 Tim. 3:16. 17). Only as we seek to believe and do what the two Testaments, taken together, say have we the full right to call ourselves Jesus’ disciples. “Why do you call me. “Lord. Lord,” and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). Scripture comes to us, as it were, from Jesus? hand, and its authority and his are so interlocked as to be one.

Bowing to the living Lord entails submitting mind and heart to the written Word. Disciples individually and churches corporately stand under the authority of Scripture because they stand under the lordship of Christ, who rules by Scripture. This is not bibliolatry but Christianity in its most authentic form.

1. GotQuestions.org: What is bibliolatry?
2. Blue Letter Bible: Does Belief in Inerrancy Cause Worship of the Bible?
3. Kevin DeYoung: Is Bibliolatry the Real Danger?
4. Tim Challies:  Bibliolatry
5. S. M. Baugh: Is Bibliolatry Possible?

Related terms:

• authority of scripture
• inerrancy of scripture
• infallibility of scripture
• inspiration of scripture
• sola scriptura
• special revelation
  
• sufficiency of scripture

Filed under Scripture.

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.