1 Cosmology 101 Teaching about the Intermediate Heaven Welcome back to our study of Heaven. We have been longing for heaven, especially as we have been reading Randy Alcorn s book. As we get into our study, we need to familiarize ourselves with some terms. Let me share with you a list of words that we want to grow very familiar with tonight: Heaven, the Pit, Hell, Abaddon, Sheol, Paradise, Hades, Appolyon, Tartarus, and Lake of Fire. These all have to do with the places that God s creatures will spend eternity. Tonight I want to teach you a new word, that is, I think it will be new to you: cosmology. Cosmology is the branch of learning that deals with the origin and general structure of the universe. One aspect of cosmology has to do with the relation of earth to the heavens. In Biblical times, part of their understanding of cosmology had to do with the three heavens. The heavens were divided into three aspects. The atmosphere around us, the sky if you please, was the first heaven. The realm of the sun, moon and stars was the second heaven. The third heaven beyond the celestial bodies was the abode of God. This was their cosmology, their understanding of the structure of the universe. Tonight I want to share with you more into the biblical concepts of cosmology. Now what I am about to teach you may very well be new to you. It might even upset some of you. I don t want it to trouble you but to give you peace and joy based on the Word of God and not on some enigmatic worldly concepts you might have without biblical base. As I shared last week, many of us suffer from concepts about heaven or hell that have no genuine basis in the Bible. So tonight we want to focus on what the Bible has to say about where folks will spend eternity. Throughout the Old Testament there is a clear teaching about the afterlife where the godly go at death. However, it is not very precise. There is clearly a teaching about a place folks go when they die. It is a place for the faithful as well as for the unfaithful. Abraham in Gen.25:8 says, when he died he was gathered to his people. David said that when his son died (2 Sam. 12:28) I will go to him he will not come to me. Jacob said in Gen.49:29 "I am to be gathered to my people." Well, where were they gathered? What is it like? Sadly in the Old Testament there is no clarity on that question. There was a definite location that was being spoken of. It did not mean the godly would go the way the wicked would, nor does it mean to be buried in the ground only. The Old Testament writers certainly believed in an afterlife existence. Beyond that, the Old Testament doesn t have much to share. The place of the dead was simply referred to as Sheol. The Greek word for Sheol is Hades. Heaven is a New Testament expansion and clarification of the Old Testament vague concept of where one goes at death. In the New Testament, Humans were sometimes given a glimpse into heaven: Paul when he was taken up into the third heaven. Stephen in Acts 7:55-56 (NKJV) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God! " John s entire vision was detailed in Revelation and had much to say about heaven. First of all, though we might not know all about the afterlife, I want you to know that God is absolutely sure of the location of every one of His saints. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NKJV)
2 Obviously in this passage, God wants us to know about the destiny of those who have died. He wants us to have hope that our loved ones are well. He wants us to long to be where they are now. Next, I want you to know that Jesus, the Son of God, is on a mission to prepare a place for every person who accepts Him as Lord and Savior. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-4 (NKJV) The place Jesus spoke of was (and still is) in preparation. It is in the process of being completed. It is not in its finished form yet. However, both the present and the future heaven will be characterized by the living, actual, sensory presence of Jesus Christ. So, if my loved ones are with Jesus but heaven is not read yet, where are they? Once again, let s go to the word of God. I want you to look carefully with me at a story Jesus told. I do not think this is a teaching parable. Jesus mentions specific persons whom His hearers would know. He never did that in a teaching parable. I think He was telling them about the present location of some folks they knew who had recently died. Turn with me to Luke 16:22-31 (NKJV) 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades (Hades is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew Sheol), he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.' 25 But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.' 27 Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' 29 Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' 30 And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31 But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.' " [Slide one] There is much we learn from these verses. First of all, we learn that there is an intermediate place to which the dead go immediately after death that is not heaven or the Lake of Fire. So, what do we know about the intermediate place? About Sheol/hades from these verses? 1. Both righteous Lazarus (a real person whom His hearers knew) and an unrighteous Rich Man (also whom they knew) lived on after death. 2. They both maintained their unique personalities Rich Man recognized Lazarus. 3. Both are spoken of as having physical attributes or forms (finger, tongue). 4. There was a fixed separation between them. 5. They were both totally conscious of their past, present and future. 6. Both were totally aware of their location. 7. Both began to experience the rewards or punishment resulting from their decisions/lives. 8. They were conscious of the fate of their loved ones who were still living. 9. They were both aware of the absolute finality of their fate. Let s talk a bit about this intermediate place of the unrighteous after they die. We will get to the righteous in a few minutes.
