“Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise.”

—S. Luke xxiii. 43.

If we should ask what happens to the soul of a good man when he dies, the answer would probably be that he has gone to heaven. Of a little child it would be said at his death, that he has become an angel in heaven. But this would be quite untrue, because it contradicts the Bible. The Bible teaches that there will at the end of the world be a day when all the dead shall rise and stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, to be judged for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good, or whether they be evil. But if a good man’s soul goes straight to heaven at death, without waiting for the Day of Judgment, he practically has no Day of Judgment at all. He escapes it. The Bible also teaches that before the Day of Judgment there will be a general Resurrection of all, both of the just and of the unjust. [14] But how can one who is already in heaven, while his body lies in the grave of corruption,—how can he, being already glorified and even now beholding the vision of God, to any intelligible purpose, or for any conceivable end, take part in the general Resurrection? Why should he, as it were, come away from heaven and rise from the dead, in order to be judged?

Thus the popular belief, that the souls of the righteous pass straight to heaven, and the souls of the wicked go straight to hell, is against the plain teaching of the Bible. But the Bible not only contradicts this popular and careless fancy. It asserts what is directly contrary to it: it asserts positively, I mean, that there is an age-long period between death and the final state of happiness or misery, during which period the soul is separate from the body and remains separate. We are, according to the Bible, destined to undergo three great changes in the mode and nature of our existence. In the first period, while we are here in this our life on earth, the soul and spirit are united to a material and tangible body of flesh and blood, suited to our life here. The second stage begins at death, the name we give to the separation which then takes place between this material fabric of the body and the incorporeal part of us; and then the soul and spirit dwell disembodied for a time. There follows at the Resurrection the third period, when the soul and spirit are reunited with the body, but with the body now so spiritualized and refined as to suit the heavenly existence. The second of these two periods, coming between the first and the third, is therefore fitly called the intermediate or middle state, the state in which the disembodied soul dwells apart from its material tenement. [15]

What has the Bible then to say about this Intermediate State? I will not ask you to listen to the comments or interpretations of the early Christian writers, although, of course, very great respect is due to what they say. I will only beg of you to pay common attention to what the Bible itself says.

Now, first, I will point to the words which our Lord spoke from the Cross, just before His Death, to the thief who was also slowly dying at His side. “To-day,” He said, “shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” So then within a few hours,—it was then not yet mid-day—they were both to be in Paradise. They both died before sunset, and at their death both entered Paradise. Their dead bodies were left behind upon the Cross. What then entered Paradise? Not their bodies, but the spiritual or incorporeal part of them. Was Paradise then another name for heaven? It cannot be; our Lord did not go to heaven until the day of His Ascension, forty-three days after His death. For, after His Resurrection, He said to S. Mary Magdalene, “I am not yet ascended to My Father.” [17] With His risen body, united again to His human soul and spirit, He went to Heaven, His whole human nature now being, by His Resurrection, again completely one. But into Paradise only part of His human nature passed, the spiritual part of it, along with the spiritual part of the thief’s human nature. Our Lord’s soul and spirit came back, as we know, from Paradise on the third day. The soul and spirit of the thief remain there still. So then this is what our Lord Himself teaches us as to the state of the disembodied spirit, that at death a just man’s spirit does not go to heaven, but into a sphere of life which is called Paradise.

But, if this be so, why, it may be asked, did not our Lord speak in plainer and more definite language? Such a truth, it may be urged, a truth which so much concerns us, ought not to depend upon a single text. I do not propose to ask you to be content with an inference from a single text. But it may be that our Lord did not say more than this about the great truth with which we are dealing for this reason, that the disciples whom He gathered round Him, being Jews, perfectly well knew what He meant by Paradise. This single reference, therefore, is enough to show that what was a common and prevalent belief among the Jews was a true belief,—a belief which our Lord not only recognized, but by recognizing established and sanctioned. But if we are once clear on this point, we shall find the belief more plainly set forth by our Lord in another place. What then is the belief that we have learned from this single passage? We have learned this, that the human spirit of our Lord, and the spirit of the dying thief did not pass at death to heaven, though if any spirit should ever be fit to pass at death to heaven His spirit was fit, but to a state which He called Paradise.

