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The Intermediate State in the New Testament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

J. Osei-Bonsu
J. Osei-Bonsu
Affiliation:
University of GhanaDepartment for the Study of Religions Legon Ghana
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Extract

The notion of a post-mortem disembodied existence of the soul followed by resurrection on the last day has been part of traditional Christian theology for centuries. Though some modern theologians are unhappy with this doctrine and have tried to re-interpret it or reject it altogether, it cannot be denied that traditional Christian theology has always taught this. This view was held by many of the Church Fathers and by the Reformers. Today it is still the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant Churches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , May 1991 , pp. 169 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1991

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References

1 See, e.g., Hick, J. (Death and Eternal Life [London, 1972] 279Google Scholar) who proposes the ‘replica’ theory, according to which resurrection involves ‘the divine creation in another space of an exact psycho-physical “replica” of the deceased person’; see also Badham, P. (Christian Beliefs about Life afier Death [London, 1976] 85–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar) who, though not rejecting the idea of bodily resurrection, states his preference for a disembodied after life.

2 See e.g. Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Dead 12–15; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 2.34–35; Pseudo-Justin, De Resurrectione 8; Methodius, Discourse on the Resurrection 3; Tertullian, De Resurrectione carnis 14–17; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Resurrection of the Dead; Ambrose, On Belief in the Resurrection 21, 88.

3 Cf. Luther's Letter to Amsdorf, January 13, 1552; Calvin, Institutes 3.25.7; cf. also McNeill, J. T., Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2 (London, 1961) 998.Google Scholar

4 The traditional Roman Catholic view on this issue is correctly stated by the New Catholic Encyclopaedia (Vol. 13, p. 463) with ample references to Denzinger:

The mystery of death is traditionally explained as a temporary separation between the body and soul till the time of the general resurrection of all the dead (cf. creeds and Denz. 443, 493, 540, 801, 859, 1002)… In the meantime a state of incomplete existence intervenes for man in hissoul only, which immediately after death undergoes a particular judgment and according to its particular condition is immediately destined and sent to heaven, purgatory, limbo, or hell (Denz. 857–858,1002,1304–06) to receive reward (Denz. 1000, 1067, 1316) or punishment (Denz. 443, 485, 780, 839, 1002, 1305) or suffering and purification (Denz. 1304, 1580, 1820).

5 See, for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) which states the traditional Presbyterian view of an intermediate state of the soul followed by resurrection (see Chapter xxxii).

6 Bailey, R. E., ‘Life after Death: A New Testament Study in the Relation of Body and Soul’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1962) 454.Google Scholar

7 Bailey, ‘Life after Death’, 48.

8 Hanhart, K., The Intermediate State in the New Testament (Groninaen, 1966) esp. 234–239.Google Scholar

9 Harris, M. J., ‘The Interpretation of 2 Cor. 5: 1–10 and Its Place in Pauline Eschatology’ (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 1970)Google Scholar; ‘2 Cor. 5: 1–10, Watershed in Paul's Eschatology?’, TynBul. 22 (1971) 32–57; ‘Paul's View of Death in 2 Cor. 5:1–10’, in Longcnecker, R. N. and Tenney, M. C. (eds.), New Dimensions in New Testament Study (Grand Rapids, 1974) 317–328Google Scholar. In Raised Immortal (London, 1983) Harris defends basically the same view though he treads more cautiously, Bruce, F. F. (‘Paul on Immortality’, SJT 24 [1971] 457–472) holds the same view.Google Scholar

10 Cullmann, O., Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? (London, 1958) 48–57Google Scholar; idem, Christ and Time (London, 1951) 237–42.

11 Cullmann, Immortality, 51.

12 Cullmann, Immortality, 51 n.6.

13 Cullmann, Immortality, 48; cf. also Christ and time, 237, where Cullmann says that the resurrection ‘will happen only at the end of the days. On this point all books of the New Testament agree. The New Testament knows nothing of an immediate resurrection of the body that will occur for each one immediately after death’.

