There is little in the Old Testament about life after death. It finds no mention in the first five books of the Bible. Phrases like 'he was gathered to his people' (Genesis 25.8; 35.29; 49.29) need suggest no more than that he joins them in the grave, while references to 'making live' (e.g. Deuteronomy 32.39) refer to God's power of life and death, and not to the after life.

It is true that Enoch 'was not, for God took him' (Genesis 5.24), but this could mean simply that he passed away in an unusual way, under God's special protection. These hints gathered new meaning once people knew of the resurrection, but they did not mean the same to the people of the time. They simply saw men die and placed in their graves, and as far as they were aware that was where they remained in a shadowy grave world. What lay beyond the grave was considered a mystery to which there was no solution.

In most of the Old Testament, where the thought of a 'beyond' arises at all it is in the 'land of Sheol' (sheol = the grave world), the land of shadows, a land of no substance and no joy. It is a land of emptiness (see Isaiah 14.9; 38.18; Ezekiel 32.21; Psalm 6.5; 49.14; 88.5; Job 7.9; 17.13; Ecclesiastes 9.10).

The eyes of the people were concentrated on their future in this life. They had no real understanding of any other future. They assumed that man went into almost nothingness. But they had no concept of nothingness. Sheol was the next best thing, a world of non-being.

However among those who loved God hope began to grow. There are real hints of an after-life in Psalms such as Psalm 16.10-11 and 49.14-15, where the Psalmists express a joyful certainty that there is 'something beyond', where they will be received by God (compare also Psalm 17.14-15; 23.6; 73.24), but it is enjoyed and not expanded on. They knew that God would not leave them in Sheol, in the grave world.

They had confidence in their God that He has something better for them than Sheol (see also the inference in Hosea 13.14). Job 19.25-26 is a difficult passage, as the text is not clear, but again it would appear to carry the inference that he has a future hope. So believers looked forward to being with God, but it was not spelt out specifically.

The taking of Elijah suggests the possibility that he may have been 'glorified', but again it is a bald fact given without explanation (2 Kings 2.11-12). It contains the seed of future doctrine, but, as Paul makes clear, there could be no resurrection for anyone until Christ rose as 'the firstfruits'. So where nothing is known it is wise not to speculate.

Isaiah is the first to speak clearly of an afterlife, but even here it occurs only once as he recognises that in some way God must vindicate His people. Isaiah 25.8 speaks of God 'swallowing up death in victory', but the phrase is enigmatic until we receive further revelation. The explanation is found in Isaiah 26.19 , "Your dead will live, their bodies will rise. Oh dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy. For your dew is a dew of light and on the land of shades you will let it fall". Here there is the definite expression of hope for the righteous. God's light will fall on the land of shades, on Sheol, and faithful Israel's dead will live, their bodies will rise, and the dwellers in the dust will sing for joy.

Thus those who are God's, who are 'living in the dust', the grave world, will one day arise to new life. For them death is not to be the end, the land of shades is not their final destiny. They were there at that time but they could look forward to a joyful resurrection. But his thought was probably of a resurrection back into this world. Just as, where the dew falls, life springs up and vegetation grows, so in this case the dew is the light of God which 'falls' on the land of shades and brings light there to those in darkness so that His own come forth with new life.

The clearest passage, and the only other one in the Old Testament, is Daniel 12.2-3. "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." The heavenly imagery may suggest a heavenly destiny for believers, but not necessarily so. The comparison is made with the stars, those bright lights which shine out in the darkness. Those who rise in God have a glistening future. As with Isaiah no destination is mentioned.

But here we have clearly stated the resurrection of both righteous and unrighteous, with an awakening 'from the dust of the earth' (from the land of the grave, from Sheol), some to everlasting life and glory, others to everlasting shame and contempt.

There is no suggestion that the shame for the unrighteous is conscious shame, except at the moment of sentence. Isaiah 66.24 suggests otherwise. There the unrighteous are dead bodies, exposed to continual maggots and permanently burning fires, a picture of rubbish dumps, like the valley of Hinnom (ge hinnom) outside Jerusalem. The bodies of outcasts, criminals and such like were disposed of on rubbish dumps, which were a place of shame, and this was considered a punishment on them even though they were not conscious of it. In the same way the 'unrighteous' will be treated as criminals and their dead bodies shamed.

