2. The state of souls between death and resurrection.
The number of scriptural passages dealing with the state of souls before the Last Day is relatively small. The scriptures, when they address the Last Things, focus mainly on the Last Day and what follows it. Of the Corinthians, after they had become faithful, Paul says that they only wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, for the Last Day (1 Cor. 1:7), and with the Philippians he confesses in the name of all Christians: "We wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will glorify our vain body." 1736) Likewise, with regard to the unbelievers, the Last Day, and what follows it, comes to the fore. It is said of unbelievers, "Which shall suffer chastisement, eternal destruction (δίκην τίσονσιν, δλεϑρον αιώνιον) from the presence of the Lord, and from His glorious power when He shall come."1737) But there are some clear passages of Scripture that give information about the state of souls between death and resurrection.
Of the souls of unbelievers (άπεί'ϑήοαντες) it is said that they are kept εν φυλακή, in prison, that is, in a place of punishment.1738) Of the souls of believers it is said not only in general that they are in God's hand,1739) but also in particular that they dwell with Christ and in paradise.1740) The "being with Christ" of the departed faithful souls, in comparison with the fellowship which Christians have with Christ here on earth, certainly denotes a plus, because Paul adds, "which also would be much better" (πολλω μάλλον κρεΐσσον), namely, than his fellowship with Christ here on earth.
"The Scripture does not call death death, but a sleep," etc.; VIII, 1230: "Henceforth we must learn a new address and language to speak of death and the grave. … This is not a human, earthly language, but a divine, heavenly language. For such things are not found in any books of all the learned and wise men of the earth. … But among Christians this is to be a knowable, common and current language." "We must learn to scrape the tongue." Quenstedt on "mortis dulcia nomina," II, 1699. In even greater detail Gerhard, De rnorto, § 17 sqq.
1736) Phil. 3:20-21; Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:13 ff; 2 Tim. 4:7-9; Tit. 2:13.
1737) 2 Thess. 1:9. 10.
1738) 1 Pet. 3:19-20. Opinions of the heathen about the state of the departed souls in Gerhard, L. de morte, § 163.
1739) Acts 7:58; Luke 23:46.
1740) Phil. 1:23; Luke 23:43. About the latter passage Luther I, 1763.
575 > The Last Things. [English ed. ~ 512-513]
Being "in paradise", which Christ promises to the soul of the faithful thief, perfectly expresses a blissful state..1741) From this it is clear that the separated souls of the believers are in a state of blessed enjoyment of God, even if we do not know anything more about how. Conclusions from the nature of the human soul, which cannot be inactive,1742) are uncertain and therefore not to be urged in theology. ¶ A soul sleep that excludes a blissful enjoyment of God,1743) is to be rejected on the basis of Phil. 1:23 and Luke 23:43. A soul sleep that includes an enjoyment of God (according to Luther) is not to be called erroneous doctrine.1744) The Roman purgatory, into which Rome puts the souls of believers in order to atone for temporal punishments that are still in arrears, is pure fiction, because according to Scripture believers do not have purgatory but life through faith in Christ.1745) And this is true not only of the soul of Paul and Stephen,1746) but also of the soul of the faithful Shechita.1747) Modern Protestant theologians also teach
1741) Erroneous opinions about the paradise of the faithful souls with church fathers, who grasped it as paradisus terrestris, Gerhard, l. c.. 163 sq. Luther on Luke 23:43: "There heaven and paradise is one thing."
1742) For example, Baier II, 232, nota b.
1743) So erroneous many church fathers, in Quenstedt II, 1745 sqq. Very strange is Hofmann, Schriftbeweis 2 II, 480: "Whoever dies in faith, his soul is in a state which corresponds to the state of death of his decaying, but resurrection-awaiting body."
1744) Luther I, 1758 ff; II, 215 ff. The detailed dogma-historical account in Gerhard, De morte, § 293 sqq. Luther's address to the state of souls between death and resurrection is more reserved than Gerhard's and later theologians', who transfer many things to the state between death and resurrection that can be said with certainty only of the state after the resurrection. Luther (II, 216): "It is the divine truth that Abraham [after death] lives with God, serves Him and also reigns with Him. But what kind of life this is, whether he sleeps or wakes, that is another question. How the soul rests we are not to know; but it is certain that it lives."
1745) Joh. 5:24; 3:18, 36. Luther (I, 1762): "Especially these are vain lies with the purgatory; because the same is based on vain godlessness and unbelief. For they deny the doctrine that faith saves, and set satisfaction for sin as the cause of salvation."
1746) Phil. 1:23; Acts 7:58.
1747) Luke 23:43. Luther on the papist purgatory II, 2067 f. Smalc. Art, 303, 12-15 [Trigl. 465, Part II, Art. II, 12—15 🔗]; 316, 26-27 [ibid. 485, Part III, Art. III, 26—27 🔗]. Gerhard treats purgatory in more than a hundred paragraphs, De morte, § 181-292.