14 Bailey, , Life after Death, 202Google Scholar; cf. Schnackenburg, R., ‘Man Before God: Toward a Biblical View of Man’, in Man Before God: Toward a Theology of Man (New York, 1966) 1–6.Google Scholar

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16 Dautzenberg, G., Sein Leben bewahren: ψυχμ in den Herrenworten der Evangelien (München, 1966), 149Google Scholar: ‘Mt. 10: 28b, die zweite Hōlfte, setzt die Auferstehung zum Gericht voraus, und zwar die leibliche Gegenwart vor dem Richter nach einem mehr oder weniger leiblosen Zwischenzustand der Seele (10: 28a)’.

17 Hanhart, , Intermediate State, 36–37.Google Scholar

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19 Cf. the comment of Dalman, G. (Jesus-Joshua [London, 1929] 220)Google Scholar: ‘A state of death beyond the third day meant, from the popular Jewish point of view, an absolute dissolution of life. At this time the face cannot be recognized with certainty; the body bursts; and the soul, which until then had hovered over the body, parts from it (EccL R. 12: 6; Lev. R. 18: 1)’.

20 Jeremias, TDNT, V, 769 n. 37. This is the story of an Egyptian who was reincarnated after his death as Si-Osiris (or Senosiris), the miraculous son of a childless couple. One day his father, Satmi, saw the splendid funeral of a rich man and the squalid burial of a poor man, both of whom had died about the same time. He is surprised when his son, Senosiris, expresses the wish that when his father died, he would be like the poor man. To explain tnis mysterious statement to his father, Senosiris takes him to the next world. There, in the seventh hall, they see Osiris sitting in judgment. In the hall is a balance on which the misdeeds of the dead are weighed against their good deeds. They also see a man, arrayed in fine linen and standing next to Osiris, and he is identified as the poor man who had received the squalid burial. They see the rich man who is being tormented, and Senosiris explains to his father that the poor man's good deeds had so outweighed his misdeeds that he had been given a place of honour near Osiris, who decreed that he should be given the funeral equipment of the rich man, who had been condemned for his injustice.

According to Gressmann, H. (Vomreichen Mann und armen Lazarus Berlin, 1918Google Scholar) this Egyptian story came into Palestine where it appeared in seven different versions. The earliest version tells the story of a poor student and a rich publican, Bar Ma'jan. When the poor student dies he receives a squalid burial, whereas the rich publican receives a splendid burial because of onegood deed he had performed. Afriend of the scholar, however, had a dream in which ne saw the poor man walking in gardens and parks beside springs of water, while Bar Ma'jan was tormented, like Tantalus, unable to reach the water. Thus the student had no reward in this life, so that he might be fully rewarded in the afterlife, while the publican was rewarded for his one good act in this life, so that he might not be rewarded in the next.

21 Marshall, I. H., The Gospel of Luke (Exeter, 1978) 637Google Scholar; cf. Strack, H. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentarzum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1956) II, 228–231Google Scholar. See also Gundry (Soma, 114) who says that here ‘the intermediate state of the soul apart from the body is described in terms analogous to physical life’. (Emphasis mine.)

22 So Weiss, in Weiss, J. und Bousset, W., Die Schriflen des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen, 1917) Vol. I, 489Google Scholar; Klostermann, E., Das Lukasevangelium, 2nd ed. (Tübingen, 1929) 168f.Google Scholar; Hanhart, , Intermediate Stale, 198ff.Google Scholar

23 Mattill, A. J., Luke and the Last Things (Dillsboro, North Carolina, 1979) 26–32Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, J. A. (The Gospel of Luke, 2 vols. [Anchor Bible, Garden City, New York, 1981–1985] II, 1132)Google Scholar who says that here ‘it may be that two different locales in Sheol are really meant’. Thus we disagree with Bailey (‘Life After Death’, 420) and Strawson, (Jesus and the Future Life, 2nd ed. [London, 1970] 211Google Scholar) when they say that ‘Abraham's bosom’ is not to be located in Hades (Bailey) or that it does not refer to the intermediate state (Strawson).

