25 - Eternal State

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy. This is our last class in our Introduction to the Major Western Religions. This is part of our School of World Religions. The specific class that we're taking right now is an Introduction to the World Western Religions, and this lesson will be on the Eternal State.

Discipleship, the Course Overview, and the Transition to End Times

Lesson 12, this is the last, hopefully, we'll see if we can get it all done in one class. The last class, we're giving a Christian response to what the different religions believe as we've been going through their theology, and looking at that, we've been giving a response.

So, this is a Ministry of Striving for Eternity. If you have a syllabus, I would encourage you to take one out now. If you don't have a syllabus, I'd encourage you to go to store .strivingforeternity .org and pick one up.

That would be a good thing to do. You can also pick up my book, What Do They Believe? That is also at that website where you can get that along with other things that are out there at the store. Striving for Eternity is a ministry that is designed or dedicated to discipleship and discipling others to disciple others.

And that's why we provide these classes so that you can learn and then you can take it to your church and you can help others grow in their faith. As it says in the Great Commission that we are commissioned to go and teach others everything that Christ has taught us.

Well, my goal as the instructor of this class, my name is Andrew Rappaport, if I haven't and instruct others. I am to teach you all things Christ taught me. You take that which I've now taught you and you teach it to others.

That's the way discipleship happens. So, this being well our last class, this is actually kind of tying to touch what we're going to get into in our next school. We're going to actually after this, if you've been watching, you know that we've kind of taken the systematic theology school.

We've been doing an introduction that's there's already over 60 classes there and we're going to wrap that up after this and we're going to go into well we're going to look at end times which is what we're looking at today.

So, think of this as kind of if you're watching classes live then this is kind of a primer for what we're going to talk about in much more detail in the weeks to come. But, the eternal state is the conscious state in which man will live both body and soul for all of eternity.

That's what the eternal state is according to the Bible. We're going to make that case. The aspects that Christians need to address are the death, the immediate state, and then the final eternal state.

So, because there's much confusion in these areas and so we want to break them out into these three kind of time periods. Our death, what happens between death and that final eternal state? That would be the intermediate state and then the eternal state where we'll actually be because as you're going to see we sometimes use language to refer to the eternal state or sorry the immediate state as if it's the eternal state.

So, not to confuse you, let's start with death. Wow, that didn't come out well. That just sounded bad. Let's start with death. No, we don't. Yeah, okay, there's no recovery from that. It didn't sound good but let's start with that point.

I'm not going to recover from that so I'll just move on. All right, death. The concept of death is separation. That's your blank there, separation. Let's think about that. Death is a result of sin. We agree on that.

I think all the major religions kind of agree on that. Some like Hinduism, Buddhism would not. You're going to see with them, you're going to see a little bit of a different thing with them because Hinduism, Buddhism, you're going to see this notion that they have of just a kind of a good and evil at odds with one another and because of that you don't really see this concept or have this concept that we would talk about of sin entering the world.

So, let's put that aside for a second and just say that we want to deal with three types of death. All right, there's three types of death. There's physical death which is the one when we talk about death that's what we most often think of.

When we talk about death, it's physical. We're going to talk about that but there's also spiritual death and eternal death. So, three types of death, physical, spiritual, and eternal. If you look in your syllabus there, physical death is the separation of the soul from the body.

Those blanks there are soul from the body, okay. So, this is physical death is when your soul or your spirit technically, that would be a better word there, would be spirit to be technical because the soul can refer to body and spirit.

So, when you have that immaterial part of you separating from the material part of you that is death, physical death. Now, there are some as we saw like Jehovah Witnesses that they will say that there's this separation but then that immaterial part of you is going to burn up if you're not one of the elect.

Your body is going to burn up or sorry your immaterial part of you is going to burn up and just go out of existence. There are some even within shall we say Christian circles that are conditionalists.

In other words, they seem to believe that our soul does not separate. There's some who believe that when we die our physical part dies and if we're redeemed then we have an immortal spirit and we live on forever.

But there's some who will try to argue, some religions will try to argue that once we die our physical body is gone and they don't make a distinction between the material and immaterial part of mankind.

So, when they don't do that they're going to have an issue. We're going to look at death being a separation of the spirit from the body. Where does the spirit go? Where does the body go? Well, the body goes in the ground.

Okay, where does the spirit go? That's what we're going to talk about in the next section on the eternal, not the eternal, intermediate state. The soul does not cease to exist. This is important because if the spirit ceases then you could argue for conditionalism or annihilationism.

