083. Upon death does one’s soul pass straightway to heaven or hell, or is there an intermedi...

Upon death does one’s soul pass straightway to heaven or hell, or is there an intermediate state?

Immediately at death the spirit of the believer departs to be with Christ in a state which is very far better than that in which it exists here on earth (Php 1:23, R.V.). It is “absent from the body, at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8, R.V.). But this is not the final state of blessedness of the redeemed. In our final state of blessedness the spirit is not merely unclothed from its present mortal body but clothed upon with its resurrection body (2 Corinthians 5:1-4). We obtain this resurrection body at the second coming of Christ, when the bodies of those that sleep in Christ are raised from the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:15) and the bodies of believers then living are transformed in the twinkling of an eye and this corruptible puts on incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). On the other hand, immediately at death the spirits of the wicked depart into that portion of Hades reserved for the wicked dead, where they exist in conscious and great torment (Luke 16:19-31). But this is not their final condition of torment. At the close of the millennium those who have died in sin are raised again to stand before the Great White Throne of God and to be judged and assigned to their final condition of torment (Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:8). It is then that they enter into their final and fullest suffering. Just as the redeemed spirit is clothed upon at the coming of Christ with its glorious resurrection body, perfect counterpart of the redeemed spirit that inhabits it and partaker with it in all its joy, so the wicked are to be clothed upon with a body, perfect counterpart of the lost spirit that inhabits it and partaker with it in all its misery.