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Program Host
Before we begin today's episode of Renewing youg Mind, we invite you to stay with us through the end of the program to hear how you can request a featured hardcover book from Ligonier Ministries
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Dr. Guy Waters
to the believer, the grave is a bed to lay down for a time until God gloriously raises the body, reunites soul and body. We are ushered as whole persons into the presence of our God.
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Program Host
Although our society shields itself from the reality of death, if you push an unbeliever with questions about what happens after they die, many will have strong opinions, even believing in some kind of heaven or eternal life. Hello and welcome to the Monday edition of Renewing youg Mind. Today you'll hear a sober but necessary message on what happens when we die. With so many wrong views out there, it's essential that we get this topic right. Here's Dr. Guy Waters from his series Facing the Last Enemy.
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Dr. Guy Waters
What happens when a person dies? We want to think about what is often called the intermediate state, that is the period of time between a person's death and the return of Christ at the end of the age in glory. Where do people go when they die? What is their fate? And to answer that question, well, we need to address some unbiblical answers that have been posed to that question and are answers that we face sometimes within the Church and within the world at large. So let's start by asking what doesn't happen after death. We can look at four views. Each of these views has been argued by learned theologians within the Church and are current even today, and yet are unbiblical. The first of these is universalism. Universalism says everybody is going to be saved. Now, for some, everybody will be saved by following their own religion. For others, everybody will be saved in some way by the work of Christ. An appeal is often made to the love of God. If God is love, then surely everyone will be saved. Now the Scripture says in no uncertain terms that salvation is universal in that it is for all kinds of people without exclusion. You are not exempted from salvation because you are a man or a woman, a Jew or a Greek. But the Bible does not teach universalism. That is, every human being is going to be saved. Where do we see that taught in Scripture? Well, remember a point that we observed earlier, and we keep coming back to all people. Our default condition is dead in trespasses and sins in Adam. All die by nature. We are enemies of God. All his thoughts are the psalmist says there is no God. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside And Paul quotes these Psalms in the third chapter of Romans. We are in a state of rebellion against God by nature, and death doesn't change that fact. We must be changed before death, or we will enter eternity as God's enemies. Another thing to consider is that there is salvation. Salvation is in Christ alone, through faith in him alone. Jesus says those memorable words in the upper room in John 14, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And we read in the third chapter of John's Gospel the very last verse. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. So there is salvation. But salvation is in Christ alone and through faith alone. Scripture also tells us that that window for salvation, the opportunity for salvation, closes when Christ returns in judgment. Christ came into the world the first time on an errand of mercy and salvation. When Christ returns, he will complete the salvation of his people, to be sure. But he will come, the Scripture says, to judge the world. He will gather all people to himself. There will be a great separation, as he teaches in. In the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. Some will go to eternal life and some to eternal judgment. Now, what about the love of God? Well, we affirm God is love, and we affirm that God is righteous and just. And you can never pit those two attributes of God against each other. We hold them together. And the real question, as it has been put, is not why doesn't God save everyone? The real question is, why does God save anyone at all? And there is the love of God. A second unbiblical view goes by the name of annihilationism. It's really a cluster of views. This says that God will pronounce his verdict against the wicked, but they will at that point cease to exist. And so not to be saved is not to exist. The problem with that view is that the Bible teaches that existence after death is very much a conscious existence. That's true for believers. We've seen Paul say, I want to be with Christ. And that is better by far. But that is also true of those who do not trust Christ. They are no less conscious. Jesus, Parable of Lazarus and the rich man has the rich man saying, after his death, I am in anguish in this flame. He is very much conscious. And we read in Revelation, the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night. These are hard things, but they are true things. And so we can't follow someone who says that the wicked will be sentenced, but then they will cease to exist. The Bible doesn't allow us to say that. Another unbiblical view goes by the name of second probation or a second chance. This view says that when a person dies, they will be given an opportunity after death to believe and repent in Christ. And this view affirms people exit this life as saints or sinners. It affirms that Christ is the only way to salvation. But the view is not biblical because it says there are opportunities revealed in Scripture for a person to be saved after they die. Remember, we have thought about the return of Christ. When he comes back, it will not be to save people who are unsaved, but to judge the world in righteousness. But there's something else, and this speaks to universalism no less than to the second chance. When a person dies, the opportunity for salvation, Scripture tells us, comes to an end. And we see this by statements in the Bible that tell us that a person's eternal destiny is measured by life on earth, not something that happens after death. Listen to the way Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5, 10. We must all appear, he says, before the judgment, seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. That's what God is going to look at, what has been done in the body, whether good or evil. And it's confirmed by a verse we've referenced many Times Now, Hebrews 9:27. After death, judgment. There's no mention of an opportunity for salvation after death. A person goes from death to judgment. There's a fourth unbiblical view, and we associate it with the Roman Catholic Church. It is the doctrine of purgatory. Now, purgatory, according to the Roman Catholic Church, is now a settled teaching of that church. Purgatory does not concern unbelievers. Purgatory concerns believers. It is neither heaven nor hell, but it is a place, according to Rome, where most believers will go. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it. All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. None of us dies perfectly holy. And so there is a need then of purification so that we can be perfectly holy to enter into heaven according to Rome. And around that comes prayers for the dead, masses for the dead, things that the Church does in order to hasten a person's purification. How do we reply to this? Really, at the root of this unbiblical teaching is Rome's doctrine of justification. Justification answers the question, how is a sinner right before God? And what Rome says is that we become more and more righteous over the course of our lives. And then when we are truly and properly righteous, we are admitted into heaven. That is a long process, and it is not complete in this life. Now there's much more that can be said about Rome's doctrine of justification, but that's a start. And all that we need to take up the question of purgatory. What does the Bible say? And this was the great teaching that thrilled the souls of the Reformers as they recovered this teaching, particularly from the letters of Paul. The Bible teaches that a sinner is counted righteous in Christ alone, through faith alone, apart from works of the law, apart from anything that we do that God may have commanded in his law. How then does God count the sinner righteous God, Paul says to the Romans, God justifies the ungodly. How can a just God do that? The righteousness of his son, his death, his full satisfaction for sin, his perfect life of obedience is credited to the sinner in the courtroom of God and received through faith alone, a faith which is God's own gift to the sinner. So that justification is entirely of grace, and we are justified only and entirely on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done. And Paul says, you're a Christian, you're justified. You will reign in life. Romans 5, 17, his merits. His record entitles you to eternal life from the moment you believe in Jesus Christ. So there is no biblical basis for purgatory because every believer in Jesus Christ counted righteous through faith in him. His perfect record knows with utmost assurance I will be brought immediately into the presence of Jesus Christ. There is no unsettled accounts so that I would be righteous, that I may be counted righteous by a righteousness that is within me. Because my entrance into heaven is on the basis of another's righteousness credited to me from the moment that I believe. And so purgatory does not exist. There is heaven, there is hell, and in Jesus Christ, the dying believer has immediate entrance into heaven. Well, we're already getting into our second question. We've thought about what doesn't happen after death, what does happen after death? And here the Scripture speaks along two lines. We can think about all of those whom God chose in eternity, set his love upon them, and he has saved them in Jesus Christ. In his time. And we can think about those who die in rebellion, in sin against God in the first place. What about those whom God has chosen, whom God saves in his time? We can think about what. What happens to them, to us who trust in Christ along two lines. Remember, God made us soul and body. So let's think about soul and body. In the first place, our souls are made perfectly holy. It's a lovely expression. In Hebrews 12, speaking of the heavenly assembly. In verse 23, the writer tells us of the spirits of the righteous, made perfect instantly, immediately at death. The believer in Christ is made perfectly holy, and we are brought immediately into heaven. That's where Christ is. We go to bed with Christ. My desire, Paul writes the Philippians in chapter one, is to depart and be with Christ. Paul tells the Corinthians 2 Corinthians 5. We know that while we are home in the body, we are away from the Lord. David knew this. Psalm 16:11. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So the soul goes immediately into the presence of God. What about our body? Well, our bodies are committed to the grave. We have the hope of what Paul calls full redemption at the resurrection. That is, God isn't abandoning our bodies. He doesn't save part of us. He saves all of us. And even in death, Paul tells The Thessalonians In 1 Thessalonians 4, we are still united to Jesus Christ. First, Thessalonians 4:16, who is a dead believer. They are dead in Christ, and that means the body is still united to Jesus Christ. Prophet Isaiah has a powerful way of speaking to this. In chapter 57. The righteous man, he writes, is taken away from calamity. He enters into peace. They rest in their beds, who walk in their uprightness. To the believer, the grave is a bed to lay down for a time until God gloriously raises the body, reunites soul and body. We are ushered as whole persons into the presence of our God. What about those who die in rebellion, the rebellion of sin against God? Well, their souls, we're told in Scripture, are cast into hell. It is a terrible place, torments and utter darkness. What Jude says of the angels is certainly true of the wicked human beings. They are kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness. And that means the grave is, to an unbeliever, not a bed, but a prison. It's a holding cell, a detention cell until the appearance before the great Judge of all the earth. As we close, what does this mean for us? I want to think about two things in brief. The first place we're seeing the Scripture impress on us the finality of death. And the good news is there is salvation in Jesus Christ. And that is the call of the church is to make Christ known. It's a call to us. We may not be called to preach, but we can pray. We can support those who do. We can tell others in our families, places of work, in school, our neighborhoods about Jesus Christ as we have opportunity. And then the scripture never wants us to forget the glorious portion of every believer, the hope of the resurrection body, that at death we close our eyes only to open them in the very presence of our Savior immediately. That's why the psalmist says in Psalm 73 whom have I in heaven but you? There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. That's our great hope and desire and delight is not simply to be free from the awful things of this life, not simply to be reunited with believing loved ones. It is to be in the presence of our Savior forever. And that means the whole of our lives on this earth, as Hebrews reminds us in the 11th chapter, are a pilgrimage. Just as Abraham was looking to that eternal city that God had prepared for him, we look to that city on pilgrimage, knowing that we will get there and knowing that it is glorious. We don't see these things by sight, but we know them by faith. And so we prepare ourselves for where God is surely bringing us and for the world wonders that lie ahead of us.
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Program Host
Our great hope, as Dr. Guy Waters just said, is to be in the presence of our Savior forever. This life leads to so many disappointments, but eternity in the presence of our Heavenly Father exceeds all expectations. This is the Monday edition of Renewing youg Mind, and I'm glad you're with us today. Today only when you give a donation in support of Renewing youg Mind, we will send you this series on DVD along with the companion hardcover book. You can give your gift and request this resource bundle at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. In addition to the DVD set, we'll unlock these messages for you in the free Ligonier app. Simply download the app and log in and all the messages and the study guide will be waiting for you there. Donate before midnight tonight@renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes we are grateful for your generous financial support. While it's common for people on social media to say that Armageddon is quickly approaching, so what does the Book of Revelation really teach about that? Don't miss tomorrow's episode here on Renewing youg Mind, Sam.