Errors Concerning the Intermediate State

Personal or individual eschatology deals with what Scripture says about the last things that happen for individuals. The focus here is on death and the intermediate state, or what happens to us between our physical deaths and the resurrection of our physical bodies at the last day. Now that we have considered death, we can turn to the intermediate state, and today we will look at some erroneous beliefs concerning it.

First we consider the Roman Catholic error of purgatory, which requires an understanding of Rome’s distinction between mortal and venial sins. A mortal sin destroys the love that God puts into the hearts of believers and will certainly result in damnation if it is never repented of. A venial sin is less severe than a mortal sin. Venial sins injure one’s relationship with God but do not put the sinner out of a state of salvation. When one commits a mortal or venial sin, one must participate in the sacrament of reconciliation or penance to be restored to a state of salvation (mortal sin) and to pay any temporal penalties associated with the sin (mortal and venial sins). In Roman Catholic teaching, Jesus paid sin’s eternal penalty but did not satisfy all of sin’s temporal penalties.

When a person dies with unconfessed venial sin, with unsatisfied temporal penalties, he passes into purgatory, where he suffers to satisfy the remaining debt. His soul passes into heaven only after paying all the temporal penalties. Roman Catholicism struggles to find a biblical basis for this doctrine. Sometimes Roman Catholics will use today’s passage to argue for purgatory, but that will not work. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 refers to the judgment of believers’ works, not to suffering that believers themselves will endure between death and the resurrection. Francis Turretin argues that purgatory is incompatible with the perfection of Christ’s atonement, the infinite mercy of God and full remission of sins, and the happiness of Christians in approaching death.

Another error regarding the intermediate state is soul sleep. This idea, held by groups such as the Seventh-day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, says that the soul is not conscious between physical death and the resurrection of the body, to be awakened on the last day. Paul, however, says that when our souls are separated from our bodies at death, they go to be “at home”—that is, in personal, conscious relationship—with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6–8).