This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.
1 Corinthians 3.10-15 [10] According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. [11] For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. [12] Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— [13] the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. [14] If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. [15] If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
🔎 What happens when we die?
What really happens at death? Is death a final, terrifying end? Perhaps sudden oblivion? Or is it a doorway to something else? And if it is a doorway, what lies on the other side? For many, the traditional images of a blissful heaven and a fiery, eternal hell are deeply ingrained in our cultural imagination. But are these pictures accurate? The biblical story of the afterlife is far more nuanced, hopeful, and focused on God’s relentless, loving mission to heal and restore every last corner of creation.
The biblical picture of life after death evolved over time, as God progressively revealed more of the divine plan. In the earliest parts of the Old Testament, the afterlife was a bleak concept. All the dead, both righteous and wicked, were believed to descend into Sheol, a term that simply meant “the grave” or “the pit.” It was a place of darkness and silence, the end of all meaningful existence.
Over centuries, this view developed. Sheol came to be seen as a shadowy, semi-conscious realm, and later, as a place with two distinct compartments: One for the righteous and another where the wicked would fade away. But there was still no concept of an eternal, conscious punishment. It was only after the traumatic exile in Babylon that Israelite thinkers, likely influenced by their Persian neighbors, came to a new revelation: Sheol was not the final destination. It was a kind of waystation, an intermediate state where the dead awaited a future resurrection. The prophet Daniel gives the clearest expression of this new hope: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame” (Daniel 12:2).
The New Testament builds directly on this foundation. There is a clear sense of an intermediate state before the final resurrection. The Apostle Paul writes that for a believer, “to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Death is an immediate stepping outside of time and into the eternal presence of God. At the same time, Jesus and the other New Testament writers frequently describe death as “sleep” (John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:14), a temporary state from which we will all eventually “wake up.” This two-stage understanding became the standard view for all major branches of Christianity: We die and enter an intermediate state in God’s presence, followed by "waking up" to the final judgment and the resurrection of the body at the end of all ages.
🔎 How do different Traditions think of the Intermediate State?
Almost all Christians agree that our final destination is the Resurrection and New Creation at the End of all things, when Christ judges sin and liberates sinners forever. What they disagree with is how exactly we get there. While most Christians agree on this two-stage process of the intermediate state leading to the final state, they have developed different ways of understanding what this means:
Protestant Dualism: Many Protestant traditions teach that at death, the soul separates from the body and, after judgment, immediately goes to its destiny in either heaven or hell. For those who believed correctly in Jesus, their souls wait in this disembodied state in "Heaven" until the final resurrection, when it will be reunited with a glorified body. Protestants disagree whether this wait is a time of conscious bliss (paradise), or unconscious "soul sleep". For those who did not believe correctly, they go to hell to suffer God's vengeance and retribution. Again: Protestants disagree whether this is eternal conscious torment, or ceasing to exist when God annihilates them after they have suffered enough for their sins.
Catholic Purgatory: The Catholic Church agrees with the basic outline of Protestant Dualism, but adds a third interim destination: Purgatory. This is for those who are neither pure enough to go immediately to heaven, nor wicked enough for eternal hell. Purgatory is a place where those who die in God’s grace but are still imperfectly purified must undergo a process of cleansing before they can enter the joy of heaven. This is seen as a temporary place or state of suffering that cleanses the soul from the temporal consequences of sin. It is a place that leads to ultimate redemption, and the prayers of the living are believed to help those in Purgatory complete this process.
Orthodox Purification: The Orthodox tradition, along with many other ancient and modern Christians, teaches that the intermediate state is a process of purification and continued growth that occurs in the very presence of God (not in places separate from God). There are not three different places (heaven, hell, purgatory), but three different relationships with one Divine Reality: The all-consuming fire of God's Love. How we experience that fire depends entirely on the state of our soul.
For a soul fully surrendered to Love, God's presence is experienced as the joy of heaven. For a soul still attached to selfishness, that same fiery love is experienced as a painful, cleansing purgation. For a soul twisted into hate, that love is experienced as the torment of hell. But the purpose of all three experiences is ultimately redemptive: All suffering is Divine discipline intended to turn us from sin to repent and receive God's forgiveness, love, and healing. Whether our experience of God's presence is heavenly, purgatorial, or hellish, we all have to confront the deeds we have done and failed to do, and pray for those whose lives we affected for good or ill. This all prepares us for the resurrection, so we may enjoy union with God and each other forever.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: See this chart to visualize Three Christian Models of End of Personal Life.
