Chapter 2
Hebrews 9:27 — “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”
A friend sits across the table from you at a coffee shop. You have just said something careful and quiet: that maybe, just maybe, God’s saving love does not slam shut the instant a person’s heart stops. Your friend sets down his mug. He looks at you with gentle concern. And then he says it.
“Hebrews 9:27.”
No verse in the Bible gets quoted more often against the idea that God might save people after death. It has shut down more conversations, more prayers, and more pastoral hopes than any other single line of Scripture. And on its face, the verse sounds final. It says that people die once, and after that comes judgment. What more is there to say?
A great deal, as it turns out. But first, we owe the traditional reading a fair hearing. Millard Erickson, one of the most widely read evangelical theologians in the world, says this verse “seems to assume an invariable transition from one to the other, with no mention of any additional opportunities for acceptance.”1 Ronald Nash pushes harder. He reads the verse to mean that “the judgment of each human reflects that person’s standing with God at the moment of death.”2 Wayne Grudem treats the verse as part of the broader case that “after death there is no possibility of coming to faith in Christ.”3 And J. I. Packer, when asked directly whether salvation is possible beyond death, points to this text and concludes that “the unrepeatable reality of physical death leads directly to reaping what we sowed in this world.”4
These are serious scholars, and I take their arguments seriously. The verse does mention death, and it does mention judgment. But does it really say what they claim? Let us look at the text itself.
Hebrews 9:27 is never meant to stand alone. It is part of a tightly built argument that runs from verse 23 to verse 28. Here is the passage in full:
[23] Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. [24] For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. [25] Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, [26] for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. [27] And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, [28] so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:23–28, ESV)
The context is not about what happens to sinners when they die. It is about the once-for-all sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews has been building this case since chapter 7. Under the old covenant, the high priest had to enter the Most Holy Place every year with animal blood. Under the new covenant, Christ entered heaven once, with His own blood, and the work was finished.5
Look at how verse 27 fits into this argument. The writer is drawing a parallel. On one side: humans die once, and after that comes judgment. On the other side: Christ was offered once, and after that He will appear a second time to save. The point of the comparison is the word “once.” Death happens once for humans, just as sacrifice happened once for Christ. The writer is making an argument against repeated sacrifice, not an argument about what happens to the soul after death.
The Point of the Parallel
Verse 27 compares human death to Christ’s sacrifice. The shared feature is singularity: just as death happens once (not over and over, as in reincarnation), so Christ’s sacrifice happened once (not over and over, as in the old priestly system). The parallel is about how many times, not about what comes next.
Several Greek terms deserve a closer look. The word translated “it is appointed” (Greek apokeitai, “it is laid up, reserved”) is not the language of an iron decree. The same word appears in Colossians 1:5, where Paul speaks of the hope “laid up” (same word, apokeitai) for believers in heaven.6 It describes what awaits, not the mechanics of how or when.
The word “once” (Greek hapax) is the hinge of the argument. It appears again in verse 28: Christ was offered “once” (hapax). The repetition locks the comparison in place. This is a chapter about the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, and human death enters the argument as the analogy that proves the point: just as you die once, so Christ died once.7
Then there is the phrase “after that” (Greek meta de touto). It means “after this.” It tells us the order: death comes first, judgment comes later. But it says nothing about how much later. It says nothing about what happens in between. And it says nothing about whether the judgment includes a saving encounter with Christ.8
The word for “judgment” here is the Greek krisis. This is a general word for decision or evaluation. It does not automatically mean condemnation. In John 5:22, the Father has given all judgment (krisis) to the Son. In John 5:30, Jesus says His judgment is just. The word leaves wide open the question of what the judgment looks like and what happens during it.9
Now we can lay out the case. I want to show you five things this verse does not say, and then I want to show you what it does say when we let the parallel with verse 28 finish its own thought.
This is the most basic point, and it is often missed. The verse says that judgment comes after death. It does not say judgment comes immediately after death. It does not say judgment comes one second after death. It gives no timeline at all.10
James Beilby, in his careful study of postmortem opportunity, makes this point directly. There is nothing in the text that justifies the specific claims Erickson and Nash hang on it. The verse says death, then judgment. It does not say death, then instant and irrevocable condemnation.11
“These interpretations are surprising, for there is nothing in the text whatsoever to justify these specific claims. Hebrews 9:27 is set in the context of a discussion of the death of Jesus Christ as the atonement for the sins of humanity.”
