The Afterlife & Intermediate State | Nancy Guthrie

In this episode of Logos Live, Kirk E. Miller talks with Bible teacher and author Nancy Guthrie about one of the most tender but often misunderstood subjects in Christian theology: What happens to the believer after death? Together, they discuss what the Bible has to say about the so-called intermediate state in distinction from the promise of the resurrection and the new heavens and new earth. In so doing, they tackle popular misconceptions about “going to heaven” and explore how these profound truths bring comfort to those who are grieving.

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Episode guest: Nancy Guthrie

Nancy Guthrie (MATS, Reformed Theological Seminary) teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, in Franklin, TN, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including through her Biblical Theology Workshop for Women. She is the author of numerous books and the host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast from The Gospel Coalition. She and her husband founded Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of a child, and they’re co-hosts of the GriefShare video series.

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Episode synopsis

Nancy’s personal investment in this topic: the loss of two children

Guthrie begins by explaining why the topics of death, heaven, and resurrection matter so much to her. She approaches these subjects not merely as a Bible teacher, but as a mother who has buried two children. She and her husband have one living son, but they also had two children born with Zellweger syndrome, a rare metabolic disorder. Both children lived only about six months.

Those losses brought her face to face with death in a way that made theological questions intensely personal. She has developed a deep concern for comforting grieving people with what is actually true, not merely with sentimental, but false, ideas that often circulate among Christians and culture at large.

What actually is the Christian’s hope—and how does it shape the Christian life?

For instance, in her own journey, Nancy at one point realized she had never sorted out the difference between what happens to believers immediately after death and what happens at the final resurrection. Although many Christians instinctively speak of our hope as “going to heaven when we die,” the Bible identifies our hope as the return of Christ. Only then will he resurrect our bodies and usher in a new creation.

For much of her life, Nancy says she would have summarized Christianity this way: I made a decision for Christ, I should try to live for him, and then I will go to heaven when I die. Of course, this is all true. But it’s not the whole story. It’s a far narrower and more self-focused vision than the story that Scripture tells.

The goal of the Christian is not to escape this world eventually, to go to heaven when we die. It is to be conformed to Christ.

Rather, Scripture provides believers a much grander vision, one tied to God’s intention for all of creation and rooted in the believer’s union with Christ.

• Before the foundation of the world, believers were chosen in Christ for a destiny: to be holy and blameless before God (Eph 1:3–14; 2 Thess 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2; Rom 8:29–30; 2 Tim 1:9).
• In time, the Spirit brings them to life through the gospel, seals them to Christ (Eph 1:13–14; 4:30; 2 Cor 1:21–22; John 3:5–8), and begins the long work of sanctification (Eph 4:17–5:21; 2 Cor 3:18).
• At death, body and soul are separated. The body returns to the dust, while the soul goes to be with Christ (2 Cor 5:6–8; Phil 1:23; Eccl 12:7; Gen 3:19; Acts 7:59; Rev 6:9; Heb 12:23).
• But that is not the end. When Christ returns, he will bring with him those who have died in him. He will raise their bodies from the dust and reunite body and soul in a glorified existence fit for life in the renewed creation forever (1 Thess 4:13–17; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:20–23; Phil 3:20–21; Rom 8:23; Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19; 2 Cor 4:14).

This framework enlarges the Christian imagination, reshaping our understanding of the Christian life. The goal is not to escape this world, i.e., to go to heaven when we die. It is to be conformed to Christ within the context of God’s grand redemptive purpose. In this way, the Christian life is defined by Christ’s. The Christian life is union with Christ in his death and resurrection.

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The intermediate state: What happens to believers when they die?

The term “intermediate state” refers to one’s condition between death and the final resurrection.

While Scripture reveals some basic things about the intermediate state, it doesn’t say a whole lot—certainly far less than we might wish, given our curiosity to know what happens to loved ones. Scripture focuses much more on the final resurrection. Nonetheless, Nancy identifies at least four things Scripture teaches about the intermediate state.

1. Believers who die are with Christ

Consider Jesus’s words to the thief on the cross: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43; emphasis added). Notice, Jesus does not promise that at the end of history (i.e., in the resurrection), this thief would experience paradise, but today, i.e., at the moment of his impending death. Or observe Paul in Philippians 1:23, where he says his desire is to depart (i.e., die) and be with Christ.

