Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 10200. The intermediate state is the condition of a human being between the moment of death and the morning of resurrection, and it is one of the questions people ask me most often at a graveside. Is my mother with Jesus now, or asleep, or waiting somewhere? Does she know anything? Does she have…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10167. Can those in heaven see what is happening down here? It is one of the most frequently asked questions in any pastoral ministry, and it is almost never asked out of curiosity. It is asked by a widow, or by parents at a graveside, and behind it lies a longing to know whether…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10120. The realm of Hades is the New Testament word for the place where the dead are held between dying and rising, and it is not the same thing as the lake of fire. That single distinction clears away most of the confusion people carry about this word, and it is worth getting straight…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10118. Abraham’s bosom is the expression used in Luke 16 for the place of comfort where the righteous dead waited before the resurrection of Jesus. The ESV renders it Abraham’s side, which is closer to the picture Jesus was drawing, and the picture is of reclining next to Abraham at a feast rather than…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 5028. Body and soul belong together; that is the short answer to the body and soul question, and almost every error on this subject comes from pulling them apart. Some treat the body as the whole story, so that man is a biochemical machine and the soul a comforting fiction. Others treat the soul…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3063. Few lines in the Apostles’ Creed cause more raised eyebrows than the confession that Jesus did ‘descend into hell’. What can that possibly mean? Between the cross and the empty tomb, did Jesus really go to the place of the damned? Was he suffering there? Preaching there? Triumphing there? And should Christians even…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3025. Jesus’ descent into Hades is a phrase drawn from the historic creeds, and it has confused almost as many Christians as it has clarified, because the words can sound as though Jesus spent three days suffering in hell. Scripture actually paints a rather different and far more comforting picture of what happened to…