— James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 108
Stephen Jonathan reinforces the point. He notes that the passage “offers no timescale as to how long after death that judgment comes, thereby failing to link death with loss of opportunity, which is commonly taught in evangelical circles.”12 Jonathan also observes something I find remarkable. He notes that biblical commentaries do not typically use this verse to argue that death ends probation. That reading comes from popular preaching and systematic theology, not from the commentators who live closest to the Greek text.13
Consider the gap. Nearly two thousand years have passed since the writer of Hebrews penned these words. Have all the dead been judged? Clearly not, if judgment means the final judgment at the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11–15). So there is already a long interval between death and judgment for billions of people. If a long gap already exists, the verse cannot be teaching that judgment is instant.14 As Field argued, “Two thousand years nearly have come and gone since these words were written: has judgment come?”15
Read the verse again. Does it say, “After death, no one can be saved”? Does it say, “The offer of grace ends when the body dies”? It says neither. The verse is silent about the span of God’s saving offer. The idea that the offer ends at death is an inference readers bring to the text. It is not something the text gives them.16
Andrew Hronich makes this point with refreshing bluntness. He writes that reading this verse as proof against postmortem salvation “is only possible should one approach the text with the a priori assumption that posthumous repentance is impossible, for there is nothing in the text itself to justify such claims.”17
The Silence of the Text
Hebrews 9:27 says that judgment follows death. It does not say that grace stops at death. It does not say that the offer of Christ ends when the heart stops. It does not say that the judgment excludes a saving encounter. Every one of those claims is brought to the verse by the reader. None of them is found in the verse itself.
If the verse is arguing against anything, it is arguing against the idea that people die more than once. The word “once” (hapax) carries the argument. Christ died once, not many times. Humans die once, not many times. The point is the unrepeatable nature of death, which mirrors the unrepeatable nature of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.18
Beilby puts the matter clearly. If this text is an argument against any particular belief, it is reincarnation, not postmortem opportunity. The claim that judgment follows death is “not problematic for the Postmortem Opportunity theorist.”19
Hronich presses the point further. He notes that not everyone in Scripture dies only once. Lazarus died. Jesus raised him. Lazarus died again. The widow’s son at Nain died, and Jesus raised him too. Were they exceptions to the rule? Hronich writes: “So, is God bending the rules? I thought it was appointed to man once to die, but apparently some get second chances.”20 The verse is making a general statement about the human condition. It is not drawing a metaphysical boundary around the reach of God’s grace.
And this is where Hronich asks a question that lingers. If God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), and if He is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), and if He holds the keys to death and Hades (Revelation 1:18), then what will He do with those keys? The question is not whether God can reach the dead. The question is whether the God revealed in Christ would choose not to.39
We should also note the genre of this passage. Hebrews 9:27 is not a doctrinal treatise on personal eschatology. It is not a systematic statement about what happens to the soul after death. It is an analogy inside a larger argument about sacrificial typology. The writer reaches for death-then-judgment the same way I might say, “Just as the sun rises in the east, so Christ’s sacrifice was complete.” My point would be about the sunrise, not about atmospheric optics. The writer’s point is about the sacrifice, not about the mechanics of the afterlife.40
This is the move many readers overlook. Even if we grant that judgment follows death immediately, nothing prevents the judgment from including a real offer of salvation. Beilby argues this directly: “Even if this passage could be interpreted to teach that the day of judgment followed immediately after death, that would do nothing to impugn Postmortem Opportunity, for it is possible to believe that the judgment that an unevangelized person experiences includes an opportunity to hear the gospel and that they are judged by their response to that offer.”21
Think about what the final judgment looks like in Scripture. At the Great White Throne, every person stands before God in His full, unveiled glory (Revelation 20:11–15). This is the most intense encounter any soul will ever have. Is it really impossible that a God who is love (1 John 4:8), who desires all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), would use that encounter to make one final, overwhelming appeal? I do not think it is impossible at all. I think it is exactly what we would expect from such a God.22
Hronich drives home another side of this. He observes that when we hear the word “judgment,” we tend to think in purely negative terms, as if judgment can only mean condemnation. But the author of Hebrews says nothing about the nature of the judgment. “For all we know,” Hronich writes, “the judgment may have a restorative purpose in mind.”23
Here is where a concept I will return to throughout this book sheds real light. Theologians call it middle knowledge. The plain idea is this: God knows what each person would freely choose in any situation He might place them in. If that is true, then God can arrange the saving encounter at judgment so that each soul receives the appeal most suited to its heart. He does not force anyone. He does not override freedom. But He knows, for every person, the words, the images, the truths that would be most likely to win a free “yes.” And He uses that knowledge to make the offer as powerful as love can make it, without crossing the line into coercion.41
This matters for Hebrews 9:27 because it reframes what “judgment” can look like. If judgment is an encounter with the living God, and if God knows what each person would freely do, then judgment is not a cold sentencing hearing. It is the most personal encounter any soul will ever have. And nothing in the text prevents it from including a genuine offer of grace.