So the sum total of description in the Old Testament is of men after death existing in a shadowy grave world, spoken of as 'the land of Sheol', of some awaking from the dust, of the righteous dead then living again and their bodies rising. In one case they will sing for joy, in the other they will shine in everlasting life. Thus there is seen to be some kind of future hope for God's faithful people.

But in the Old Testament the concentration about the future is mainly on the future everlasting kingdom, although in that case there is no mention of resurrection. It is rather the future of their descendants that is in mind. But a moment’s thought will make clear that for a king to reign over an everlasting kingdom as in Ezekiel 37.23-25 requires an eternal kingdom, not an earthly one.

In the centuries after the Old Testament, ideas developed which expanded these thoughts and the idea expanded of the resurrection of the righteous dead, and of punishment for the wicked. The expansions were many and varied. They were described in vivid physical form, for that was how men thought. (That is after all mainly how we think).

The Afterlife in the Teaching of Jesus.

When we come to the New Testament Sheol becomes 'Hades'. Hades is not the Hell later depicted. The main idea of Hades is again the world of the grave, the land of shadowy darkness. It is not the same as we mean by Hell. It is where all men first go when they go to their graves.

In contrast is the word Gehenna. That is the place for the wicked dead. It is described in terms of a place of fire (Matthew 5.22; 13.42, 50; 18.8-9; 25.41; Mark 9.43, 48; see also Matthew 7.19; John 15.6) or alternatively as a place of outer darkness (Matthew 8.12; 22.13; 25.30) and of judgment (Matthew 23.33). That is as a place of punishment and destruction. It is a place where both soul and body are destroyed (Matthew 10.28). The descriptions of fire and outer darkness are intended to inspire horror rather than be literal descriptions.

Revelation pictures the final end of the wicked as 'a lake of fire'. But we must not take all this too literally. Fire is a physical phenomenon. But Hell is not a physical phenomenon. Take for example Satan who is cast into the lake of fire. He is not a physical being. He could not be cast into literal physical fire. It is an idea that is being expressed, not a literal fact.

We must be careful not to interpret the language too literally. When He spoke of the place of punishment, Gehenna, Jesus seized on the description in Isaiah 66.24 and spoke of it as a place of fire very similar to the rubbish dumps outside Jerusalem where they burned day and night, and maggots consumed the rubbish and the flames destroyed it. As the people of Jerusalem looked out at night over the valley of Hinnom (ge-hinnom) they could see the flames and smoke constantly arising and when they went closer they could se the maggots at work, especially on the dead bodies of criminals. Such a picture would have spoken to them vividly. Hell, they were told, was like an everlasting rubbish dump where the maggots never died and the fires never went out (Isaiah 66.24; Mark 9.43, 47-48). The purpose was to convey the idea not to give a literal description. The wicked would be burnt up as rubbish by fires that never went out and consumed by the spiritual equivalent of maggots that never died. There is never any hint that Jesus went there.

Jesus Himself descended into Hades, not into Gehenna. He went into the world of the grave, He descended into the ‘lower parts of the earth’ (Ephesians 4.9). The main point after this is that after three days He arose from the world of the grave in physical resurrection. He left 'Hades' where all men who die go and where He in His death had gone, and rose to God, in a transformed spiritual body. The power of Hades was broken. He was the firstfruits of those who slept, the first to rise from the dead (1 Corinthians 15.20).

As the risen One with the power of life He received 'the keys of death and of Hades' (Revelation 1.18). And with Him He immediately raised others (Matthew 27.52-53). We are not told who this included or how wide was that resurrection. It is mentioned rather as revealing the wonder of His resurrection not as a description of the afterlife or to give us information about the dead.

Nor are we told what happened to Moses and all the others who died as faithful believers, although we do know that Moses appeared with Elijah at Jesus' transfiguration (Mark 9.4 - which was of course before the resurrection) and in the account of the rich man and Lazarus we learn that Abraham existed in some form of life that was clearly not unpleasant and that Lazarus was ‘comforted’ (Luke 16.23,25).

