Theological term
Immortality
2 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 31 - Of the State of Man After Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
What happens to the individual when he dies, and what will the resurrection of the dead look like at the last day? Working through 2LCF Chapter 31, this study examines the intermediate state — the period between death and resurrection — establishing from Scripture that souls neither sleep nor enter any third place such as purgatory or limbo, but go immediately either to be with Christ in paradise or to hell in torment. The session then treats the final resurrection of both the just and the unjust, argues for the simplicity of biblical eschatology against dispensational complexity, and closes with the anti-gnostic insistence that the redemption of the body is the believer's final and glorious hope.
2LCF Chapter 31 - Of the State of Man After Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
2 London Baptist Confession chapter 31 surveys the state of the soul between death and the final resurrection, and the resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The chapter distinguishes the intermediate state — in which the souls of the righteous are immediately with Christ in paradise while the souls of the wicked are cast into hell — from the final resurrection, when body and soul will be reunited and raised to honor or dishonor. The sermon refutes soul sleep, limbus patrum, limbus infantum, and purgatory as departures from Scripture, arguing that purgatory is an affront to the finished atonement of Christ. Hearers are called to find comfort in the bodily resurrection, to resist Gnostic tendencies that denigrate the body, and to embrace the simplicity of biblical eschatology rather than elevating millennial schemes to tests of orthodoxy.