We have been so focused on verse 27 that we have neglected the second half of the parallel. Verse 28 says that Christ “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” The parallel runs like this:
Humans die once → then judgment.
Christ was offered once → then He appears a second time to save.
Notice the asymmetry. On the human side, what follows death is judgment. On the Christ side, what follows His sacrifice is a second appearing to save. If the parallel is meant to be strict, it suggests that what follows on the human side is not bare condemnation but an event in which saving can still happen. The word “save” (Greek sōtēria) in verse 28 is doing significant work. It points forward to a future saving act of Christ, not backward to a past deadline.24
This fits the broader argument of Hebrews. The letter is addressed to believers who are in danger of drifting away (Hebrews 2:1). Its concern throughout is pastoral: hold fast, do not shrink back, endure. But the letter also repeatedly points to the sufficiency and finality of what Christ accomplished. His sacrifice is once for all. His priesthood is permanent. His intercession never ends. He is “able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25, ESV). The question the letter raises is not “When does the offer expire?” but “Will you hold fast to what Christ has done?”25
Does This Reach the Dying Moment?
This is the cleanest case in the book. Hebrews 9:27 places judgment after death. But dying happens before death is complete. A person at the threshold of death, whose heart is failing and whose body is shutting down, is not yet dead. So even if this verse says what its defenders claim, it never speaks to the perimortem encounter at all. The dying moment falls before death, and the verse picks up only after death is finished. The deadline the verse names (if it names one) is judgment, and the opponents themselves place that judgment after death. The threshold of death sits entirely outside what the verse addresses. The perimortem saving encounter (the meeting with Christ in the dying process itself, before biological death is complete) goes untouched.
On the opposing side, the strongest voices on this verse are Erickson, Nash, and Packer. Each brings a different angle.
Erickson’s argument rests on what he sees as an “invariable transition” from death to judgment. But, as we have seen, the text does not describe the transition as invariable, instant, or sealed. It describes the order, not the speed.26
Nash goes further. He claims that the judgment “reflects that person’s standing with God at the moment of death.” But the verse never says “at the moment of death.” Nash has imported a theological conclusion into the text and then treated the text as though it taught the conclusion. Beilby and Hronich both note the circularity here.27
Packer’s response is the most revealing. When asked directly whether salvation is possible beyond death, he quickly moves away from the text of Hebrews 9:27 and shifts to an argument about prevenient grace. He argues that God’s grace is what makes conversion possible, and that “Scripture says nothing of prevenient grace triggering post-mortem conversions.”28 Jonathan notes the irony: Packer does not actually explain how Hebrews 9:27 teaches against postmortem opportunity. He just asserts that it does and then changes the subject. Jonathan also rightly asks: if Packer’s concern is that God’s prevenient grace only works before death, where does Scripture say that? Packer’s appeal to the limits of grace is itself an argument from silence.29
Grudem builds his case more systematically, weaving Hebrews 9:27 into a broader web of texts that he believes establish death as the deadline. But his treatment of this verse in particular does not add an argument that Erickson and Nash have not already made. The verse says death, then judgment. Grudem infers the rest.30
It is worth pausing to notice something about how these scholars use this verse. Erickson, Nash, Packer, and Grudem all treat it as though it teaches a doctrine about the soul’s destiny after death. But the major Hebrews commentators do not read it that way. William Lane, in his Word Biblical Commentary volume on Hebrews 9–13, treats the passage as sacrificial typology. F. F. Bruce reads the “once” as the structural key to the whole argument. Cockerill places the emphasis on the sufficiency of Christ’s offering. Ellingworth treats the death-then-judgment clause as an illustration, not a pronouncement on personal eschatology.33
This gap between the systematic theologians and the exegetes is telling. The people who spend their careers inside the Greek text of Hebrews do not read this verse the way the popular argument requires. That does not settle the matter by itself. But it should make us cautious about treating the popular reading as obvious.