Jesus clearly and regularly taught that there was an afterlife for the righteous dead and punishment for the wicked and that all men must face either eternal life or eternal punishment (Matthew 25.46). He describes it as a contrast between 'life' and 'judgment' (see for example John 5.29), and 'life' and 'destruction' (Matthew 7.13-14) and He did it in vivid language. All that are in the graves will hear His voice and will come forth either to the resurrection of life or to the resurrection of judgment (John 5.28-29). (‘Destruction' was the same word as Plato constantly used to mean annihilation in his book on immortality. He saw it as the opposite of immortality). Those who believe in Him will have eternal life and be raised at the last day (John 6.39-40).

He stressed the coming of a ‘day of judgment’ when all would be faced with what they had done (Matthew 11.22-24; 12.36), including the people of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom (Matthew 11.22, 24; Luke 10.14), the men of Nineveh (Matthew 12.41; Luke 11.32), and the queen of the south (the queen of Sheba who came to Solomon - Matthew 12.42; Luke 11.31).

But His whole teaching was based on the fact that for those who believed in Him there was a future beyond the grave. Men are to rejoice because their names are written in Heaven (Luke 10.20). Men are unable to destroy the souls of the righteous (Matthew 10.28). For those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake there is a great reward in Heaven (Matthew 5.12). Thus are we to seek to lay up treasure in Heaven (Matthew 6.20; Luke 12.33). Righteous men are to look for future reward (Matthew 10.41). To lose our lives for His sake is to find them (Matthew 10.39). The righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13.43). In the regeneration when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory (compare Daniel 7.13) the Apostles would ‘judge (act in authority over) the twelve tribes of Israel’, that is, God’s people, for they will inherit eternal life (Matthew 19.28-29; Luke 22.29-30) in the world/age to come (Mark 9.30; Luke 18.30). He spoke of being ‘recompensed in the resurrection of the righteous’ (Luke 14.14) and of being ‘received into the eternal tabernacles’ (Luke 16.9). He was going to prepare ‘a resting place’ for His disciples, and He would come again to take them there to be with Himself (John 14.2-3).

When challenged by the Sadducees who did not believe in an afterlife He spoke clearly of the fact of the coming resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22.28-32; Mark 12.25-27; Luke 20.34-36).

Standing out against all this is the account of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16). The question here is how much this story is based on popular belief and how much is intended to be straight theological teaching. Jesus was not strictly answering a question about the afterlife. He was not trying to give a portrayal of Heaven and Hell. He was seeking to get over a lesson about people not believing.

Jewish belief was that the afterlife was where Abraham was. They thought of it as being ‘in Abraham's bosom’. Thus Jesus portrays a vivid picture based on this to get over His point. It is not intended to be a portrayal of what the afterlife is like. It is, for example, extremely doubtful if in the afterlife Abraham talks to people not in Heaven. It is even more unlikely that those not in Heaven can talk to those who are. Nor is Heaven on one side of a great gulf and Hades on the other. This is all picture language. The ideas it portrays are true but not the literal picture.

What it does tell us is that Abraham and the saved are somehow 'with God'. What it does tell us is that the unsaved are apart from God and in some distress, although not yet in Gehenna. Both await the judgment, the saved the judgment of life, the unsaved the judgment of death. But Jesus said that in the future some of the unsaved would suffer 'few stripes', others would suffer 'many stripes' (Luke 12.4-48). Punishment will be graded. Although all will weep and gnash their teeth in despair because of what they have lost (Matthew 8.12; 13.42, 50; 22.13; 24.51; 25.30; Luke 13.28).

The Teaching of Paul.

This teaching about the afterlife is confirmed throughout the New Testament. It is the basis of the Good News. Jesus Christ has risen (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20; Acts 1.2-11; 2.24, 32-33; 3.15; 4.10; 5.30-32; etc. Romans 1.4; ), and so those who are His will also rise and be with Him. It is so essential a part of that message that we cannot possibly cite all references.

To Paul there is a choice for all men between ‘life’ and ‘death’, and his concentration is on the message of life. He says nothing in detail about the fate of the wicked. Their fate is ‘death’ (Romans 6.23) or the wrath of God (Romans 1.18; 2.5; 4.15; 5.9; Ephesians 2.3; 5.6; Colossians 3.6; 1 Thessalonians 1.10; 5.9). The only possible reference to anything more than that is Romans 2.8-9, ‘To those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who works evil.’ But Paul considers the awfulness of the judgment, ‘in flaming fire rendering vengeance on those who know not God, and to those who obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus’ (2 Thessalonians 1.8) rather than the detail of the punishment.

