In Christian eschatology, the intermediate state or interim state refers to a person's existence between one's death and resurrection. This period is "intermediate" between death and the last judgment. As long as Christians looked for an imminent end of the world, they had little interest in an interim state between death and resurrection.

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  • Bardo
  • the Buddhist doctrine of the same name
  • the Christian doctrine of this name
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  • In Christian eschatology, the intermediate state or interim state refers to a person's existence between one's death and resurrection. This period is "intermediate" between death and the last judgment. As long as Christians looked for an imminent end of the world, they had little interest in an interim state between death and resurrection. Later, the Eastern Church came to admit of such an intermediate state, but refrained from defining it, so as not to blur the distinction between the alternative definitive fates of heaven and hell. In the West there was much more curiosity about the intermediate state, with evidence from as far back as the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (203) of the belief that sins can be purged by suffering in an afterlife, and that the purgation can be speeded up by the prayers of the living. Eastern Christians too believed that the dead can be assisted by prayer. East and West, those in the intermediate state have traditionally been the beneficiaries of prayers, such as requiem masses. In the East, the saved are said to rest in light while the wicked are confined in darkness. In the East, prayers are said to benefit even pagans. In the West, Augustine described prayer as useful for those in communion with the church, and implied that every soul's ultimate fate is determined at death. In the West, prayer came to be restricted to souls in purgatory. In the Middle Ages, the Western church offered indulgences for those in purgatory. Protestants largely ceased praying for the dead. Protestants denied the Catholic purgatory. Luther posited "soul sleep", in which the soul is asleep, yet "lives before God" and "experiences visions and the discourses of the angels and of God". Calvin depicted the righteous dead as resting in bliss.
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  • I. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.[4] Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledges none.
  • Westminster Confession 1646, chapter XXXII, Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
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  • Hades in Christianity
  • Heaven
  • Hell in Christianity
  • Limbo
  • Purgatory
  • Sheol
  • Soul sleep
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  • In Christian eschatology, the intermediate state or interim state refers to a person's existence between one's death and resurrection. This period is "intermediate" between death and the last judgment. As long as Christians looked for an imminent end of the world, they had little interest in an interim state between death and resurrection.
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  • Intermediate state
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