24 Paos Hanhart (Intermediate State, 198) who says that ‘both the pain of the rich man in flames and the unbridgeable chasm underline the finality of his condition’; Bailey (‘Life after Death’, 420) who says that v. 26 indicates that ‘the fates of the rich man and Lazarus are final and irrevocable’; Strawson (Future Life, 211) who sees here ‘an unbridgeable and final division’. As is pointed outby M.J. Harris (Raised Immortal, 134), ‘it is difficult to deny that the parable's setting is the intermediate state, for the rich man's five brothers are still living (w. 27–8), and the final judgment and the resurrection of the dead have not yet occurred (w. 27–31)’.

25 C. G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, 2voh. (New York, 1968) 627; cf. J. Dupont, ‘L'apres-mort dans l'oeuvre de Luc’, RTL (1973) 19–20; S. M. Gilmour, ‘The Gospel According toSt Luke’, in IB, vol. 8 (1952) 290, 411; Michel, H. -J., ‘Heilsgegenwart und Zukunftbei Lukas’, in Gegenwartund Kommendes Reich: Schülergabe Anton Vōgtle, ed. Fiedler, und Zeller, D., (Stuttgart, 1975) 111Google Scholar; Hanhart, , Intermediate State, 198ff.Google Scholar

26 Mattill, , Luke and the Last Things, 33–34Google Scholar; Grclot, P., ‘Au-jourd'hui tu seras avec moi dans le Paradis’, RB 74 (1967) 194–214.Google Scholar

27 Tabor, J. D., Things Unutterable: Paul's Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic and Early Christian Contexts (Lanham/New York/London, 1986) 117Google Scholar; cf. also 126 n.9.

28 So also Wikenhauser, A., Die Apostelgeschichte (Regensburg, 1961) 45.Google Scholar

29 For the arguments in support of this view see e.g. Haris, M. J., Paul's View of Death, 322Google Scholar; Bruce, F.F.; 1 and 2 Corinthians (New Century Bible, London, 1971) 202Google Scholar: idem, ‘Paul on Immortality’, 470; Gundry, R. H., Soma, 149Google Scholar n. 3; Osei-Bonsu, J., ‘Soul and Body in Life after Death: An Examination of the New Testament Evidence with some Reference to Patristic Exegesis’ (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Aberdeen, 1980) 199–206.Google Scholar

30 See, among others, Robinson, J. A. T., The Body (SBT, 1/5: London, 1952) 96Google Scholar; Ellis, E. E., ‘The Structure of Pauline Eschatology (2 Cor. 5.1–10)’, in Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids, 1961) 41ff.Google Scholar; Bailey, ‘Life after Death’, 431; Feuillet, A., ‘La demeure celeste et la destinee des Chretiens’, RSR 44 (1956) 360–402.Google Scholar

31 So e.g. Hodge, C., The Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (London, 1860) 118Google Scholar; Tasker, R. V. G., The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (London, 1958) 79.Google Scholar

32 The same verb ‘swallow’ (κατ⋯νω) is found in both passages: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ (1 Cor. 15: 54);‘… so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life’ (2 Cor. 5:4). ‘Death’ is paralleled by ‘what is mortal’. See also Meyer, B. F. (‘Did Paul's View of the Resurrection of the Dead Undergo Development?’, Theological Studies 47 [1986] 379ff.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar who points out linguistic and conceptual indices linking 2 Cor. 5: 2–5 with two other passages on final salvation at the Parousia, namely 1 Cor. 15:50–55 and Rom. 8:18–27.