On the side of saving grace after death, the picture is very different. Beilby provides the most careful scholarly treatment, showing that the verse “is set in the context of a discussion of the death of Jesus Christ as the atonement for the sins of humanity” and that nothing in it addresses the span of the saving offer.31 Jonathan adds the pastoral and contextual observations, especially the telling point that major Hebrews commentaries do not use this verse to argue that death ends probation.32 Hronich contributes the philosophical edge, pressing the resuscitation cases and the question of judgment’s nature.
I also want to flag a pattern that will show up again and again in this book. The opponents of postmortem opportunity tend to cite Hebrews 9:27 alongside other texts (Luke 16, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Corinthians 6:2) as though the combined weight is crushing. But each text, examined on its own, says less than the cumulative argument needs it to say. We will look at each of these in the chapters ahead (see Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5). For now, it is enough to see that the single verse most often quoted to end the conversation does not, in fact, end it.42
“If this text is an argument against any particular position or belief, it is reincarnation, not Postmortem Opportunity. There is nothing in the claim that judgment follows death that is problematic for the Postmortem Opportunity theorist.”
— James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 109Let me take the three strongest objections to the reading I have developed, and let me answer each one honestly.
I understand why it feels that way. But “natural” readings depend on the assumptions we bring. If you have been told since Sunday school that death seals your fate, then you will read “after that comes judgment” as confirming what you already believe. But the text itself provides no timeline. “After” can mean one second later. It can mean a thousand years later. The verse does not specify, and we should not pretend it does.34
Gregory Boyd makes the parallel observation that many events fall between Christ’s death and His second coming. Why, then, can we not suppose there may be events (including a saving encounter) between human death and judgment?35
Because the writer is not talking about the offer. The writer is talking about the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. Judgment enters the argument as the second element in the parallel: death-then-judgment mirrors sacrifice-then-second-appearing. The mention of judgment grounds the typology. It does not teach a deadline for grace.36
“But doesn’t the urgency of the gospel collapse if grace continues?”
Not at all. The urgency to come to Christ now remains real and intense. Today is still the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2; see Chapter 5). But urgency is a pastoral appeal, not a metaphysical fence. A doctor who says, “You need this surgery now,” is not saying, “And if you wait, I will refuse to operate.” The warning is real. The love behind the warning is also real, and that love does not stop at a calendar date.
This claim is common, but it does not hold up well under examination. The New Testament says remarkably little about the mechanics of what happens between death and judgment. The Apostles’ Creed itself confesses that Christ “descended to the dead” (see Appendix A), an act that places a saving mission between the death of Christ and His resurrection. First Peter 3:18–19 and 4:6 describe the gospel being preached to the dead. These texts do not sit comfortably with the claim that Scripture consistently and uniformly teaches that death ends all saving possibility.37
And the universal-scope passages paint a picture of divine love that does not stop at the grave. Romans 5:18 speaks of justification and life for “all men.” First Corinthians 15:22 says that in Christ all shall be made alive. Colossians 1:20 envisions reconciliation of “all things.” If the offer truly ends at death, these sweeping promises become impossible for the billions who died without hearing the gospel (see Appendix D).38
I want to be honest about what I am not saying. I am not saying the verse teaches postmortem opportunity. It does not. I am saying it does not foreclose it. There is a difference. A text that is silent on a question cannot be used to answer it. And Hebrews 9:27 is silent on the question of whether God’s saving offer continues beyond the moment of death. That silence is not a loophole. It is the honest state of the evidence.