But if you and I are made with a spirit that's immortal, in other words it had a starting time, a start point and goes on forever, then we will live in a conscious state forever. And that's what really the issue is when we talk about some of these end time issues with false religions is what is the makeup of man?

Is man immortal? The spirit. So, the soul does not cease to exist but is released from the body. The remedy for the physical death is the resurrection. Okay, when the body will be rejoined to the spirit.

Here becomes the issue. How is that going to happen? If someone's body's burned or it's decayed, how can it be reformed and reunited with their spirit? Excuse me, did God create an entire universe out of nothing and you think he can't recreate your body?

Hello! I mean really, it shows when people make that argument how little they think of God. God created your body the first time. You think he can't do it a second time? He created Adam and Eve out of dust.

He created Adam out of dust, actually Eve out of a rib I guess. But the point being is he created a universe out of nothing. Recreating our body is not a difficult task for him. He can do that. Will it be exactly the same body?

I don't know. Will it be a body at 21? I don't know. In reality, we're not going to be so vain when we're in a glorified state to worry about how we look. If I'm old and fat and white hair, I won't care.

I won't be vain anymore. I people get into focusing on the wrong things when it comes to death and the resurrection. Okay, the second type of death is spiritual death. Spiritual death is the separation of man from a relationship with God.

That's your blank, a relationship with God. So you have the separation. Now this is what I believe really happened at the garden and we'll get to that in a moment. But this is the spiritual separation as we see in Ephesians 2, 1 to 3.

Ephesians 2, 1 to 3 says, there we go. Okay, I can see it. Sorry, I didn't have it up my screen for a second. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

You see in verse 1 there, we were dead. What's that death? That's spiritual death. And he went on to explain what this spiritual death looked like. It's the natural state when we're born. We're born into that, okay.

It is the spiritual death that was the consequence of Adam's sin of eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. When we look at Genesis 2, 17, it says, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it for the day that you eat of it you will surely die.

Now what ends up happening there is that people say, well, if we're surely going to die, well, then they didn't die the moment they ate of it. And so some people say, well, the death process started. No, they died immediately.

The moment they ate of that fruit, they died spiritually. You and I tend to think physically because when we hear death, we think of physical death. When God speaks, He's speaking of spiritual. So it was they died immediately.

Did the death process occur? Yes. Because sin entered the world and the curse of sin, they started the dying process. Their body was not going to live forever, okay. But they did immediately die. The moment Adam partook of that fruit, they recognized they were naked.

They knew it was wrong. They experienced the spiritual death. And all humans, because of what Adam did, are born in that state. The remedy for spiritual death is salvation or regeneration. We must be regenerate.

That's the remedy for spiritual death. Now notice, again, I said death is separation. Physical death, separation from spirit and body. Spiritual death, what Adam and Eve experienced immediately and we all are born into is a separation from that relationship with God.

Soon as Adam and Eve partook of that, boom, they knew there was a difference. Why did Adam hide? Because that relationship immediately changed. And then there is eternal death, the last type. This is called sometimes the second death, Revelation 2 .11 and others.

Eternal death is the permanent, that's your blank there, permanent separation of man from a relationship with God. You will see this in Revelation chapter 20. If we have, oh, it's with the others. Okay, so there's Revelation 2 .11.

But let's look at Revelation 20 verse 6. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power. The second death is referred to as this, what I'm referring to as eternal death.

It has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign for Him with a thousand years. You also see it there in Revelation 20 .14 and you'll see again, we're going to come back to Revelation 20 .14, but you'll see the second death mentioned and then Revelation 21 verse 8.

So, what you end up seeing there is that eternal death is the permanent situation. This is a permanent condition. This is a permanent result of someone's spiritual death when they experience physical death.

So, their rejection of God's saving grace throughout their life and now they experience physical death, still in a state of spiritual death, they now experience eternal death. It now becomes a permanent state.

So, with angels, we've talked about this in previous classes in theology, where angels are different than man because angels had one time where they were secured, their death, shall we say, is solidified or permanent.

That was once in time. Well, we have a choice of repenting up until that time we die. At the point that we die, that rebellion against God becomes a permanent state and that's eternal death. There is no remedy.

That's your blank there. There is no remedy for eternal death. Why does this become important? Because there's no second chance after physical death. This is where Mormonism has it wrong, where they say you can have a second chance.

There's others who argue that somehow God has to be just as if He hasn't given you enough evidence in this world to know the truth. He's given you a knowledge of truth yet you reject it and somehow the only way God could be fair is to let you experience physical death and then know.

