No one is turning in their grave
March 19, 2015
Over the last while I've had a number of people talk to me about
different situations and then invoke some Reformed Christian guru saying
''Such and such would be turning in his grave if he knew''. It's become
a kind of reformed mantra. It is meant to imply that we (normally I) have ruined
some sort of legacy or that other people are going against the express
wishes of the deceased.
I'm too slow to have
thought of a decent answer but I should have said ''No they are not! and that's a ridiculous thing to say''.
These men are now in glory, with Christ, which is much better. The
intermediate state is not one in which saints who are with Christ are
slightly gutted because a congregation or a ministry have made a
decision or are doing something in a different way.
The Westminster Confession of Faith puts it rightly
32:1 - WCF 32.1: The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption1 but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them2
the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect of 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.3
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 acknowledgeth none.
