EXTRACTS

The intermediate state, then, is not glory (for that we must wait for the body. It is raised in glory …); but it is blessedness where no unholy evil is. It is being with Christ Himself, the source of joy ineffable … How a spirit enjoys Christ we cannot tell as to the manner of it, but there is no difficulty whatever. My spirit enjoys Christ now, in spite of the hindrance of the poor earthen vessel it is in, and though now we see Him not, yet rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is not my body which enjoys Him now, but my soul spiritually, with the hindrance of the earthen vessel, and absent from Him, then without the hindrance of the earthen vessel, and present with Him.

J. N. Darby on “The State of the Soul After Death”. Coll. Wrtgs. Vol. 31, pp.Whilst there is the great and glorious thought that we are to join the heavenly, the ransomed throng, as we say, and to enter into the actual fact of sonship … yet there is that which precedes that, namely what we may hope for in joining the Lord. He says to the thief, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. That is something to think of. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 that he did not know whether he was in the body or out of it. But he was in paradise, and that was a truth that he would bring into his ministry. So that those who are ministering, even if old, have hope in what is immediate, in view of the Lord’s coming or of His taking them to be with Him at any time.

J. Taylor (N.S. Vol. 63, p.11)

“To depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better”—better even than the very best thing here; and Paul had learned to say that, and has taught us to say it too.

J. Taylor (N.S. Vol. 58, p.167)

Could you think of greater happiness than to be removed from the presence of every trace of the Adam-man or his influence, and to be introduced to a region where there is nothing to distract from Christ, and from all the qualities and characteristics of Christ which are to be the delight of God, and the delight and life of the saints eternally? That is the very “far better”

portion of those who are with Christ. They enjoy what they truly enjoyed on earth, but they enjoy it now with Him in a state where there are no distractions.

C. A. Coates (‘Letters’, p.389)