📖 Scriptural Reflection: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
The Apostle Paul gives one of the clearest and most hopeful visions of this final judgment and purification process. Using the metaphor of a building, he describes our lives as structures built upon the one true foundation, which is Jesus Christ.
In this vision, the final judgment is not about separating people into two groups, the saved and the damned. It is about revealing the true quality of each person’s life. The “fire” of God’s presence on the final Day of Judgment will test everything. The good works, the acts of love and kindness built with “gold, silver, precious stones,” will survive and be rewarded. The selfish, sinful, and worthless parts of our lives, the “wood, hay, straw,” will be burned away.
The most crucial line is the last one. Even if a person’s entire life’s work is burned up, even if they suffer total loss, “the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.” This is a redemptive vision of judgment. The fire does not destroy the person, but it purifies them. This connects to a consistent theme in Scripture where God’s presence is described as a fire. God is a “consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24) and a “refining fire” (Malachi 3:2) that burns away impurity to reveal what is pure. God’s loving presence is the eternal flame of pure Love.
In a foundry, the artisan knows the metal is finally pure when they can see their own face reflected clearly on its surface. In the same way, the Divine Refiner purifies us with the fire of love until our character perfectly reflects the image of God. On the final day, that Flame of Love will heal and purge our sin. This process is not a legal payment for sin in a place apart from God, but an organic and relational purification that happens in the very presence of Christ.
🗝️ Key Concept: Gehenna
This brings us to one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible: Gehenna. In the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom (Gei Hinnom in Hebrew) was a garbage dump in a ravine outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was a place where trash, filth, and even the bodies of executed criminals were thrown. Fires smoldered there constantly to consume the waste, making it a smelly, disgusting, and perpetually burning place. But it was also a place where scavengers would sift through the rubbish, looking for anything of value that could be rescued and repurposed.
Jesus used this well-known location as a powerful metaphor for the consequences of a life lived apart from God. To be thrown into “Gehenna” was to be cast into the cosmic garbage dump. However, later translators, particularly in Europe, mistranslated Gehenna as “Hell” and mixed Jesus’s metaphor with pagan myths about underworlds ruled by wrathful gods who meted out eternal, conscious torture. We should stop translating Gehenna as Hell and instead see it as Jesus intended: A last-ditch, purifying discipline where the fire of God's Love burns away the trash of our sinful lives, while rescuing everything of true value. Gehenna is not hell. Hell is permanent. Gehenna is temporary. Hell is retributive. Gehenna is redemptive. Hell does not exist. Gehenna does.
In his longest teaching on Gehenna (Mark 9:42-50), Jesus concludes with a startling statement: “For everyone will be salted with fire.” In the ancient world, salt was a preservative and a purifying agent. Jesus is saying that everyone, not just the wicked, will pass through this purifying fire. We will all be purified by the Flame of God's Love, refined like precious metal, until the Divine Refiner can see his own image reflected in us. Gehenna lasts only as long as we need it to, until we are prepared to fully love God, others, and ourselves.
But aren't we told Gehenna is a place of sorrow, weeping, gnashing of teeth, darkness, and fire? Yes. It is the experience of facing the darkness within us, rejecting our selfish sins, and coming to terms with all the squandered opportunities of our lives. Yet, even amidst this discipline, the only "unforgivable sin" is to "blaspheme the Holy Spirit" (Mark 3:29), which means to persistently reject the Spirit's call to repentance and forgiveness. The only way we are not forgiven is if we refuse to be forgiven, and refuse to forgive others (Matthew 6:14-15, 18:33-35). But God's Love never gives up. In this life or the next, whenever we finally surrender and end our stubborn refusal, God’s forgiveness is waiting for us like the Father waiting for his Prodigal Son (Luke 15).
Today, the literal Gehenna— the Valley of Hinnom— is a lush public park right outside of the old city of Jerusalem. There you can see people walking their dogs, having family picnics, and enjoying nature together. What was a barren wasteland of filth and death and burning in the first century has literally been transformed into a little piece of paradise. This is a wonderful metaphor for what God's Love will someday do through spiritual Gehenna to prepare us all for the paradise of the resurrection.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: For a deeper dive, read this essay on Redemptive Hell and Universal Restoration in Christ.