We've had all this our life to repent and then somehow God is unfair if He doesn't give us a second chance. He's given us way more than second chances. Just think about every time you sin, that's another chance to repent.

You and I have a multitude of opportunities to turn to Christ and live, but those who refuse to can't argue that they need a second chance as some religions will argue. No, that's not what we end up seeing in the Bible.

It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. That's immediate. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Immediate. So, that's what we're going to talk about now. Let's talk about the immediate state.

The Intermediate State: Conscious Existence After Physical Death

So, what is the immediate state? The immediate state is the conscious existence, that's your blank there, conscious existence of the personality of both the godly and ungodly or believing and unbelieving or saved and unsaved, whichever words you want to put there, between the time of physical death and the resurrection at the great white throne judgment.

Okay, so let's go over some of these things. We die physically. If we're in a state where we've been regenerated, then we're going to be conscious of where we're going. Not mentioning where we're going yet, but just we're going to be in a state, it's just going to be our spirit, that immaterial part of us, and we're going to be in a place, we're going to get to where that is, well, it's called heaven.

We'll get to the details of that in a moment. But we will be there, but the important thing of this is that those who do not believe in God, those who die physically in a state of spiritual death, will still be conscious and they will stay in a different place called hell until this great white throne judgment where all of us, both the regenerate and the unregenerate, those that are in heaven and those that are in hell, will all face that great white throne judgment where we will have our bodies reunited with us, that's the second resurrection, our bodies are reunited with us, and then we get into the eternal state, we'll get to that in a moment.

So, physical death involves the loss of our immaterial, sorry, missing one word can be a big problem, the word no. Physical death involves no loss of our immaterial consciousness. Let's take a look at Revelation 6, 9 -11.

There we go. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw the altar, the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they bore. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on earth?

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

So, what you see with this is that they are conscious. They're aware of what's happening even though they're dead physically. So, the idea, now some will argue, oh, but that's only for those who are regenerate get to be conscious.

Those who are not regenerate are in what the Jehovah Witnesses would call a soul sleep. They're just, so this whole immediate state for the unregenerate, the Jehovah Witnesses this whole state doesn't exist for them.

We would have it and then they would end up experiencing just a sleep, a non-consciousness until this final white throne judgment which then they're just poof out of existence or burned up. They might suffer some punishment which whenever you have them suffering a punishment until their works are burned up, that's the proof that it's a works based system because the works have to be burned up.

It's the same with purgatory. You don't see purgatory. There is no intermediate state of purgatory that is before this eternal state and this is what Roman Catholicism would teach that you're somehow in a purgatory where you have to work off those sins.

What does that prove? That it's a works based system. It's based on human effort because even no matter what you did on this life, you have to go into purgatory to work it off, to pay it off and then you get into this eternal state.

We don't see that anywhere in Scripture. Physical death involves no loss of our immaterial consciousness. The soul of the redeemed pass immediately into the presence of the Lord. We could look at Luke 23, well a couple of passages.

Luke 23, 43 says, and he said to him truly, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise. Philippians 1, 23. I am hard pressed between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ for that is far better.

2 Corinthians 5, 8. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and home with the Lord. You see each one of those are pointing to the fact that immediately for the believer, absent from the body, present with the Lord.

There is a separation of body and soul. We will be in that state with our immaterial part of us. We will be in Christ's presence immaterially. Our body won't be there but our spirit will. For the redeemed, such separation will continue until the rapture.

We see this in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 -17. We will get into that. Which initiates the first resurrection that is mentioned in Revelation 20, verses 4 -6. There are some that would disagree within Christian circles on the rapture and this first resurrection.

That's fine. The point here is this is where you are going to see some differences within Christianity but still having some different understandings of future things. We really want to focus in on these where we are different than these false religions.

Don't get too hung up on the rapture and things like that. In the first resurrection, our soul will be reunited and glorified with the Lord. Until that time, the souls of the redeemed in Christ remain in joyful fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see that in that passage in 2 Corinthians that we looked at, 5 -8. So, let us start with looking at heaven. Heaven is a wonderful topic. It seems that everyone writes books saying they have been there.

They like to describe it. It's kind of the way to make a number one bestseller is to say you went to heaven and talk about it even if you are 5 years old. Then it becomes a runaway bestseller. The reality is if you actually went to heaven, you would be more concerned when you return about your sin and the sin of those around you and those that are unrepented around you.

You would be concerned that they repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ so that they would have eternal life. That would be your concern. So, when people say that they went to heaven and they don't have the view that someone like Paul had, then I question whether they actually went to heaven.