Plain Words
Apokeitai (“it is appointed, laid up”): the Greek word for “appointed” in Hebrews 9:27. It means something is stored up or waiting, like a package set aside for later. Hapax (“once, one time only”): the hinge-word of the argument, used in both v. 27 (humans die once) and v. 28 (Christ was offered once). Krisis (“judgment, decision, evaluation”): a general word for a judicial process. It does not automatically mean condemnation. Perimortem (“around the time of death”): the encounter with God that takes place during the dying process, before biological death is complete.
Let me gather the threads. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that humans die once and that judgment follows. It does not tell us when judgment follows. It does not tell us that the offer of salvation ends at the moment of death. It does not speak to the dying process at all. Its purpose in its own context is to illustrate the once-for-all character of Christ’s sacrifice. And the second half of the parallel, verse 28, points forward to a future saving act: Christ will appear a second time “to save.”
The verse is real. Judgment is real. I am not asking you to throw it out. I am asking you to let it say what it says and to stop making it say what it does not.
And here is where it matters most. Imagine you are sitting beside someone you love as they die. Maybe it is a parent. Maybe it is a spouse. They never professed faith. You have prayed for them for years, and now their breathing is shallow, and the room is quiet.
Hebrews 9:27 does not lock that door. It does not say that the God who loved them through every year of their life has now, in this moment, withdrawn. It does not say that the same Christ who turned to a dying criminal on a cross beside Him and said “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43; see Chapter 24) is silent at this bedside.
The door does close. I believe it closes at the end of the final judgment, when every soul has stood before God in His fullest glory and given a final answer. That is the true deadline. But the verse we have studied in this chapter does not place that deadline at the last heartbeat. It does not even try to.
That matters for how we pray. It matters for what we say at funerals. It matters for the hope we carry into the rooms where people are dying. If Hebrews 9:27 does not close the door at death, then the Christian at the deathbed is free to pray with expectation, not just grief. The God who pursued us in life has not walked away in death.
If Marian could read this chapter, I think she would set the book down for a moment and let herself breathe. Her husband of fifty years was not snatched from grace at his final heartbeat. The God who loved him then loves him still. And the judgment that awaits is not a sentencing without appeal. It is an encounter with the living Christ, who appears “a second time, not to deal with sin but to save.”
That is what the verse says. And that is hope enough to keep breathing.
↑ 1. Millard Erickson, How Shall They Be Saved? The Destiny of Those Who Do Not Hear of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 131. Erickson is often the first voice cited on this passage, and his phrasing has become nearly standard in evangelical systematic theologies.
↑ 2. Ronald Nash, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), ch. 7. Nash adds the interpretive gloss “at the moment of death,” which the Greek text does not contain.
↑ 3. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), ch. 41. Grudem treats Hebrews 9:27 as part of a cluster of texts establishing death as the final boundary for the saving offer.
↑ 4. J. I. Packer, “Can the Dead Be Converted?,” Christianity Today, February 1998. Packer’s treatment is discussed at length in Stephen Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave: Is Salvation Possible in the Afterlife? (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 87–89. Jonathan notes that Packer quickly moves from the text to an argument about prevenient grace without explaining how the text itself teaches against postmortem opportunity.
↑ 5. The argument of Hebrews 7–10 is tightly constructed. Christ is a priest “after the order of Melchizedek” (7:17), whose priesthood is permanent (7:24). He “always lives to make intercession” (7:25). The old covenant required repeated sacrifice; the new covenant rests on a single, sufficient offering. For a detailed analysis, see William Lane, Hebrews 9–13, Word Biblical Commentary 47B (Dallas: Word, 1991), 244–49.
↑ 6. The verb apokeitai (ἀπόκειται) is a compound of apo (“away”) and keimai (“to lie, to be placed”). BDAG defines it as “to be put away for safekeeping, be stored up.” Its use in Colossians 1:5 and 2 Timothy 4:8 is positive, referring to blessings stored up. The verb describes what awaits, not a mechanistic process. See BDAG, s.v. “ἀπόκειμαι.”