33 Harris, , ‘Interpretation’, 78.Google Scholar

34 Harris, , ‘Interpretation’, 79–82.Google Scholar

35 Harris, , Raised Immortal, 98–99.Google Scholar

36 Hughes, P. E., A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, 1962), 163 n. 19Google Scholar. Other scholars who interpret as a futuristic present include Allo, E. B., Saint Paul: Second Epître aux Corinthiens (EBib., Paris, 1956), 121, 139, 149Google Scholar; Hoffman, P., Die Toten in Christus (Münster, 1966) 270Google Scholar; Barrett, 2 Corinthians, 151–52; Craig, W. L., ‘The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus‘, in France, R.T. and Wenham, D. (eds.), Gospel Perspectives. Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, Vol. I (Sheffield, 1980) 65Google Scholar. For examples of the use of the futuristic present, see Moulton, J. H., Grammar of New Testament Greek, I (Edinburgh, 1908) 120Google Scholar; Moule, C. F. D., An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge, 1953) 7.Google Scholar

37 Cf. Gundry, , Soma, 150.Google Scholar

38 Cf. Hoffmann (Toten, 268 n. 79) who says: ‘Auf die Kundgabe eines nur dem Apostel durch Offenbarung zuteil gewordenen Geheimwissens… weist die Formel () kaum hin’.

39 Harris, ‘Interpretation’, 86–100;‘Watershed’, 44–45; idem, Raised Immortal, 99: ‘By using “put on over” in 2 Corinthians 5:2,4, Paul underlines the immediate succession between the two forms of embodiment’.

40 In Jn. 21:7 we find ⋯πενδ⋯τμς with the meaning of ‘outer garment’; cf. also 1 Sam. 18:4 and 2 Sam. 13:18 (LXX) for the use of ⋯πενδ⋯τμς in the sense of ‘outer garment’. For secular parallels for the use of tire ⋯πενδ⋯τμς, see Sophocles, Fragment 391; for the use of the cognate ⋯πενδ⋯τμς, see Plutarch, Alexis 32. For the use of the compound ⋯π⋯νδ⋯σασθαι with the meaning of putting on an additional or outer garment, see Herodotus (Histories, I. 195), Josephus (Ant. 5.1.12) and Plutarch (Pelopidas 2). See further Hughes, 2 Corinthians, 168 n. 31; C. F. D. Moule, ‘St Paul's Dualism: The Pauline Conception of the Resurrection’, NTS 13 (1966) 118.

41 Barrett, , The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (London, 1973) 152–153.Google Scholar

42 In De Virtutibus 76 Philo describes Moses' death in these terms: ‘The body, the shell-like growth which encased him, was being striped away and the soul laid bare (ῐπογψμνομ⋯νμς) and yearning for its natural removal hence’. Cf. also Philo, Legum Allegoriae ii, 57,59 (ῐ⋯στ⋯ κα⋯ ῐσωματ⋯ς).

43 See also Republic 577 B; Gorgias 523 D; see alsoj. N. Sevenster, ‘Some Remarks on γφμν⋯ς in 2 Cor. 5:3’ in Studia Paulina, Amsterdam, 1953, 203ff.

44 See Barrett, , 2 Corinthians, 154.Google Scholar

45 Hoffmann, Toten, 289: ‘Das Kal ist explikativ zu verstehen, so dass die zweite Bestimmung inhaltliche Bedeutungder Todesaussage entfaltet’; Harris, ‘Interpretation’, 175.

45 So Harris, ‘Interpretation’, 166–71; Hoffmann, Toten, 284; cf. also Rex, H. H. (‘Immortality of the Soul, or Resurrection of the Dead or What?’, Reformed Theological Review 17 [1958] 75Google Scholar) who says on 2 Cor. 5: 8, ‘Paul visualized here a union with the Lord at the hour of death which is complete in every respect’. This presumably includes a body.

