The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
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Bette says with the rest of us that ultimately "where" we wait the judgement doesn't matter but if we are already with Jesus immediately after death what more could we get at the judgement? Personally, I think the "where" question really misleads but since everyone speaks of it in terms of "where" that's how it's usually addressed. For me the issue is not "where". Paul thought he was going to be with Christ so that settles the "where" question for me though the trouble with "where" is that it suggests some geographical location which we all know (but keep forgetting) that it is misleading. A rocketship at the speed of a jillion times the speed of light would never get to to "where" Christ is. But that raises other interesting and complex questions about what "heaven" means. For now, the issue is, am I in my "final state" before the final (declarative) judgment or am I in my "intermediate state"? God created us as embodied beings. Death robs us of our embodied state and when God accomplishes the resurrection for us we will be emobodied beings again--which is what God always meant us to be. Only then our embodied state will be beyond death's grasp--we will be immortal. So, at present we are embodied beings (but mortal), at death we are beings that have been robbed of that embodiment but at the resurrection we are embodied again (but immortal). "Wherever" we go at death we are disembodied and that is not our final state--it is an "intermediate" state. It's in that state that we "wait" for judgment. Even if we were sitting in Jesus' lap between death and resurrection/judgment we would still be in an "intermediate" state and God did not create us to be disembodied beings. Our final state is not so much a "where?" question as a "in what state?" question. So, what is the difference between our pre-judgment situation and the judgment/resurrection situation? One is intermediate and the other is final. One is disembodied and the other is embodied immortality. Our final final embodied state of immortality occurs at the "general" resurrection at which time a final declarative judgment takes place.