↑ 7. The parallelism between hapax (ἅπαξ) in v. 27 and v. 28 is widely recognized in the commentaries. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 228–31, treats the “once” as the structural key to the whole passage.
↑ 8. The phrase meta de touto (μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο) simply denotes sequence. It is equivalent to “and after this.” It does not carry the sense of immediacy that English readers sometimes hear in “after that.” See Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 481–82.
↑ 9. The Greek krisis (κρίσις) covers a wide range: decision, evaluation, judicial process, judgment. BDAG defines it as “the process of judging.” In the LXX, krisis translates the Hebrew mishpat, which includes both justice and the act of governing rightly. The word does not inherently mean condemnation. See BDAG, s.v. “κρίσις”; cf. TDNT 3:933–41.
↑ 10. This is the most basic exegetical point about the passage, and it is affirmed across a broad spectrum of commentators. Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 419–21, treats the parallel as typological and does not extract a timeline from it.
↑ 11. James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity: A Biblical and Theological Assessment of Salvation after Death (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), 108–9.
↑ 12. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 90.
↑ 13. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 89. Jonathan writes: “Whilst arguments from silence are always uncertain, it is nevertheless of interest that biblical commentaries do not choose to use this verse in the manner that it is often quoted in contemporary evangelicalism, and make no reference to this verse as referring to death being the end of human probation.”
↑ 14. Most evangelical eschatological frameworks place the final judgment at the Second Coming (premillennialism) or at the end of a millennial period. In either case, billions of people have already died and have not yet been judged. The interval between death and judgment is a theological commonplace, even for those who deny postmortem opportunity.
↑ 15. Field, “The Andover Theory of Future Probation,” 469, as cited in Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 88. Field argues that the end of human probation is not death but the final judgment, and that “We have neglected the eschatology of Scripture, and made death the judgment and death the coming of Christ.”
↑ 16. This is an argument from the silence of the text, and I am aware that arguments from silence carry limited weight. But the burden of proof falls on those who claim the text teaches something it does not say. I am not arguing that the verse teaches postmortem opportunity. I am arguing that it does not foreclose it.
↑ 17. Andrew Hronich, Once Loved, Always Loved: A Fresh Case for Universal Restoration (forthcoming), ch. 7. Hronich’s treatment of Hebrews 9:27 is one of the most thorough recent engagements with the passage from the side of those who defend salvation beyond death.
↑ 18. Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 109. Boyd, as Hronich records, makes the same point: “While this verse certainly rules out reincarnation, it does not rule out the possibility of intermediate events between death and judgment.” See Gregory Boyd and Paul Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 186.
↑ 19. Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 109.
↑ 20. Hronich, Once Loved, Always Loved, ch. 7. Hronich’s examples include Lazarus of Bethany (John 11), the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17), Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:35–43), and the various resuscitations in the Old Testament (1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:32–37; 13:20–21). He notes that not all those who were resuscitated were believers prior to death.
↑ 21. Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 109.
↑ 22. The Great White Throne judgment of Revelation 20:11–15 is developed more fully in Appendix C, which treats the divine-presence model of hell (following R. Zachary Manis) and the question of what it means for every soul to stand before God’s full, unshielded presence.
↑ 23. Hronich, Once Loved, Always Loved, ch. 7.
↑ 24. The Greek noun sōtēria (σωτηρία) means “deliverance, salvation.” In the context of Hebrews 9:28, Christ’s second appearing is explicitly for the purpose of saving. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, 249, treats this as an eschatological salvation at the parousia (second coming), which aligns with the book’s claim that the final judgment is the true deadline, not the moment of death.
↑ 25. Hebrews 7:25 is one of the most striking statements about Christ’s ongoing intercessory work in the New Testament. If Christ “always lives to make intercession,” the question becomes: for whom does He intercede, and when does He stop? The verse says He saves “to the uttermost” (Greek eis to panteles, “completely, entirely, forever”). See Bruce, Hebrews, 172–74.