Central to any idea of the future life in his letters is 1 Corinthians 15. It is unquestionably a pivotal chapter on the whole subject.

It begins by outlining the evidence for the resurrection of Christ (verses 1-8). This is then cited as proof that there is such a thing as the resurrection (v.12). Christ has risen and become ‘the firstfruits’ of those who ‘sleep’ (v.20). The reference to sleep probably has in mind what the body looks like after death. The point is that they are not finally ‘dead’ but await the resurrection. It says nothing about their present state of mind.

Because He rose we can be sure that genuine Christians who have died will also rise. Whilst man’s connection with Adam brought death, union with Christ will bring resurrection life (v.22). Christ was made man so that, as our representative in the fullest sense, He might die for us and rise again, and make us participants in His resurrection, if we are willing, through faith, to be participants in His death (see also Romans 6.5).

Paul then outlines a sequence of resurrection events. “But everyone in his own order (or group). Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming (parousia), then the end, when He will have delivered up the kingdom (or rule) to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And when all things are subdued to Him, then will the Son also Himself be subject to Him Who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”

Resurrection thus begins with Christ’s resurrection. He is the firstfruits, that which is separated out and offered to God to represent all that will follow. This would exclude the thought of Enoch and Elijah as being ‘in Heaven’ as resurrected people, and may suggest they too should be seen as, like Abraham, consciously awaiting the second coming of Christ. It does not necessarily mean that there could not have been a resurrection of ‘holy ones’ (‘saints’) following His resurrection, (which Paul ignores), for they too may have been firstfruits. But it does seem to declare against the idea of resurrections before and since. First the firstfruits, then the whole. The resurrection of New Testament believers takes place at the Coming (parousia) of Christ. ‘Then the end’, when all opposition has been subdued. At face value this tells us that the resurrection at the last day results in ‘the end’. This agrees with the Gospels as seeing the final mopping up operations taking place at His Coming. Having come He subdues all things and commits all things to His Father.

Some, however, would seek to distance ‘the end’ from the resurrection of Christ’s own. They see the ‘reign’ of Christ as occurring, after that resurrection, over a millennial kingdom on earth, leading up to ‘the end’, although there is no hint of any such thing elsewhere in Paul’s epistles. But the real point of the phrase ‘He must (continue to) reign’ is that He is already reigning, and that until He, as the ultimate Man (the Son of Man), has brought all things into subjection to God, including man, God’s purpose for man to subdue creation has not been fulfilled (Genesis 1.28; Psalm 8.4-8 compare Hebrews 2.9), and therefore He must continue to reign. Until then the ‘reigning’ cannot be handed over to the Godhead. But at the resurrection that is exactly what happens. Christ takes final overall command over creation. This is the end stage of His reign as glorified man, not its commencement. While we do not consider such considerations should divide Christians, this does seem to rather suggest that Christ’s Coming and consequent triumph is all that is needed to accomplish ‘the end’.

Central to the whole passage is that ‘the Son’ has come into the world as ‘Man’, so that through His participation in manhood He may accomplish deliverance and fulfilment of God’s purposes for man. At that point He can, as man, submit all to the One Who sent Him, for man, through Him, will have fulfilled his destiny. Then God, including the Son, will be all in all.

The point in distancing the overall reign of God from prior events is not to indicate a lack of participation by God in what has gone before, but in order to demonstrate the fact that in some way the world is at present not under the reign of God. It is a world in rebellion that has to be brought back to God, something which will only finally be achieved at ‘the end’ for those who have submitted to the Kingly Rule of God. Once it is achieved creation is totally back under God’s rule, and God will be all in all. All that does not submit will be condemned.

Paul then goes on to deal with the question of the resurrection body. He stresses first that there are all kinds of different bodies provided by God, for beasts, fish and birds, celestial bodies as well as terrestrial, all with different ‘glories’ (vv.39-41), because God gives bodies as it pleases Him. When the bare grain is sown, God gives it a body as it pleases Him.