But heaven is the righteous at death immediately, that's your blank there, immediately enter into the presence of God which is called heaven. We looked at some passages already on this. Christ told the thief on the cross next to him that he would be in paradise that very day.

That's Luke 23 -43. This day you will be with me in paradise. That also means for the faith healers and things like that that Christ didn't spend three days in hell because that very day this thief was with Jesus in paradise, in heaven.

But heaven is a temporary place. This is how when we talk sometimes, we speak of heaven as hell as if they are the eternal resting place and they are not. They are an immediate state, intermediate state.

They are a temporal state. So, they are a temporal place of rest for saints until they get to that eternal state. We see this in Revelation 14 -13. It says in Revelation 14 -13, and I hear a voice from heaven saying, write this, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them. Okay, so I'm going to explain when we get to the eternal state why I say this is temporary. Alright, so hold on to that because we're going to see that heaven, those that are in heaven are going to enter into a different place and that place is going to be called the new heaven and new earth.

This is where Jehovah Witnesses get confused. Remember I said for Jehovah Witnesses, they're kind of confused on this intermediate state. So, they talk about a new heaven and new earth and they kind of mix that up with 144 ,000 that are going to be in the future earth, the actual earth, the one we're living on.

And they think that only 144 ,000 will get into that new heaven, sorry, the new earth. Sorry, the new heaven and everyone else, every other Jehovah Witness will be on the new earth. So, this is where you see breakdowns.

Alright, you're also going to see what Jehovah Witnesses, hell, whoops, that's missing. I mean, no one likes hell. I don't either. Guess what? I don't like it. No one likes it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist just because it makes us uncomfortable.

Do I have family members who will spend time in hell? Yes. Do I like that? No. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean I should pretend like it doesn't exist or teach that it doesn't exist just because I don't like it.

No. Me liking it has nothing to do with the reality of it. I don't like gravity. I wish I could just float. But I don't get to make the rules. Alright, hell. The wicked, unbelieving, at physical death, immediately, that's your blank there, immediately enter into hell which is the place, is a place of restriction.

Okay? Hell is a place of restriction. There's people that argue, hell, oh what hell is? Hell is a place where God doesn't exist. Really? God is present in hell because God's omnipresent. He's everywhere.

First Peter 319 says, in which he went to proclaim to the spirits in prison. Now, why is this important? Because Jesus is going to hell, to those that are in prison there. First off, it's in prison. It shows the restriction.

The other thing is it shows that they're conscious. They're aware. They're knowledgeable of what's happening there. Okay? So that's the point there. They're not ignorant of it. Alright? Hell is a literal place where the soul consciously endures a conscious torment as a consequence of sin.

Now, let's turn to a parable. Luke 16. Now, some take this as absolute, that this actually happened. I think it's a parable. I can make a case for it. I think it's a good case. But either way, the fact that this is a parable does not, in Luke 16, 19 to 31, the fact that this is a parable doesn't mean that this is not a literal hell.

This parable makes no sense whatsoever if there was no hell, if there was no immediately entering into the presence of God. Okay? If Lazarus, and so if you don't know the parable, it's Lazarus and the rich man.

Lazarus dies. Immediately, he's in a place called Abraham's bosom, which is considered heaven. And here's the rich man. He's immediately in a place of torment, and he's conscious of it. He's aware of it.

He even is aware that he doesn't want his brothers to be there. And so, this goes against Jehovah's Witness teaching that there is this idea that there is no hell. That modern Judaism teaches there is no hell.

And I think a lot of times it's because they don't like the thought of it. Again, just because I don't like the thought of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So, this parable, if Christ is actually describing an actual person named Lazarus and an actual rich man and what actually happened, then yes, that makes a stronger case for the point that I'm making.

But even if it is Jesus who is God and knows about heaven and hell, this parable makes no sense if there isn't a real conscience place of torment after people die. Then this makes no sense. Okay? So, hell is, and there's other, if you look in your syllabus, there's some other passages you could look at.

Hell is different than the lake of fire. Okay? Just keep that in mind because people that are in hell, that's temporal, they're going to be thrown into the lake of fire and that's going to be the permanent place.

That's the eternal resting place for the unredeemed. There are different degrees of punishment in hell, by the way, based on the amount of knowledge of the word of God that people had on earth. Let's take a look at Matthew 11, 24.

Matthew 11, 24. If you look here, you see here, it says in Matthew 11, 24, but I tell you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than you. And who are the land of Sodom?

The land of Sodom were people who, you know, who, they're in hell, they're conscious of what's happening, and what you end up seeing there is that in that consciousness, they are realizing that it's going to be far better.