🔎 What about those we love in the Afterlife?
This theology of hope isn't just an abstract concept about the far-off future. It changes everything about how we relate to those who are on the other side of death. So what does this hopeful vision of a loving, refining God mean for the saints, our family members, and even the pets we have loved and lost?
The Saints: The great heroes of the faith who have gone before us are not gone. They have simply joined the “great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us (Hebrews 12:1). They are alive in Christ’s presence, and the New Testament says they will participate with him in the final judgment and liberation of creation (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). They are praying for us now, and just as we would ask a friend on earth to pray for us, we can ask them for their intercession. We don’t pray to them, but we ask them to pray for us.
Our Loved Ones: We do not need to fear for the ultimate fate of our loved ones who have died. As Paul writes with soaring confidence, “neither death, nor life... nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). While we should not pray “to” them as if they can answer us, we can and should pray for them, asking God to continue their growth and healing in his presence. And because the Christian hope is for a bodily resurrection where our unique identities are preserved, we can be confident that we will see and recognize them again, just as the disciples recognized the transfigured, resurrected Jesus.
Our Pets: The Bible does not give a definitive answer about the afterlife of animals. However, the consistent vision of the prophets and of Revelation is not an escape from creation, but the renewal of creation. The peaceable kingdom of Isaiah includes wolves, lambs, lions, and bears (oh my!). God’s care extends to all his creatures: As the Psalmist says, “you save humans and animals alike, O LORD” (Psalm 36:6). While we can’t be certain, it seems reasonable and probable that in the New Creation, the animal companions we loved and who loved us will be restored to us. After all, if you were a perfectly loving God, wouldn’t you want to give your own children back their beloved pets?
Turning from speculation to the definite promises of God: This entire vision of the afterlife, from the intermediate state to the final purification of Gehenna, is a story of hope. It is a story that ends not with eternal division, but with total restoration. In the end, we find that the Great Fairy Tale will become actual History: "They all lived happily ever after."
📚 Topical Scriptures
Here are some Scripture passages which explore and elaborate on the themes of this chapter. As you look them up and study them, think about how they relate to the Key Concept and Guiding Questions.
Psalm 36:5-10
This psalm celebrates the vast, cosmic scope of God's steadfast love. Look for how God's faithfulness extends not just to humanity but to all of creation, as the psalmist declares, "you save humans and animals alike, O LORD."
Daniel 12:1-4
This is the Old Testament's clearest prophecy of a final resurrection and judgment. Notice how it describes those who "sleep in the dust of the earth" (Sheol) awakening to different destinies, moving beyond the idea of the grave as a final end.
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
This passage offers a beautiful vision of the intermediate state for the righteous. It describes the souls of the just as being "in the hand of God," where their suffering is tested like gold in a furnace, leading to their ultimate peace and reign with God.
Malachi 3:1-5
This prophecy describes the coming of the Lord as a sudden and intense event of judgment. Pay attention to the imagery of a "refiner's fire" and "fullers' soap," which portrays God's judgment not as a destructive punishment, but as a powerful, cleansing purification.
Mark 9:42-50
This is Jesus's most extensive teaching on Gehenna. After a series of stark warnings about the consequences of sin, he concludes with the surprising statement that "everyone will be salted with fire," suggesting a universal process of purification.
Luke 16:19-31
In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus gives a vivid picture of the intermediate state (Hades/Sheol). He describes it as having two distinct regions, a place of comfort ("Abraham's bosom") and a place of torment, separated by a great chasm.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
Paul reflects on the believer's transition from earthly life to the intermediate state. He expresses a desire to be "away from the body and at home with the Lord," indicating a conscious, immediate presence with Christ after death.
Philippians 1:21-26
Here Paul describes his personal dilemma between living and dying. He sees death not as an end, but as a gain, because it means departing "to be with Christ, which is far better," reinforcing the idea of a blessed intermediate state.
1 Peter 3:18-20 and 4:6
This mysterious and powerful passage is a key text for the "Harrowing of Hell." It describes Christ, after his death, going to "make a proclamation to the spirits in prison," suggesting that the good news was preached even to the dead for the purpose of their ultimate salvation.
Hebrews 12:18-29
The author contrasts the terrifying fire of Mount Sinai with the joyful assembly of Mount Zion. The passage culminates with a description of the saints in heaven and a warning that "our God is a consuming fire," linking God's fiery presence with both worship and purification.
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