So it is with the resurrection. The body is sown as corruptible and God provides an incorruptible body, the body is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. He distinguishes clearly the natural body from the spiritual body. The first Adam was made a living ‘self’, thus producing living ‘selves’ in natural bodies, the last Adam a lifegiving spirit, thus producing spiritual selves in spiritual bodies. As we have borne the image of the earthly, so will we bear the image of the heavenly, the image of heavenly beings. As Jesus puts it, we will be ‘like the angels, neither marrying nor giving in marriage’ i.e. our functions will be totally new (Mark 12.25 and parallels). We will no longer be required to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. We were ‘in Adam’ (v.22). Now we will be ‘in Christ’, and will share His experience and nature, having become partakers of the divine nature ( 2 Peter 1.4).

Here it is made very plain that our resurrection bodies will be very different from our natural bodies. They will be incorruptible, glorious, powerful and spiritual. It is doubtful how far we can use Jesus’ resurrection body as a pattern for these for His resurrection appearances had a special purpose, which was to make the fact of His bodily resurrection clear to His disciples. But He was able to suddenly appear and disappear, demonstrating that it was not an earthly body, and yet could be touched and felt, and could hold a conversation. However, we suspect, on the basis of the transfiguration, that Jesus’ resurrection body is now far different and is splendid in indescribable glory. So it is doubtful if we can make His resurrection body the pattern for our own, for we are to share His glory.

All this is elaborated in Philippians 3.21. “We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to His glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to Himself”. For He is the One Who will also present us “holy, and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight” (Colossians 1.22).

Paul stresses that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15.50). This is a clear statement that the coming Kingdom is not earthly. Only the incorruptible can inherit it. This means that to enter this Kingdom, all must be changed, either by resurrection or transformation. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last sounding of the trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall all be changed” (v.52). This would seem to establish that the resurrection takes place at the same time as the gathering and transformation of the living believers, leading up to a heavenly kingdom. “Corruption will put on incorruption, mortal will put on immortality”. This will deal with the last enemy (vv.54-56 compare v.26), and as the last enemy has been dealt with it is surely ‘the end’. Paul could hardly have established more clearly that there is nothing to follow but eternal glory.

He puts it another way in 1 Thessalonians 4.13-17. He tells Christians that they are not to despair because some have died before the Kingdom has come. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring together with Him (the coming Christ) those who believe in Jesus. For this we say to you by a word of the Lord, (this probably means he has some specific teaching of Jesus in mind), that we who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord will not precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Thus the resurrection takes place at the same time as the taking up of God’s living people. Both are transformed and go to be with the Lord.

In contrast, for the unbeliever that day comes “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5.2). When they shall say ‘peace and safety’, then sudden destruction comes on them, as sudden as the birth pangs to a woman bearing a child (v.3). For “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and who do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 7-9). So the angels are sent out to separate the good from the evil (Matthew 24.31), and the evil from the good (Matthew 13.30, 41-42, 49-50). The processes are the same.

We note how Paul regularly speaks of death as ‘sleep’ (1 Corinthians 11.30; 15.6, 18, 51; 1 Thessalonians 4.13-15; 5.10; compare Jesus in John 11.11, 13) and the hope of the Christian as the resurrection. The point is that for the Christian it is temporary until the resurrection. This sleep is not something to be feared. When we sink into sleep, time ‘stands still’, and we awake to a new day not aware of what has gone by, apart from the fact that we have often had a period of ‘dream-consciousness’. But such technicalities are probably not in mind when sleep is spoke of in the New Testament. During the ‘sleep’ of the soul we enjoy the bliss of the presence of Christ (Philippians 1.23). It is very much not totally unconscious. It was something which Paul desired for himself (Philippians 1.21, 23). Which is why John in Revelation can speak of those who are awaiting the resurrection as alive and aware (Revelation 6.9-11). This would then help to explain the hints we have had in previous Scriptures of some sort of awareness after death. The idea behind the word ‘sleep’ would seem to be that the dead have not yet reached their full potential for their bodies still lie in the grave, but it says nothing about their conscious life.

At first sight 2 Corinthians 5.1-10 might also appear to be supporting this view of ‘sleep’. Here Paul speaks of being ‘absent from the body and present with the Lord’. But we must remember that here he is speaking as one who expects Christ’s Coming while he is still alive. At this point in time he probably sees being ‘absent from the body’, because transformed, as resulting from Christ’s Coming, not from death. This is confirmed by the close connection of these verses with the judgment seat of Christ (v.10).