The person who dies in Christ does not disappear into oblivion or drift into an impersonal afterlife. Rather, the believer experiences conscious fellowship with Christ after death. When a believer passes through death, Jesus is on the other side of that door.

2. Believers who die experience something far better than life in this fallen world

Paul says in Philippians 1:12 that to depart (die) and be with Christ is “far better.” Or also in 2 Corinthians 5:8: “We would rather be away from the body [dead, our spirits separated from our bodies] and at home with the Lord.” According to Paul, although we do not wish to be “naked” (disembodied), it is nonetheless preferable to be absent from the body (dead) but present with Christ.

Nancy reflects: Grieving people often ache to know what life is like now for the person they’ve lost. While Scripture does not answer every question, it does say this much: it is by far better.

3. Believers who die are presently disembodied

In 2 Corinthians 5:1–10, Paul describes our present bodies as “tents” or “tabernacles,” i.e., temporary lodging as opposed to a permanent structure. Our current bodies will not last forever. They are perishable, mortal, and will eventually die. Yet at the resurrection, believers will receive their permanent “building” or “house” (see also 1 Cor 15:42–57, where Paul contrasts our present mortal/perishable bodies with our future resurrected, immortal/imperishable bodies).

Similarly, when believers die, he says they will be “naked” and “unclothed,” i.e., without a body. Our ultimate desire, though, is not to die and be “unclothed” but to be “further clothed,” i.e., to receive our resurrection bodies.

To summarize, in 2 Corinthians 5:8, Paul speaks of the intermediate state as being “away from the body” (2 Cor 5:8). In other words, believers who have died are currently disembodied. They have not yet received their resurrected bodies. While they are with Christ, they are not yet in their final embodied state. Their bodies remain in the grave.

This challenges the familiar idea that loved ones in heaven are now enjoying all the bodily pleasures they once loved on earth, only in perfected form. As comforting as such imagery may seem, it skips ahead to resurrection realities that belong to the future.

4. Believers who die are made perfectly holy

Hebrews 12:23 speaks of “the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” Even though deceased believers do not yet have resurrected bodies, they are no longer struggling with sin as we do in this life.

This is one of the most beautiful truths about heaven in its present sense: to be “saved to sin no more” as we sing in the hymn, “There Is a Fountain.” The inward struggle with sin and all of sin’s horrid effects will be gone.

Logos’s Study Assistant providing citations and a summarization of resources on the intermediate state.

The resurrection of the body: our hope beyond death

Sometimes we wrongly treat a believer’s death as their hope, the final terminal in their experience of salvation. Many a funeral message speaks of the deceased as having entered their ultimate victory, as having experienced victory over death.

Now certainly, as we’ve seen, the Bible speaks quite positively of the believer’s experience after death. It is described as “paradise” (Luke 23:43) and “far better” (Phil 1:23). To die in Christ really is gain (Phil 1:21). Yet the New Testament never locates the believer’s hope in what happens to the believer upon death. The Bible never describes the believer’s experience of death as a victory over death. In fact, Scripture describes death not as our hope but as an “enemy” still awaiting defeat at Christ’s second coming (1 Cor 15:26).

The Bible never describes the believer’s experience of death as a victory over death. In fact, Scripture describes death not as our hope but as an “enemy.”

Instead, the New Testament consistently identifies the believer’s hope as the return of Christ and our bodily resurrection with him. According to the New Testament, our hope is not “going to heaven” when we die, but resurrection. Yes, believers are safe with Christ when they die, but death itself is still unnatural and grievous. The Christian hope, then, is not merely existing beyond death into the intermediate state, but seeing death itself undone through resurrection.

Logos’s Smart Search in Bible with Smart Synopsis finding what the New Testament says about the nature of the believer’s hope.

Believers are not just promised life after death, but life after life after death. That is, we will be raised from our state of life-after-death (the intermediate state). We will experience resurrection from death.

This is why, for instance, Scripture speaks of believers who have died as “fallen asleep” (e.g., Ps 13:3; 1 Thess 4:13–14; 1 Cor 15:6, 51; Dan 12:2; Acts 7:60; 13:36; 1 Kgs 2:10; 2 Pet 3:4) It is likely a polite euphemism for death (similar to how we speak of people as having “passed away”). Yet “sleep” also signals something temporary. It implies that they will eventually “awake”: They will come back to life! For the believer, death is a relatively short “nap” on the way to resurrection.

