Systematic Theology Scripture Defines Scripture Volume 21: The Doctrine of the Kingdom and the Glory of God: the King, the Throne, the Nations, and Life under the Reign of Christ

What Really Happens After Death?

What happens when the body dies? Does consciousness continue? Where are believers and unbelievers before the resurrection? Will every person rise again? What is the Great White Throne? How will God judge the living and the dead? Is there a second chance after death?

Systematic Theology Volume 21: The Doctrine of Death, Resurrection, and Judgment follows the biblical teaching from physical death to the intermediate state, bodily resurrection, reward, final judgment, and the destruction of death itself.

Written according to the guiding principle that Scripture defines Scripture, Jeff C. Edwards carefully examines the key passages that govern these difficult and often misunderstood doctrines. Rather than building conclusions from tradition, speculation, philosophy, or popular ideas about the afterlife, this volume allows the Bible to define its own terms and establish its own order.

Inside, readers will find a thorough examination of:

• conscious existence after death
• the believer’s presence with Christ
• Hades and the intermediate state
• the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked
• the Judgment Seat of Christ
• rewards, crowns, stewardship, and loss of reward
• the judgment of Israel’s survivors and the living nations
• the judgment of rebellious angels and Satan
• the Great White Throne
• the books opened and the Book of Life
• differing degrees of judgment
• the second death
• the final destruction of death

The book also directly addresses teachings such as soul sleep, annihilationism, purgatory, postmortem purification, prayers for the dead, and the idea of a second opportunity for salvation after death.

This volume carefully distinguishes truths that are often confused: accountability from condemnation, Hades from the Lake of Fire, the intermediate state from the eternal state, reward from salvation, and the resurrection of life from the resurrection of judgment.

Designed to stand alone as a complete biblical study while also serving as Volume 21 of the Systematic Theology: Scripture Defines Scripture series, this book offers a serious, readable, and Scripture-centered answer to one of life’s greatest questions:

What happens from death to judgment—and what has Christ accomplished against the last enemy?