[Slide two] There seems to be a place called Sheol or Hades where the unrighteous go upon death, where their misery begins, but is not the eventual place they will spend eternity. Here, hades is divided into two parts of which no one can cross over from one to the other. On the one side of Hades there are unsaved humans being confined awaiting their eternal punishment. For the ungodly humans their place is also referred to as Abaddon or the Pit. Somewhere in this realm of the unrighteous afterlife there is a place for the fallen angels known as the Abyss, which is a temporary place of confinement from which they will be let out during the tribulation. (Rev.9) Greek Hades Hebrew Sheol - The temporary abode of the unbeliever after death. The word Hades occurs ten times in the New Testament (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27; 2:31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14). Hades is the abode of the wicked in the intermediate state, that is the time from which they die until the judgment at the Great White Throne (Rev. 20:11-15)." John F. Walvoord writes that the term Hades, In some instances refers to more than the grave and indicates the intermediate state, as Christ himself taught in Luke 16:19-31. In Revelation 6:8 the pale horse, representing death, is described: Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. The reference may be to physical death and the grave, or it may in the context go beyond the grave to the intermediate state of suffering for the wicked. Two of the most important references occur in Revelation. 20:13-14, where it is stated: The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. John implies that the grave will some day give up the bodies of the wicked dead and that they will be resurrected in order to stand before the Great White Throne for judgment and then enter into the eternal punishment of the Lake of Fire. The fact that they are still in existence indicates that their existence was not terminated when they died physically, but they are still alive and suffering torment in hades, the intermediate state up to this point. This state is then emptied, however, and those who are in it are cast into the Lake of Fire, the second death; this action indicates eternal separation from God. There is another term that demands a moment of our time. It is the term Tartarus (2 Pt. 2:4) - Some Evangelical Christian commentaries distinguish Tartarus as a place for wicked angels and Gehenna as a place for wicked humans on the basis of this verse. Other Evangelical commentaries, in reconciling that some fallen angels are chained in Tartarus, yet some not, attempt to distinguish between one type of fallen angel and another. It appears that these are those fallen angels that are held captive until the Lake of Fire. Then there is the term that Jesus used gehenna. Hell Gehenna Used exclusively by Jesus to illustrate the conditions of suffering for the unrighteous. It appears to be synonymous with Hades or Sheol in location, but more illustrative as to what happens there. John F. Walvoord writes, "All the references to gehenna, except James 3:6, are from the lips of Christ himself, and there is an obvious emphasis on the punishment for the wicked after death as being everlasting. The term gehenna is derived from the Valley of Hinnom, traditionally considered by the Jews the place of the final punishment of the ungodly. Located just south of Jerusalem, this valley is referred to in Joshua 15:8 and 18:16, where this valley was considered a boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. In this place human sacrifices were offered to Molech. These altars were destroyed by Josiah (2 Kings 23:10). The valley was later declared to be 'the valley of slaughter' by Jeremiah (Jer. 7:30-33). The valley was used as a burial place for criminals and for burning garbage. Whatever its historical and geographic meaning, its usage in the New Testament is clearly a reference to the state of the wicked after death, and this seems to be the thought in every instance. 3
Christ warned that a person who declares others a fool will be in danger of the fire of hell (Matt. 5:22). In Matthew 5:29 Christ states that it is better to lose an eye than to be thrown into gehenna, with a similar thought regarding it being better to lose a hand than to go into gehenna (Matt. 5:30). In Matthew 10:28 believers in Christ are told not to be afraid of those who kill the body, but rather to fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (KJV). A similar thought is mentioned in Matthew 18:9, where it is declared better to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. In Matthew 23:15 Christ denounces the Pharisees who travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. In Matthew 23:33 he denounces the Pharisees and the scribes, asking the question, How will you escape being condemned to hell? In Mark 9:43, 45, 47, the thought recorded in Matthew about it being better to lose part of the body than to be cast into hell is repeated (cf. Matt. 5:22, 29, 30). Luke 12:5 contains a similar thought to that expressed in Matthew 10:28. Though not always expressly stated, the implication is that the punishment will have duration and be endless. Finally there is the place the Bible calls the Lake of Fire. The Book of Revelation, written some time in the last half of the first century, has five verses that mention a "lake of fire": Revelation 19:20: "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Revelation 20:10 "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Revelation 20:14-15 "Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."