Now, there was another expression used in the ordinary Jewish language of the day for the state to which the blessed dead passed at death. They were spoken of as at rest “in Abraham’s bosom.” Of a very holy man they would say, “This day he rests in Abraham’s bosom.” So that in the minds of the Jews and therefore of the disciples the term “Paradise” meant exactly the same thing as “Abraham’s bosom.” We have learned what “Paradise” meant. Therefore now we know what “resting in Abraham’s bosom” meant. It meant the Intermediate State. [19] The scene then in the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, which follows the deaths of the two men, belongs not to the final state of happiness and misery at all, but to the Intermediate State. The joy is the joy of the Intermediate State. The suffering, which is in such strong contrast to the joy as to be divided from it by a deep gulf, so that the joy cannot be tinged with the misery, nor the misery relieved by the joy,—this suffering also is the suffering of the Intermediate State.

The reality then of the Intermediate State is confirmed by our Lord in this narrative. Now observe the weight of this testimony. If the Jews were wrong in believing that the spirits of the just passed into Paradise or into Abraham’s bosom our Lord would never have uttered words twice over which sanctioned their mistake. We may observe further from these two passages that the Intermediate State has two parts or conditions. There are those in it who suffer, and there are those who rejoice. At death, the spirits of those whose lives have been evil pass to suffering and anguish, as we read of the rich man that “in Hades he lifted up his eyes being in torments”; and the spirits of the faithful pass to rest and joy. But between these two representatives in the narrative, the one of the evil, the other of the good, there are the multitudes who are neither very good nor very evil, so varied in the indeterminate tokens of good and evil which marked their lives on earth, that it would seem to be impossible for us to know on which side of “the great gulf” their position ought to be. But if the extremes enter the Intermediate State, and there is room for them in it, is it to be supposed that there is no room for those who are between the extremes? Rather do we learn that the spirits of all go thither, not only of the faithful and of the wicked, but of the wavering and uncertain also, of those who were weak and fell, of those who, with unsteady and tottering steps, sometimes rising, often falling, now obeying, now rebelling, now believing, now doubting, now walking in the light, now plunged in darkness, at one time treading firmly the ground of the narrow path, and then at times wandering into the quagmires and morasses of sin and lust, passed through the pilgrimage of life, and, at length, when their allotted span was completed, were assigned to the place which awaited them, to the place which was their own and was fitted for them.

We have seen what conclusions must be drawn from the express language of our Lord Himself. Let us now examine the evidence afforded by His Apostles, in the Epistles and in the book of the Revelation. But first I would ask you to consider what, according to the Bible, is the chief feature in the conception of the happiness and glory of Heaven, what is its essential nature. Is it not this, that being the dwelling place of God Himself, the glory and happiness of Heaven will consist in the Presence itself of God, and therefore in the vision of God? As a great writer has said, “It must be remarked by everybody that the glory of the future state is always put before us not as an inner consciousness or mental communion simply, not as an absorption into ourselves within, but as a great spectacle without us, the spectacle of a great visible manifestation of God. It is a sight, a picture, a representation, that constitutes the heavenly state, not mere thought and contemplation. The glorified saint of Scripture is especially a beholder; he gazes, he looks, he fixes his eyes upon something before him; he does not merely ruminate within, but his whole mind is carried out towards and upon a great representation. And thus Heaven specially appears in Scripture as the sphere of perfected sight, where the faculty is raised and exalted to its highest act, and the happiness of existence culminates in vision.” [23] If this be so, all the most entrancing spectacles and scenes of earth shall appear dim and coarse and uncouth in comparison with the sight on which the ravished gaze of eternity shall be fastened. For then shall our eyes see “The King in His Beauty.” [24a] They shall see God, see Him face to face,—God! No higher conception of happiness is set before the heart of man, which ever craves for heaven and for perfection, than God Himself, the sight of God, the Presence of God, the Knowledge of God. “In Thy Presence is the fulness of joy.” [24b] But we must not lose sight of the effect which this vision of God produces upon those who gaze. To see Him is to become like Him. “Then,” says S. John, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” [24c] “We all,” says S. Paul, “with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.” This is what seeing God will do.

