Category Archives: Life after Death

Stephen Travis: the case for conditional immortality

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In I Believe in the Second Coming of Jesus (2nd ed., 1988), Stephen Travis outlines the following case for conditional immortality (‘annihilationism’):-

First, immortality of the soul is a non-biblical doctrine derived from Greek philosophy. In biblical teaching man is ‘conditionally immortal-that is, he has the possibility of becoming immortal if he receives resurrection or immortality as a gift from God. This would imply that God grants resurrection to those who love him. but those who resist him go out of existence.…

The intermediate state – possible schema

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Piecing together the (admitedly limited) biblical data on the intermediate state, Michael Bird proposes the following:

1. Prior to Christ’s ascension, all who died went to Sheol/Hades, which was divided into two parts, one compartment for the wicked and another compartment for the righteous.

2. After Christ’s descent to Sheol/Hades and with his ascension, Christ took with him into heaven all of the saints in the paradisal part of Sheol/Hades, while the wicked remain in Sheol/Hades waiting for judgment.

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Evaluating the ‘soul-sleep’ view

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The doctrine of ‘soul-sleep’ interprets the period between a believer’s death and final resurrection as one of uninterrupted unconsciousness.

Habermas and Moreland identify a number of problems with this view:

First, numerous biblical texts (e.g., Luke 23:43; Phil 1:23; 2 Cor 5:1-10) clearly teach that death is a transition into conscious enjoyment of the presence of Christ. How could Christ’s presence be enjoyed if one were asleep?

Second, some of these same Bible passages describe death as a gain because the deceased is with Christ.

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What happens after death?

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J.I. Packer has a helpful summary of biblical teaching.

  • The separation of body and soul at death is both a fruit of sin and a divine judgement, Gen. 2:17; 3:19, 22; Rom. 5:12; 8:10; 1 Cor. 15:21.  This separation is a sign of the separation from God that first brought about physical death, and will be deepened after death for those who leave this life without Christ.  Death is, accordingly, to be seen as an enemy, 1 Cor 15:26 and a terror, Heb 2:15.
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Luke 23:43 – “Today you will be with me in paradise”

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Luke 23:39 One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 23:40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 23:41 And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 23:42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”…

Jn 5:24-27; Lk 23:32-33; 39-43; Rev 21:1-5 – ‘I believe in…the life everlasting’ (sermon notes)

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“I believe in…the life everlasting.”

‘Who wants to live forever?’ (song by Queen).

How would you like to live to be 1,000?  According to Dr Aubrey de Gray, co-founder of the SENS Research Foundation, scientists are well on the way to ending bodily aging.  The first person to live to be 1,000, he claims, has already been born.

Or how about having your body deep frozen after you die, in the hope that one day science will be able to resuscitate it? …

Matthew 10:28 – ‘destroy’: everlasting punishment or annihilation?

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Mt 10:28 – “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The traditional view

The traditional interpretation goes back at least as far as Tertullian, who espoused a Platonic view of the immortality of the soul (see Fudge, The Fire That Consumes).

Blomberg asserts that

‘”kill,” like “destroy,” does not imply annihilation but eternal suffering, as the qualification “in hell” makes clear.’

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The book of life

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G.W. Hawthorne notes that ‘expressions such as “your names are written in heaven” (Lk. 10:20), “whose names are in the book of life” (Phil. 4:3), “whose name has not been written … in the book of life” (Rev. 13:8), and “I will not blot his name out of the book of life” (Rev. 3:5), crop up several times within the NT. The figure is taken from the OT (cf. Isa. 4:3; Ezk. 13:9; Dan. 12:1), or from the secular world where a criminal’s name was removed from the civic register to take from him all rights of citizenship.’…

‘And to die is gain’

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Paul’s desire was ‘to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far’ (Phil 1:23).

That sparkling Puritan, Thomas Watson, writes:-

To a believer death is great gain. A saint can count what his losses for Christ are here—but he cannot count how great his gains are at death…Death to a believer is the daybreak of eternal brightness. To show fully what a believer’s gains are at death, would be a task too great for an angel; all hyperboles fall short of it; the reward of glory exceeds our imagination.…

John 14:6 – “No one comes to the Father except through me”

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“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, NIV).

These words constitute the go-to text for Christians who wish to assert that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.  It is also the go-to text for those who feel that Christianity condemns itself as abhorrent and intolerant by reason of the very exclusiveness of this saying.

But does does the text actually mean what most of its friends (and, indeed, most of its enemies) think it means?…