47 Cf. Berry, R., ‘Death and Life in Christ: The Meaning of 2Cor.5:1–10’, SJT 14 (1961) 67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Hettlinger, , ‘2 Cor. 5: 1–10’, SJT 10 (1957) 174–194CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 180; cf. also Hanhart (Intermediate State, 154) who finds a strange contradiction’ in Paul's hope. On the one hand, he desires to be with Christ; on the other hand he abhors the state of nakedness. Hanhart (Intermediate State, 154) thinks that ‘the one (view) excludes the other’.

49 Hettlinger, , ‘2 Cor. 5: 1–10’, 176.Google Scholar

50 Berry, , ‘Death and Life’, 65, 67.Google Scholar

51 Berry, , ‘Death and Life’, 65.Google Scholar

52 Berry, , ‘Death and Life’, 67.Google Scholar

53 Lidd, , The Pattern of New Testament Truth (Grand Rapids, 1968) 106Google Scholar; cf. also Plummer, , A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, ICC, (Edinburgh, 1915) 163.Google Scholar

54 Craig, , ‘Paul's Dilemma in 2 Cor. 5: 1–10: A “Catch-22”?’ NTS 34 (1988) 145–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Craig, , ‘Paul's Dilemma’, 147.Google Scholar

56 So Hanhart, , Intermediate State, 155.Google Scholar

57 Cf. Lincoln, A. T., Paradise Now and Not Yet (SATS Monograph Series, Cambridge, 1981) 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 See SB, IV, 819ff.

59 SB, IV, 819ff.; Lincoln, Paradise, 71.

60 Lincoln, , Paradise, 71.Google Scholar

61 He uses the term ‘we’ throughout the passage. When he says, ‘We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ (v. 8), the ‘we’ may include a reference to the center of consciousness, or what survives death, which we may call soul or spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 5: 5).

62 Lincoln, , Paradise, 104.Google Scholar

63 See Osei-Bonsu, J., ‘Anthropological Dualism in the New Testament’, SJT 40 (1987) 571–590CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gundry, R. H., Soma, 110–116, 135–156.Google Scholar

64 Conzelmann, , I Corinthians (Philadelphia, 1975) 281.Google Scholar

65 For a discussion of these views, see Wilson, J. H., ‘The Corinthians Who Say There is No Resurrection of the Dead’, ZAW 59 (1968) 90–107Google Scholar; Thiselton, A. C., ‘Realized Eschatologyat Corinth’, NTS 24 (1978) 510–526CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wedderburn, A.J. M., ‘The Problem of the Denial of the Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15’, NovT. 23 (1981) 229–241.Google Scholar

66 Fee, G. D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, 1987) 714–716Google Scholar. For similar reconstructions, see Lincoln, , Paradise, 33–37Google Scholar; Wedderburn, , ‘The Problem of the Denial of the Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15’, 229–241.Google Scholar

67 See Barrett, C.K. (in DeLorenzi, L. (ed.) Resurrection du Christ etdes Chretiens: 1 Cor. 15 [Rome, 1985] 276–277Google Scholar) who stresses the disparagement of the body at Corinth and Paul's attempts to correct this mistaken view. Apart from 1 Cor. 6: 13, Barrett draws attention to the following passages: 1 Cor. 7; 10: 16f.; 11: 24; 2 Cor. 5: 8,10.

68 Cf. Fee, I Corinthians, 715–16.

69 Cf. Fee, I Corinthians, 776.

70 See Charles, , The Revelation of John, 2 vols. (ICC, Edinburgh, 1920) Vol. I, 184–188Google Scholar; Preston, R. H. and Hanson, A. T., The Revelation of Saint John the Divine (Torch Bible Commentaries, London, 1966) 86.Google Scholar

71 Mounce, , The Book of Revelation (London, 1977) 160Google Scholar; cf. Bailey, , ‘Life After Death’, 447–448.Google Scholar

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73 Torrance, T. F., Space, Time and Resurrection (London, 1976) 102.Google Scholar

74 Bruce, F. F., 1 and 2 Corinthians, 204.Google Scholar

75 Hanhart, K., Intermediate State, esp. 234–239.Google Scholar