Theologians have wrestled with this question since the patristic period of Christianity. The majority opinion is that the body and soul separate at death, though there is disagreement regarding the destination and the state of the soul after death.
Charles Hodge describes the view of the dead in the Old Testament as follows:
The dead in the Old Testament are always spoken of as going to their fathers, as the sending into “Sheol,” i. e., into the invisible state, which the Greeks called Hades. Sheol is represented as the general receptacle or abode of departed spirits, who were there in a state of consciousness; some in a state of misery, others in a state of happiness. In all these points the pagan idea of Hades corresponds to the Scriptural idea of Sheol.[1]
There is still today in modern theology this idea of sheol/hades though there are various representations of this concept. To be sure, the term sheol and hades may be rendered as the underworld, the state of death, the grave, or hell. Berkhof writes of sheol/hades as follows:
The words sheol and hades do not always denote a locality in Scripture, but are often used in an abstract sense to designate the state of death, the state of the separation of body and soul.… When sheol and hades designate a locality in the literal sense of the word, they either refer to what we usually call hell, or to the grave. Descent into Sheol is threatened as a danger and as a punishment for the wicked, Psa. 9:17; 40:14; 55:15; Prov. 15:11; 15:24; Luke 16:23 (hades). The warning and threatening contained in these passages is lost altogether, if Sheol is conceived of as a neutral place whither all go. From these passages it also follows that it cannot be regarded as a place with two divisions. The idea of such a divided sheol is borrowed from the Gentile conception of the underworld, and finds no support in Scripture. It is only of sheol as the state of death that we can speak as having two divisions, but then we are speaking figuratively. Even the Old Testament testifies to it that they who die in the Lord enter upon a fuller enjoyment of the blessings of salvation, and therefore do not descend into any underworld in the literal sense of the word, Num. 23:5, 10; Psa. 16:11; 17:15; 73:24; Prov. 14:32.[2]
There are various views today of the Old Testament sheol and of the New Testament term hades, which often but not always correspond to the Old Testament sheol. Some believe that the Old Testament term sheol was related to the Gentile concept of the underworld, a place where all the dead go and which is not divided into a place for the wicked and a place for the righteous. It was a place where life had lost its meaning and where the dead existed in some sort of semi-conscious inactivity. Those who hold this view differ as to the permanency of the residency of the dead. One group holds that this is a permanent abode and others believe that the righteous have an opportunity to go elsewhere.
A different view of the Old Testament conception of the dead holds that sheol is the place of the dead consisting of two compartments, paradise and Gehenna. Paradise being the abode of the faithful Jews and Gehenna being the abode of the Gentiles.
There are many Christian commentators today who hold that at death the righteous and the wicked go to a place called sheol. This place has two compartments, one for the righteous that is referred to as the bosom of Abraham or paradise and is a place of peace and comfort. The other is a place of torment for the wicked that is referred to as hades or the abyss.
Some of these same commentators hold the view that all the Old Testament believers and in fact, all those believers who died prior to Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, went to some sort of “intermediate place.” This place of the Old Testament dead is divided into two compartments, one for the wicked and one for the righteous. They believe that the disembodied spirits of those Old Testament saints remain there until Christ’s death, burial, and ascension to heaven at which time Christ led the Old Testament believers to heaven.
These commentators often point to Paul’s statement in Ephesians 4:8 as proof of their position that Christ led the Old Testament saints to heaven. Here the apostle speaks of Christ’s triumphant entry to heaven bringing with him “a host of captives” (ESV). However, those offering this verse as proof of their position interpret this verse to mean that the host of captives being led by Jesus were the disembodied spirits of the Old Testament saints. But a correct interpretation of this verse reveals that the “captivity captive” (KJV) refers to Christ’s defeat of sin, death, and Satan which are now His captives. Matthew Henry gives a succinct statement regarding Christ leading captivity captive.
Christ, when he ascended into heaven, as a triumphant conqueror, led captivity captive. It is a phrase used in the Old Testament to signify a conquest over enemies, especially over such as formerly had led others captive; see Judges 5:12. Captivity is here put for captives, and signifies all our spiritual enemies, who brought us into captivity before. He conquered those who had conquered us; such as sin, the devil, and death. Indeed, he triumphed over these on the cross; but the triumph was completed at his ascension, when he became Lord over all, and had the keys of death and Hades put into his hands.[3]
One of the arguments these proponents of an “intermediate place” for Old Testament saints makes is that since Christ had not paid the redemptive price on the cross prior to His first advent that the Old Testament believers could not have gone to “heaven” and therefore there has to be some sort of “intermediate place” to go at death to await Christ’s ascension. But this is not a valid scriptural argument.