576 > The Last Things. [English ed. ~ 513-514.6
a kind of purgatory for the secluded faithful souls. Kahnis, for example, says:1748) "In the idea of the purgatory there is undoubtedly a truth, namely that for many Christians a purification is still necessary. Great is the number of Christians of whom it cannot be said that Christ is their life. But they are drawn to him and confess what they have known of him with a sincerity, selflessness, and faithfulness of conduct that can only put to shame many Christians who are stronger in words than in works. Shall there be no hope for them? Not small is the number of Christians who, as far as men can judge, stand in the true faith, but whose faith is still strongly mixed with the dross of the old man, so that one would like to judge that they cannot enter paradise as they are now, if paradise is to remain paradise. Do not say that with the body also much of the old apostasy will fall away. … The peculiarity of a man cannot be removed with a magic blow. How can a Christian who lacked love suddenly become a stream of love through death? And so we must well assume that in that world there is still room for purification and development." From Kahnis' words it is clear that he advocates a purgatory from the Roman doctrine of works. He has lost the central Christian truth that Christ, through his satisfactio vicaria, has completely acquired for all men the forgiveness of sins and salvation, and that at the very moment in which a man believes in Christ as his Savior through the action of the Holy Spirit, he has forgiveness of sins and salvation (εχει, John 3:36; 5:24). Therefore, Kahnis has also lost the right connection and the right separation of justification and sanctification. He describes Christians as they are not at all. All Christians, even the weakest, have Christ as their life. All also confess Christ and walk in the new life according to the new man, or in so far as they are faithful in Christ. However, their faith is still strongly tainted with the dross of the old man. But according to the Christian doctrine they have abundant and daily forgiveness of sins as long as they remain in faith (1 John 2:2). If one wanted to send them to a purgatory after this life because of these drosses, we would have to do this with regard to all Christians, the apostle
1748) Dogmatik2 II, 498.
577 > The Last Things. [English ed. ~ 514]
Paul included. Paul confesses on the one hand: "What I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20); on the other hand he laments the dross of the old man still clinging to him with the words: "O wretched man, who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:23-24.) — To the question raised in this context, whether the condition of a man can be removed as "with a magic stroke", a double thing is to be said: 1. Man is born again and taken from the dominion of sin at the same moment in which faith arises in him through the action of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 6:2, 14). Faith is not a work of human consideration, self-decision, participation, etc., but a creative work of God, just as God caused light to shine out of darkness at creation (2 Cor. 4:6). 2. However, Luther and the old Lutheran doctrines are right when they teach that with death the soul of the believer is cleansed from the last dross of the original sinful corruption still clinging to it.1749) The scriptural proof of this lies in the expression "in paradise." Paradise is the abode of the sinless man. When it is said of the faithful soul after its separation from the body that it dwells in paradise, its sinlessness is thereby expressed. Also the "being with Christ", Phil. 1:23, is such an increase of the fellowship with Christ, that the soul is completely removed of sin. Luther therefore calls dying the last purgatory of the soul. — One has also thought of an intermediate body for the departed souls. Kahnis reports, "Theologians (Schleiermacher) and philosophers (Fichte, Weiße, Göschel) rise to the conviction that without a bodily basis the survival of the soul is inconceivable." 1750) Kahnis also likes this thought. Likewise Macpherson, who thinks. "It may fairly be assumed that during the period that elapses between the death of an individual and the coming of Christ, which brings with it the general resurrection, he wears a body suitable to his condition during that period, which in the resurrection to judgment is changed for that spiritual body which he will wear throughout eternity." [Christian Dogmatics, p. 453] He adds:
1749) Luther X, 2119 ff. Gerhard, L. de morte, § 55. Philippi VI 7.
1750) Dogmatics 2 II, 522.
578 > The Last Things. [English ed. ~ 514-515]
"Schleiermacher, in particular, has dwelt upon the impossibility of our conceiving or imagining a human spirit unassociated with a body."1751) But Scripture knows nothing of this intermediate body. That Schleiermacher could not conceive of a human spirit without a body is no reason to assume it. Schleiermacher could have spared himself the worry about the existence of a bodiless soul if he had held that there is a personal and omnipotent God who is well able to maintain a soul in existence without its body.1752)
With regard to the departed souls it still stands: 1. they do not return to this earth. This is taught by Christ as a standing rule and divine order Luke 16:27-31. Moses and Elijah, who appeared on the mount of transfiguration and spoke with Christ (Matt. 17:3), are to be counted among the resurrected.1753) According to the Scriptures, we are not entitled to ascribe to themselves the knowledge of the individual things and processes on earth.1754) The invocation of the departed saints for their intercession and help, which Rome prescribes,1755) is not only idolatry but also folly.1756) The Scriptures give us no support for the doctrine that there is still a possibility of conversion for the departed souls. The reasons given for this lie in the realm of human thought. That 1 Pet. 3:18-19 according to the context does not speak of a sermon of the gospel, but of a proclamation of judgment, has already been explained.1757)
1751) Christian Dogmatics; Edinburgh 1898, p. 453.
1752) Thomasius rejects the "intermediate body" (Dogmatik III, 2, 445). But for the assumed clothing of the soul with the transfigured corporeality of Christ, the scriptural basis is also missing. It is the consequence of the human thought of a physical effectiveness of the sacraments.
1753). Whoever assumes that 1 Sam. 28 is an exception made by God Himself, so that not a devil's ghost but the soul of Samuel appeared, must teach that through this exception the rule so clearly stated by Christ is not abolished and therefore the old and modern spiritualism belongs to the devil's service and deceit, which God rebuked the Canaanites with extermination, 5 Mos. 18:11-12.
1754) Is. 63:16: "though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not."
1755) Trident, sess. 25; Smets, p. 165 sq.: bonum atque utile esse, suppliciter eos [sanctos] invocare.
1756) On the Invocation of the Saints, Apol. 223, 1 ff. [Trigl. 343, XXI 🔗]
1757) II, 374 ff.
579 > The Last Things. [English ed. ~ 515-516]