After death comes the judgment. So, when unbelievers die, their souls go to hell, where they await the resurrection of their bodies, at which point they will experience the final judgment: the “lake of fire” (Rev. 20). Until the second coming, believers too must experience the painful separation of death. In this intermediate state between death and resurrection, the souls of believers are “away from the body” but are consciously “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). They “depart” the “flesh” in order to “be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23-24). But this disembodied state is not the final word.

Is there life after death? Will I live on in a state of eternal bliss or in a state of eternal torment? Or will I simply cease to exist? These questions have intrigued and haunted human beings from our origins. Every world religion and philosophy has had some answer or other to these most pressing questions, from the ancient Egyptians, who mummified the dead and gave them provisions for the netherworld, to modern atheists who reject any notion of personal existence after death. The answers to these questions shape not only a one’s hope for the future, but they also give purpose and meaning to life in the present. From a Christian perspective, the answers to these questions are woven throughout the whole fabric of Christian theology: what we believe about God, the person and work of Christ, the identity, destiny, and constitution of human beings (body and soul), the meaning of salvation, the mission of the Church, and the end of history.
So, what does the Bible say about the afterlife? The best place to begin is not at the end but at the beginning. In the creation account, God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life, constituting our first father as a “living soul” (Gen. 2:7). Likewise, Eve was taken from Adam’s side (Gen. 2:21-22), as a co-equal divine image bearer (Gen. 1:27), and Adam’s posterity share in that same image as well (Gen. 5:3). Thus, all human beings possess dignity and goodness as ensouled bodies (or embodied souls). The tragic sin of our first parents, however, introduces the sentence of death to the human race. Now, after the fall, the unnatural state of death is our common human lot. Death introduces not only a spiritual separation from God, a relational separation from one another, and an existential separation from our own selves; it also introduces a separation of the soul and the body.
Sometimes the Old Testament can speak of death as a definitive end (Psalm 6:5; 30:9; 88:10-12; 115:17; Isa. 38:18), but this is only from the perspective of life on earth. In other places, the Old Testament speaks of some kind of ongoing personal existence after death. The righteous dead are said to “go to [their] fathers in peace” (Gen. 15:15) or to be “gathered to [their] people” in death (Gen. 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33; Num. 20:24; 27:13). Echoing the creation language of Genesis 2, the Preacher writes that “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7). For the unrighteous, a more sobering prospect remains after death. Those who participated in Korah’s rebellion were swallowed up by the earth and went “down alive to Sheol,” the place of the dead (Num. 16:30, 32). Elsewhere, the Old Testament speaks about the possibility of “going down to Sheol” in “mourning” (Gen. 37:35). Sheol (the Greek term was Hades) was the abode for all of the dead in the Old Testament, but it appears that there were at least two possible outcomes in that netherworld: the righteous dead experience the peace of being gathered to their people and the unrighteous dead experience Sheol as judgment. The calling up of Samuel from the dead by the medium at En-Dor, though an illicit attempt to communicate with the dead, is further evidence of this teaching in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 28).
But the Old Testament also points to another, more glorious state of life after death: the resurrection of the body. There are hints of this teaching in multiple places in the Old Testament. After all of his suffering, Job waxes poetic about the prospect of an embodied afterlife: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25–26). Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones being restored to life also points in this direction (Ezek. 37). But the clearest teaching on the resurrection of the body in the Old Testament comes in Daniel 12 in his vision of the end of history:
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan. 12:2-3).
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The study of angels leads us to wonder. Philosopher Peter Kreeft suggests that the first reason we should study the angels is because it’s fun! Maybe “fun” isn’t the best word, but an awareness of the angelic realm can elicit in us a sense of wonder and intrigue at the power, wisdom, and goodness of God in making such magnificent creatures.

Christianity is a supernatural religion. That may sound obvious, but Christians in the modern world often seem overly skeptical about things that defy material explanation—things like miracles, the soul, the afterlife, and the topic of this post: angelic beings. Our world has become (as many philosophers and theologians have noted) disenchanted, demystified, and despiritualized. But against this materialist mindset, biblical Christianity is irreducibly and unavoidably and gloriously supernatural.
So just what are angels? Angels are immaterial beings created by God to worship him, to communicate his word, to protect his people, and to otherwise serve his purposes in the world. God, who is immaterial by nature, made some things unlike him (material creatures like birds, planets, and amoebae), some things both unlike him and like him (human beings, composed of body and soul), and some things that are more purely like him (immaterial angels). Angels can appear in physical form but are by nature immaterial and incorporeal (that is, they don’t have bodies). They are invisible creatures with power beyond our imagination. So, from one perspective, angels represent the highest order of creatures that God has made; they round out, so to speak, the manifold wisdom of God.
The Greek work for angel (angelos) simply means “messenger” and may mark out one particular type of spiritual being. But the English word “angel” also serves as a general description for all such beings. Other words used in the Bible for celestial beings include cherubim (e.g., Gen. 3:14; Ex. 25:18), seraphim (Isa. 6:2, 6), spirits (Heb. 1:7), archangels (1 Thess. 4:16; Jude 9), and (perhaps) Paul’s listing of thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities (Col. 1:16).
The Bible doesn’t give a detailed account of the angels’ creation. Presumably they were made at some point before the creation of the earth in Genesis 1 (see Job 38:7). In any event, we know that they were in fact created by God (see Col. 1:16); they are not eternal beings. The fall of a certain number of the angels is also not explicitly recorded in Scripture but rather assumed (Gen. 3:1; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Isa. 14 and Ezek. 28 may also have the fall of Satan in the background as an analogy for downfall of certain human kings). Fallen angels are referred to as demons or evil spirits. The powerful and personal being called Satan or Beelzebul serves as their prince (Matt. 9:34; Eph. 2:2). They are permitted a certain degree of power to tempt humanity, but they operate under the ultimate authority of God (Job 1) and their doom is certain (Matt. 25:41). The “elect” angels (1 Tim. 5:21) who did not rebel were confirmed in their original righteousness and always live to do God’s will.
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