God preached the gospel of Christ beforehand to Abraham (Gal. 3:8, 9). This was the gospel of salvation, the deliverance from the penalty of the law and restoration to the favor of God, through the Messiah. Believers before the time of Christ knew that they needed salvation and thus they desired salvation in the same way Christians do. The promise made to Abraham was that salvation was available only through faith in the Messiah and that the blessings secured for believers by Christ were enjoyed by those believers before the advent of Christ. Old Testament saints were saved in exactly the same way as those believers after Christ’s first advent.
Today, when Christians become believers by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ alone, God justifies them or counts them as righteous in a legal sense on the grounds of Christ’s merited righteousness. And God accepts Christ’s payment of the redemptive ransom by His death on the cross and clears the believers’ sin debt account. Then He legally adopts the believers as his children subject to all the inheritance rights of His kingdom, a kingdom which will be consummated at the end of the age (1 Cor, 15:24ff).
This is exactly what happened to all believers, from Abraham onward. They believed in the future Messiah and God counted them as righteous, justifying and adopting them based on Christ’s merited righteousness and His payment of the ransom of redemption. And God counted them righteous or justified them based on the works of Christ that had not yet occurred in time. We see that Abraham believed the Lord and God counted him as righteous (Gen. 15:6). God deemed Abraham to be righteous based on his belief in the Messiah who would not come until sometime in the future. In spite of the fact that the works of Christ had not yet occurred, Abraham was deemed righteous based on these works and was justified and made a child of God.
In spite of the fact that believers prior to Christ’s first advent died before Christ’s redemptive work, they nevertheless were justified and guaranteed their salvation by God and at their death their disembodied spirits went directly to heaven to be with God. They did not go to some “intermediate place” that was not heaven.
Another example in Scripture of God acting prior to the final consummation of His promise is salvation. When one becomes a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, one is considered to be “saved.” But is the believer’s salvation perfectly complete then? The Bible teaches that our salvific inheritance is promised by God and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:11-14) upon our belief through faith but that Jesus at His second coming will finally consummate our salvation. Jesus will make all believers’ salvation perfectly complete when He withholds His eternal condemning wrath from the elect believers at the final judgment on the Day of the Lord. Thus God makes certain in the present the future reality of the consummation of our salvation.
“The usual position of the reformed churches is that the souls of believers immediately after death enter upon the glories of heaven.”[4] Our understanding of Scripture is that at death the disembodied spirits of ALL believers, including the Old Testament saints, enter the “intermediate state” and go immediately to heaven where they await the full redemption of their bodies at the general resurrection. According to Berkhof,
The Reformers, one and all, rejected… the whole idea of a real intermediate state, which carried with it the idea of an intermediate place. They held that those who died in the Lord at once entered the bliss of heaven, while those who died in their sins at once descended into hell.[5]
The idea held by some that there is an “intermediate place” that is not heaven where the disembodied spirits of believers go at death is not biblical. Believers at death go immediately to the highest heaven and unbelievers go to hell. There are no other places that the disembodied spirits go at death except heaven and hell. The righteous and the wicked remain in an “intermediate state” in heaven and hell respectively until the general resurrection at the end of the age when Christ returns. There is no “intermediate place” after death that is not heaven or hell.
CONCLUSION
We take the following position regarding the destination and the state of the souls of All human beings after death.
The state of the soul after death is a continued and conscious existence of the soul after its separation from the body at death. “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness [Heb. 12:23], and do immediately pass into glory [Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:6, 8; Phil. 1:23]; and their bodies, being still united to Christ [1 Thess. 4:14], do rest in their graves, till the resurrection” (WSC 37).
At death, the disembodied souls of believers, including the Old Testament saints, are immediately glorified and made perfect and taken into the presence of God in heaven, fully conscious, and in a state of rest (Rev. 14:13), where they wait in the “intermediate state” for the full redemption of their bodies at the second coming of Christ (Phil. 3:20, 21) and the general resurrection. Moreover, the soul neither sleeps nor is it annihilated.[6]
Scripture teaches that there is only heaven and hell where the righteous and the wicked dead respectively, including the Old Testament dead, remain in the “intermediate state” until the general resurrection.
[1] Systematic Theology. Charles Hodge, Vol. III, Hendrickson, 2009 (2016), 717.
[2] Systematic Theology. Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2019, 716-17.
[3] Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Modern Edition, vol. 6, Acts to Revelation, Hendrickson, 1991, 566.
[5] Berkhof, 712.
[6] From What Happens to People When They Die?, www.christianinquiry.com.