He begins by saying with confidence, “We know that if our earthly tent is dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. Thus we do not have to be too concerned about the afflictions and ageing of the flesh (3.16), for we have awaiting us, not just a temporary tent such as the one we have been living in, but a solid building, made without hands, which is eternal in the heavens. Both these latter phrases stress that this body is not earthly, but heavenly. We may groan in our present bodies, but it is not with despair. It is with the longing to put on our heavenly bodies, so that mortality might be swallowed up by life. And even should we die, the Lord’s Coming will result in our receiving our heavenly bodies through resurrection.

There are no real grounds for doubting that these bodies are the spiritual bodies with which we will be clothed at the Coming of Christ (parousia) or at the resurrection. This former is what Paul is still expecting. He still thinks of those taken up at the Coming as ‘we’. He is right to think it. Jesus had taught that they must always be ready, and he is ready. Later the certainty of death takes hold of him because the Lord makes him aware of what he is to face. But that time is not yet. So he is looking forward to leaving his earthly body when he is caught up with believers at the Coming of Christ, to be ‘absent from the body, and present with the Lord’. He does not deal with the question of what happens to Christians who die first. To him that is a short term problem, and he considers that as long as we know that we are safe in the hands of God that is surely all we need to know.

Paul goes on to tell us that God has given us a foretaste and guarantee of this new body, and that guarantee is ‘the Spirit’, Who is a foretaste of what is to come. (An ‘earnest’ is a foretaste of something, given as a guarantee that we will receive the whole). So having received the Spirit we can have full confidence that we will receive our spiritual bodies. Until the Lord comes, he says, we continue to live in our human bodies, absent from the Lord. But our longing is rather that He will come so that we might leave these bodies and be present with Him in our new glorified bodies. We do not long to be unclothed, he says. We are not longing for death. Nor do we look for some empty void. Rather we long for our re-clothing. We long for eternal life, the perpetuation of what we received on believing. (This is spoken as one waiting for the Coming while he is alive). That is why we labour for Christ, so that whether we continue in life or whether we be taken and transformed at His Coming, we are ‘accepted of Him’. This is important because we have to face the ‘Judgment Seat’ (bema - the reward seat at the games) of Christ. There we will receive whatever prize we have deserved (v.10), whether good or bad.

It is possible that in line with Matthew 25 he is thinking of the ‘judgment seat’ as the place of judgment for all, both righteous and unrighteous, when men receive eternal life or eternal punishment, so that those who receive ‘bad’ are the rejected, and if so it is significant that he sees it as the reward seat as far as Christians are concerned. But the taking up of His people is the result of the judgment being carried through for them. So we might see what is pictured by this ‘judgment seat’ rather as a special ‘occurrence’ where believers are rewarded once they have been vindicated. But we must not make this too literal. We are dealing with the spiritual realm and must recognise that these earthly pictures are exactly that, an attempt to portray the heavenly in terms we can understand.

This whole idea receives some support from Romans 14 where Paul reminds us that whatever we do we are to do it as living ‘unto the Lord’, and even if we have to die we ‘die unto the Lord’. For whether living or dying we are His (v.8). This is why Christ died and rose again so He could be Lord of both the dead and the living. Death does not rob us of Christ.

So we are not to judge one another on secondary matters, such as what we eat and what day we keep (vv. 1-6), rather we should recognise that we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ, where every knee will bow and every tongue confess to God, for everyone will give an account of himself to God (vv.10-12). We can thus safely leave the accounting to Him. This would appear to be a place of believers, for every knee bows, and every tongue confesses to God. (Although in the end all will have to bow and confess, some to their final shame).

The quotation in v.11 is taken from Isaiah 45.23, where it probably refers to those who have responded to the call to deliverance (v.22), and thus say “in the Lord I have righteousness and strength” (v.24). On the other hand we could take it as referring back to the fact that all men will be made to know that no one compares with the Lord (Isaiah 45.6) and that it therefore refers to the submission of all men. If we take the former view we will see the Judgment Seat as for His people alone, if we take the latter view it must surely be the general Judgment that is in mind.

A further passage that might support a separate Reward Seat after the final Judgment is 1 Corinthians 3.10-15. Here Paul certainly has in view the assessing of Christians for reward (v15). There is one foundation, and that is Jesus Christ (v.11). Each will be assessed as to how they have built on that foundation, whether in rich materials or poor materials (v.12). Every man’s work will be revealed for what it really is (v.13). ‘The day’ will reveal it (this reference to ‘the day’ may point to the general judgment, but if so it is only the Christian’s part in it that is in mind. However ‘the day’ probably means nothing more than the important day when it happens). Every man’s work will be tested by fire, and only worthwhile work will survive. Those who have built in a worthwhile way will be rewarded. The remainder will still be saved, but they will have nothing worthwhile left as a reward.