↑ 26. Erickson, How Shall They Be Saved?, 131. Erickson reads the transition as “invariable,” but the Greek simply describes sequence. No adverb of immediacy modifies meta de touto.
↑ 27. Nash, Is Jesus the Only Savior?, ch. 7. Both Beilby (Postmortem Opportunity, 108) and Hronich (Once Loved, Always Loved, ch. 7) note that Nash’s reading inserts a theological conclusion (“at the moment of death”) that has no basis in the Greek text.
↑ 28. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 88. Jonathan reproduces Packer’s argument in detail and notes the shift from exegesis to theological assertion.
↑ 29. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 88–89. Jonathan writes: “One can also argue that Scripture does not argue against this concept either. In fact, one might argue that the prevenient grace of a Divine Being who is described as Love (1 John 4:8, 16) would continue to reach to those who remained unchanged whilst on earth.”
↑ 30. Grudem, Systematic Theology, ch. 41. Grudem’s treatment is part of a broader argument about the finality of death; it relies on Hebrews 9:27 as one strand in a rope of proof-texts rather than as a standalone demonstration.
↑ 31. Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 108.
↑ 32. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 89.
↑ 33. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, 244–49; Bruce, Hebrews, 228–31; Cockerill, Hebrews, 419–21. Each of these commentators treats Hebrews 9:27–28 as part of the sacrificial typology without drawing the conclusion that death ends all saving possibility. Ellingworth, Hebrews, 481–82, similarly treats the passage as about the singularity of Christ’s offering.
↑ 34. On the role of theological presuppositions in shaping the reading of eschatological texts, see Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 156–58, where he argues that “one’s appraisal of what a text says (or doesn’t say)” is “determined less by a reading of the text itself and more by beliefs about Scripture’s broader stance on relevant matters.”
↑ 35. Boyd and Eddy, Across the Spectrum, 186, as cited in Hronich, Once Loved, Always Loved, ch. 7. Boyd observes that there are numerous events between Christ’s death and second coming, so the parallel does not require that human death leads directly and without interval to judgment.
↑ 36. This is the central exegetical point of the chapter and rests on the literary structure of Hebrews 9:23–28, which is organized around the typological comparison between the old sacrificial system and Christ’s once-for-all offering. Jonathan, Grace beyond the Grave, 89, puts it concisely: “The point of this verse is to illustrate the once-for-all aspect of the work of Christ, as opposed to the unfinished nature of the Old Testament sacrificial system, and is not a reference to personal eschatology.”
↑ 37. The descent of Christ to the dead (1 Peter 3:18–19; 4:6; Ephesians 4:8–10) is developed fully in Appendix A. The creedal confession “He descended to the dead” has been part of Christian faith since at least the fourth century.
↑ 38. The universal-scope passages (Romans 5:18; 1 Corinthians 15:22; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:10–11; 1 Timothy 4:10) are developed fully in Appendix D.
↑ 39. Hronich, Once Loved, Always Loved, ch. 7. Hronich’s rhetorical question about the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:18) is one of the most striking moments in his treatment of the passage. If Christ holds the keys, the question is what He intends to do with them.
↑ 40. On the distinction between an analogical use of death-and-judgment (as illustration) and a doctrinal statement about personal eschatology, see Lane, Hebrews 9–13, 244–45. Lane treats the death-and-judgment reference as supplying the first half of a typological comparison, not as an independent teaching on the intermediate state.
↑ 41. The concept of middle knowledge (Latin scientia media, “knowledge in between”) originates with the sixteenth-century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina. On its application to the fairness of the saving offer, see Timothy A. Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2022), ch. 14. Jerry Walls’s concept of “optimal grace” develops this thought: God gives each soul the appeal most likely to win it, without coercion. See Jerry L. Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), ch. 5. The fullest treatment of middle knowledge and optimal grace in this book appears in Chapter 7.
↑ 42. Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity, 108, lists Hebrews 9:27 alongside Luke 16:19–31, Luke 13:25, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Corinthians 6:2, Psalm 49, and 2 Clement 8:3 as “passages that have been marshaled to support the notion that one’s salvific status is fixed at death.” Each of these receives its own chapter in this book.