When, then, shall this vision be granted? At death to any? No! but only at the Second Coming of Christ. All the great writers of the Epistles speak, as with one voice, of this. What says S. Peter? “When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.” [25a] Not therefore at death, but at Christ’s Second Coming and appearance. What does S. John say? “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” [25b] Not therefore until that time. What again does the great S. Paul say? “When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” [25c] Again to S. Timothy he writes, “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.” [25d] There can be no doubt what S. Paul means by “That Day.” It is the day when “the Righteous Judge” on His Judgment throne shall award the crowns to those who have fought the good fight and kept the faith. This is the frequent meaning of the expressions, “That day,” “The day of the Lord,” in the New Testament. “We know it,” says Dr. Liddon, “by a more familiar name given it on three occasions by our Lord Himself, and on three at least by His Apostles after Him: it is the Day of Judgment.” [26] S. Paul, therefore, when he says, “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord will give me on that day,” does not expect that crown until the Day of Judgment.

These are a few out of many like passages, all showing that heaven is not reached at death, but only after the Day of Judgment. From all which it is clear that the Apostles had in their minds the firm assurance that there was to be a waiting time, how long they knew not, or how short they knew not, during which the spirit without the body would dwell in expectation. If it were otherwise, if at death the spirit passes into the light which no man can approach unto, into the Presence of God and beholds the Beatific Vision, which, as we saw, constitutes the consummation of happiness and perfection in heaven, I would ask, how it can be conceived that our Lord would have called Lazarus back from that supreme happiness, which eye hath never seen nor ear ever heard, nor heart of man ever conceived,—called him back to mingle in the griefs and sorrows, the pains and failures, the doubts and fears, the mists and confusions of this earthly life. Was this the act of Him Who loved Lazarus? Was there no other way of consoling the living sisters, than by so great a loss to the vanished brother? Was it not to call him from life to death, rather than from death to life?

One more passage must be quoted, the force of which cannot well be missed. In the sixth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, S. John describes the vision which he saw at the opening of the fifth seal. He saw, he said, “under the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God,—and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?—And it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little while, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren . . . should be fulfilled.” [28] Plainly these souls were not in heaven, for they bemoaned the long delay, and were bidden to wait for awhile until some great fulfilment. Where then could they be, if not on earth, nor yet in heaven? They must have been in the Middle State between the two, these martyred souls, in Paradise. But they are not spoken of as in Paradise, or in Abraham’s bosom, but as “under the Altar.” Where was this? The Jews spoke of departed souls not only as in Paradise, and in Abraham’s bosom, but also as “under the throne of Glory.” By all these expressions they meant the same thing. S. John, however, uses a different expression in describing the Intermediate State, yet one so similar as to lead us to think that in the change he substitutes a Christian formula for the Jewish, giving it a Christian shape. As “the throne of Glory” was associated with the Presence of God in the mind of a devout Jew, so the Altar would be as naturally associated with the Presence of God in the mind of a devout Christian. What, therefore, the “Throne of God” was to the Jew, that “the Altar of God” would be to a Christian. For the Altar was to Christian thought the Throne of God. There, at the Christian Altar was commemorated the one great sacrifice to which all former sacrifices had pointed, and in which they were all fulfilled. There the communion of Saints was, as in no other way on earth, realized. There, as by one simultaneous vibration thrilling through the saintly dead, and the living communicants, the spiritual bond unites together in one unbroken living Communion, those of the Church expectant who are departed in the true faith of Christ’s Holy Name, and those of us who are still striving in the Church militant on earth to perfect our probation. These souls “under the Altar” were still waiting, and their waiting wearied them. “How long?” they cried. They were not in the flesh, their bodies had been slain. They were absent from the body and present with the Lord, with Christ, as the crucified thief is still with Christ, in Paradise.

The consummation for them is yet to come. They are waiting for it. It is postponed. God’s work on earth is yet uncompleted. The number of the elect is not yet made up. The Second Coming of Christ is yet delayed. All things are not yet ready. A little while longer must they wait, that they without us may not be made perfect.