Why? Because even in their case, they did not know as much information as these people who saw Christ, God incarnate, God made a man, God walking on earth in front of them, doing miracles, stating the very words of God, and they rejected.

As bad as Sodom was, and Sodom is always a picture of like the most vile city, okay, in the Old Testament. It is always with this negative thought. So to the Jewish person to think, how could any, Sodom, that's horrible.

Here, what Jesus is saying is, there's going to be a worse place for you in hell, because you had more information than those of Sodom. And that's the reality. When you look at this passage, you see it, and others, we don't have time to get into all of them, but when we look at these, let us realize that it is far worse based on the information that you know.

So these people that grow up in Christian homes and want to pretend like they're atheists, they are going to unfortunately have a worse place in hell because they knew the truth. The more information, so in reality is, the more these people that want to study to try to debunk Christianity, the more they engage with Christians and hear the truth and reject it, the worse punishment they're going to have.

That's the reason, by the way, for me that I'm so motivated to share the gospel with people. These religions, false religions that go out and they study and they study and they look at what God's word actually says and they twist it to make something that's untrue, they should have known the truth.

My heart breaks for them because they're going to have a special place in hell that's going to be far worse. And I don't want to see anyone do that and suffer that. So my heart is that they would repent and come to know the truth.

That's why I go out and that's why I study these things to help them understand the truth because it's only with the truth that they're going to be set free. The person in Africa who never, you know, because that's the argument, what about that tribesman in Africa who never heard the gospel?

Will he still go to hell? Yes, because he still broke God's law, but he's not going to go into the same place of hell that you might. You may go to a worse hell. Why? Because you knew more. So there are degrees of punishment.

The Eternal State, the Resurrection, and the Final Judgment

Let's look now, lastly, at the eternal state. The eternal state. So the eternal state is ushered in by the great white throne judgment of Revelation 20 verses 11 and 15. Let's not turn there because it's a little bit long and we're a little short on time.

So I do want to try to finish this up. So, but you can read that in Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15. This references great white throne judgment. There will be a bodily resurrection of all men, that's all mankind, both saved, the saved to eternal life and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment.

Okay, so let's look at some of these passages. The saved. Let's start with that with John 6. So John 6, John 6 39, and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose none of nothing, lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise them up to the last day.

The next Romans 8, 9, 10 and 11. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

It's Romans 8, 10 and 11. Further Romans 8, 19 to 23 says,. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to the futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from the bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

That's right, our bodies. Second Corinthians 4, 14. Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus to bring us into your presence. Well, how was Jesus raised? Jesus was raised both body and spirit.

He was bodily raised from the dead. This is something that the Jehovah Witnesses disagree. Why? I think that they disagree that he bodily rose because they have an issue with this whole thing. Well, partially because they think he went back to being a spirit, an angel, and so they don't think his body rose.

But his body is not in the tomb. He rose from the dead and he was the first fruits. Just as Jesus rose both body and spirit, so you and I will eventually have at that judgment body and spirit. What about the unjust, the unsaved?

They're going to be raised at that great white throne judgment to an everlasting punishment. If you look, let's look at Daniel 12, 2. Now, this one's interesting because this one puts together both the eternal life and the eternal death in one verse.

So, Daniel 12, 2. And as many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall wake, some to an everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Now, the reason this is an important one is because notice what's going to the dead, our body.

This is against the Jehovah Witness teaching that says that we won't live forever because this is just in the same way that our body is going to be resurrected so that we have eternal life, everlasting life.

So, in the same way, we're going to have everlasting death or contempt. So, it's the same. So, if the everlasting in life is eternal, is forever, then so is this everlasting contempt. And they say, well, the contempt is that we just poof out of existence but we can't experience that.

And then what happens to our body now that it's a living and in this everlasting contempt? Because it raises. See, that's the point there. John 5, 29. And come out those who have done good to the resurrection of life and to those who have done evil the resurrection of judgment.

So, again, you see that there is going to be this period where we're going to have our body raised, some to eternal life, some to eternal contempt or the lake of fire. The souls of the unsaved at death are kept under punishment until that second resurrection.

When the soul of the resurrected body will be united with the soul, then shall they…. I can't read my own notes. They shall then appear at the great white throne judgment and they shall be cast into the lake of fire.

Okay? This is what's referred to in Matthew 25 verses 41 to 46. They'll be cut off from God forever as Daniel 12, 2 mentions. Okay? And then we're going to talk about these two states now. In the time we have remaining, let's talk about where will we be for eternity.