One of the challenges of aging is the increasing frequency of funerals to attend. I’ve been to two funerals in two days—one for my cousin at a Baptist church, and one for a church member at my Advent Christian church. It’s always interesting to hear the different perspectives on the intermediate state: conscious presence with God vs. sleep of the dead. I was reminded of my grandmother’s funeral, where pastors from different denominations had her in and out of heaven multiple times.
While I grew up Advent Christian and generally hold to their distinctives, I think there is room for a wide variety of perspectives because Scripture is not 100% clear on some issues. I had thought that my particular view might be unique, but I learned that some of my cousins have come to a similar conclusion (though we admit to being a peculiar people!), which is this:
Because God is outside of time and is the Creator of time, our life with Him after death is not time-bound either. Therefore, when someone dies, they may seem from human perspective to be sleeping until the resurrection, but in God’s reality are transported immediately to the “time” of Jesus’ return and the Day of Judgment. So sleep and immediate resurrection are both true at the same moment.
Think of it this way, for fans of Tolkien’s writings, is Gandalf alive or dead? Well, it depends what part of the series you are in. For Tolkien (or any other author), the characters are in some sense always alive, even though they may be dead in some part of the story. God has written our story from beginning to end (Psalm 139:16), and though we die here, we are resurrected to a new dimension that is outside of time.
Malcolm Guite articulated a similar perspective in Lifting the Veil, regarding his poem on the Transfiguration:
“I wondered if their appearance in the presence of Christ on this mountain top was not a repetition of that first experience or a re-visiting of this World by these Old Testament figures, who represent between them the Law and the Prophets, but rather that the disciples were witnessing the truth that in the light of heaven, in heaven’s time as it were, those three separate moments: Moses’ on his mountain in his time, Elijah in his, and Christ in this Gospel moment were all one moment! If Moses and Elijah saw the face of God in a mystery then it could be none other than the face of Christ.”
Obviously, I cannot point to any particular Scripture to justify my perspective, though it seems to make sense of the somewhat conflicting ideas throughout the Bible:
“Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), but did Jesus go straight to heaven or was He in the grave for three days?
“…God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep… we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess. 4:14-15).
Whatever the case may be, for Christians who die, our next moment of awareness will be in the presence of our Lord and Savior. In that we can have great hope and peace, for that is what we’ve been awaiting since the moment of our salvation. I read somewhere recently (but forget where) that death is not the period at the end of a sentence, but it is a comma between the preface and the eternal reality to come. J. Warner Wallace says that life is not a brief line segment, but an arrow that extends into eternity. Regardless of how short this life may be, it is nothing compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us (Rom. 8:18).
“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the Man of heaven… Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:49, 51).
© 2026 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