And according to 1 Corinthians 15, this resurrection of the body is not a mere secondary doctrine. It is central to the gospel (1 Cor 15:1–2, 12–16). As Paul makes clear, if there is no resurrection, all Christian hope collapses. Our faith is vain and our labor for Christ is vain (1 Cor 15:17–19, 29–34, 58).

Likewise, in Philippians 3:20–21 Paul says that Christ “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” Importantly, Jesus remains human. He did not cease to be human after his resurrection and ascension. So his resurrected body is the pattern and promise of what believers will one day become. We will be made like him. Salvation is being conformed into the image of Christ, including conformity to his glorified and resurrected body.

The hope of the gospel, then, is not the shedding of our embodied creatureliness. It is the redemption and glorification of embodied human life. The gospel promises not only the forgiveness of sin but the eradication of sin and all of its consequences. This includes physical death.

A new heavens and new earth: the restoration of creation

We sometimes conceive of salvation as departure from earth to heaven. Yet Scripture presents the eternal state as a renewed creation.

Romans 8:18–25 describes creation groaning, longing for the day when the curse (Gen 3) will finally be removed. It waits for “the revealing of the sons of God,” that is, “the redemption of our bodies.” The liberation of God’s people and the liberation of creation will coincide. When Christ returns and resurrects his people, the physical creation will undergo a sort of “resurrection” as well, following the pattern of God’s people (see Rev 21–22). In this new creation, there will no longer “be anything accursed” (Rev 22:3; Isa 65:17–25; 2 Pet 3:10–13).

Contrary to gnosticism, Christianity does not teach that the physical world is evil and must be escaped. God made the material world and called it good. Christ took on human flesh. He rose bodily. His incarnation and resurrection, among other things, affirm the goodness of our bodies. His work of redemption includes our bodies and creation, not just our souls.

Thus, although the present conditions of this world are not that of our final home, this created order is our God-given home. Contrary to the hymn which sings, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through,” this world is very much our home. If anything, these lyrics more accurately apply to the intermediate state: “Heaven is not my home, I’ll just be passing through.”

Addressing some common misunderstandings

Nancy debunks some common misconceptions about the afterlife.

1. Do the deceased become angels?

Nancy corrects the idea that dead loved ones become angels. Humans and angels are distinct created orders, and Scripture never suggests that redeemed people turn into angels after death.

2. Are the deceased looking down from heaven watching over us?

Nancy also challenges the common assumption that people in heaven are now actively watching over loved ones on earth. While she does not claim more certainty than Scripture allows, she notes that the Bible does not actually teach that departed saints are monitoring earthly events in that way.

She addresses the common misuse of Hebrews 12:1’s “great cloud of witnesses” to this effect. “Witnesses” here likely does not mean that these saints are watching believers, like spectators in a stadium watching a race. Rather, witness (μάρτυς) here refers to someone who gives testimony, like a courtroom witness. Their lives provide testimony to God’s faithfulness.

3. Should we look to near-death experiences for information about the afterlife?

Nancy is especially wary of extrabiblical stories about people who supposedly died, visited heaven, and returned to describe it (“heaven tourism”). She understands why grieving people are drawn to such accounts. They want details. They want reassurance. But she urges believers not to build their hope on speculative stories or sentimental images. True comfort, she insists, comes from what Scripture actually says.

Scripture must shape Christian hope. The Bible may not answer every curiosity, but it tells believers what they most need to know. Christ is with his people in death. Christ will raise his people at his return. And Christ will dwell with them forever in a world where the curse is gone.

Why this matters for grieving people

Nancy observes that false beliefs may seem comforting. But because they are not true they cannot provide actual hope. This is why clarity on the Bible’s teaching on the afterlife matters.

For those who mourn, Scripture offers real comfort: the believer who dies is with Christ. That person is in a condition far better than this fallen life. He or she is free from sin and safely held in the presence of the Savior. And yet there is more to come. The body laid in the ground is not forgotten. The story is not over. Christ will return, the dead will be raised, and all things will be made new.

Death is not insignificant. It is an enemy. It stings. It separates. But it is a defeated enemy, and its defeat will be made fully visible when Christ raises his people bodily and renews creation.

Share your thoughts

Is “going to heaven when you die” the whole story? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Nancy Guthrie’s recommended resources for further study

Additional books by Nancy Guthrie

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