[nkjv] Revelation 21:8 "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." A commonly accepted and traditional interpretation is that the "Lake of Fire" and the "second death" are symbolic of eternal pain, pain of loss and perhaps pain of the senses, as punishment for wickedness. This is obviously the final place for Satan, his fallen angels, and all who would deny our Lord Jesus. OK! Enough of the place the evil goes upon death. What about those made righteous in Christ? What is this intermediate heaven? In the parable with Lazarus, there seemed to be a place alongside Hades where the righteous were. It seems to be what Jesus was referring to as Paradise. Jesus used this term specifically to the thief on the cross. And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." Luke 23:43 (NKJV) This thief was neither baptized nor partook of the Lords supper. That is significant. He believed and was promised to be with Jesus. He did no works but only believed. This is hard to accept for those who add requirements to be saved or busy themselves to earn their way to heavens abode. What is the location of paradise when Jesus spoke this? At that point in time paradise was located inside the earth in Hades which was divided into two primary parts as seen in Luke 16. The righteous went to the side called paradise (Abraham's bosom) the unrighteous went to Gehenna (hell). Some argue that the word "today" is not the timing of where the thief would be, but when Jesus was saying it to him. While we can it pick over words, the meaning is obvious in the context of the statement. He would be with Jesus. Where did Jesus go that day? Paradise. [Slide three] 4
We said earlier that Jesus is overseeing the construction of heaven but it is not completed yet. So how is it He is in Paradise and yet in heaven. The way the Bible teaching it, Jesus is the fixed point between these two places. Jesus is simultaneously in Paradise with all those who died in Him and in Heaven overseeing the construction. He is the fixed point shared by both spheres. John wrote of this place in his revelation. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." ' Revelation 2:7 (NKJV) This tree of life is presently in the midst of the Paradise of God, yet it is spoken of later in Rev. as coming down in the New Jerusalem to be on the New Earth. There are some aspects of the present intermediate heaven that will be shared (in perfected and complete form) in the New Heaven. Jesus tells us in John 3:13, No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. So at least as of that moment, Jesus was the only one who had been to heaven or would be going anytime soon. Even the intermediate heaven is far better than the present earth. Paul was convinced of that, because he wrote, For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Philippians 1:23 (NKJV) We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8 (NKJV) One thing we can know for certain is that, whether intermediate or new heaven, we will be with the Lord. That is the most significant reality for us to focus on. Whether we are in heaven, or paradise, or a junkyard if we are with Jesus we will experience heaven! What can we surmise about existence in Paradise? Well, at transfiguration Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus discussing with him the future events that are about to transpire. This shows that Moses had a continual conscious life existing in the intermediate state after dying which was before the resurrection. Elijah was taken to heaven without dying (we don't know if he stayed there?) and still existed in consciousness also. Both appear in some form at the Mountain discussing Jesus' departure from earth. We can leave some of these details with the Lord, knowing He is accomplishing a perfect place for us to spend eternity. But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Hebrews 9:11 (NKJV) The greatest joy of the New Heaven is that it will be the abiding place of the entire Godhead. [Slide four] In our study we will learn more about this, but at the time of the Great White Throne judgment for the wicked, all those who refused Christ, along with the demons, hell, death, and Satan will all be cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. After the Judgment Seat of Christ, all those in Paradise will enter into heaven, prepared for us by the Lord Himself. [Slide five] Interestingly, there will be no distinction between the New Heaven and the New Earth. Now that we have our terminology together, next time I want us to get into the exciting stuff of this study: what is life going to be like in Paradise and heaven? 5