This is confirmed further in 1 Corinthians 4.5. We are to ‘judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will lay open the counsels of the heart, and then shall every man have praise of God”.

As all the language is undoubtedly pictorial, it is questionable whether it matters which view we take. God is not limited to the slow processes of ‘justice’ seen in earthly courts. He knows all the facts and the verdicts already. The picture is to bring home what can also take place in the twinkling of an eye. What matters is that we learn the lessons which the passages give, that in one way or another Christians will be called to account, and may gain or lose according to how they have laboured. They should therefore await the Lord’s Coming and live in readiness for it. The picture of awards as at the Olympic Games is for our benefit, to spur us on.

None of the passages tell us what happens to the Christian on death. All have in mind the Coming and the Judgment. But as suggested by his statements elsewhere, Paul would no doubt think of death for the Christian as introducing a period of ‘sleep’ in the presence of Christ. It may well be that, in a secondary sense, when he speaks of being ‘present with the Lord’, those who die can be included, but that is not the main thought. However, as suggested earlier, the sleep is not total unconsciousness. Like the Psalmists we may be sure that God will not leave us away from His presence. But it is not what is taught in these passages The primary reference in these is to the contrast between bodily life and the Christian’s position at the Lord’s Coming.

Philippians 1.21-23 can be cited in support of the idea that the ‘sleep’ after death is not a fully unconscious one, for there Paul hovers between the desire to remain on earth for the sake of his fellow Christians or to die and thus be ‘with Christ, which is far better’. Paul was looking forward to it, so we can rest assured in the knowledge that he was not unhappy about his coming ‘sleep’, but saw it as a positive blessing, as it will also be for those who are His.

In 2 Thessalonians we learn that Paul has been teaching (v.5) that certain things must happen before ‘the day of the Lord’ (the phrase ‘the day of Christ’ has little support in ancient manuscripts). “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you be not easily shaken in your mind, or be troubled, neither by Spirit nor word nor letter from us to say that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sits in the Temple of God showing that he is God.”

This may have in mind Jesus’ warning of ‘the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not’ (Mark 13.14) (i.e. in the Temple). Although that primarily refers to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. But what Paul is describing appears to go beyond that, tying in more with John’s vivid descriptions in the final chapters of Revelation. He points out that, although this has not yet happened, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But happily there is someone ‘hindering and restraining’ (vv.6-7), and this restrainer will continue with his work “until he is taken out of the way. Then the wicked one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the Spirit of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming, even he whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deceit for those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved.”

There is no need to suggest as some do that these people were fearful that they had missed the ‘taking away’ (the rapture). A (false) letter from Paul would not have convinced them of that, for they would know that he certainly would have been taken away, and therefore could not have written the letter. Their fear more probably lay in the natural fear that the terrible events forecast for the end days were about to come. Tribulation may be necessary, but it is still terrifying, and they were filled with apprehension.

The ‘restrainer’ must be some heavenly power, for even the season of the man of sin is subject to God’s control (v.6), as indeed is the restrainer (v.7). But further than that we cannot say, for Paul does not tell us. What we do know is that God’s hand will be in control, even when the restraint is lifted for the final showdown.

2 Timothy 3.1-5 confirms that ‘in the last days perilous times shall come’ and goes on to point out the depths to which men will sink, a commentary on our own day. Paul then says, “I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and at His kingdom” (2 Timothy 4.1). This confirms that we are to see the ‘catching up’ of the believers into the air as an aspect of the judgment, and that the dead are to be sufficiently ‘raised’ in order to be judged. It also suggests that His appearance and the establishing of His eternal kingdom appear to go together. This is the natural sense of the words if we have no particular theory to support.

Paul’s words to Titus are possibly a satisfactory ending to this study, for there he informs us that we should be “looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us so that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a people set apart for His own possession, zealous of good works” (Titus 2.13-14). This reminds us that the purpose in all our study is to see the great God and to allow His promises to activate us to purity and good works.