[Genoa]

I have found that your illustration about general anesthesia also applies to the related discussion about the intermediate state (so called).

The majority of conditionalists accept not only the final annihilation of the lost, but also the complete unconsciousness of all who have died between the moment of their death and that of their resurrection. The unifying idea here is the genuine mortality of the human soul.

Many Christians are horrified at the idea of not being conscious in death. But if that is indeed what happens, then a dead person has no inkling of the passage of time between death and resurrection. Hundreds of years (or more) would seem like just a moment in their experience (like anesthesia).

Now, this belief does rob us of the idea that loved ones are currently in heaven being blessed, but it does help us to recognize the wonderful blessing that the resurrection of the redeemed will be when it happens. And the dead know nothing, plus we can trust God to remember all who are His!

Could it be that speculation about the intermediate state, which no one in the Bible has ever described to us, by the way, is precarious because there really isn't one?

[cuban leaf]

I’ve gone as far as to say, (and to quote Paul, I speak as a mad man) if I were a betting man, I would bet that it is exactly like the anesthestetic state. That is, at the moment you die, you are awakened in resurrection, even if you died millennia ago.

And to take it a step further, because out body died, and out body includes our brain, all memories of loved ones are erased as well - and are really no longer relevant.

Beyond that, I’m a blind man talking to a blind man about the color “blue”. ;-)