Introduction: The Frangibility of Reality

Energy Leaning on Energy

Right now, as you read this, you are energy leaning against energy. The chair supporting you, the screen before you, your own body – all of it, at the atomic level, is simply energy held in particular patterns. Einstein showed us that matter and energy are interchangeable: E=mc². The solid, tangible world we experience is, fundamentally, not solid at all. At the subatomic level, atoms are almost entirely empty space, held together by forces we barely understand. The electrons orbiting the nucleus, the quarks composing protons and neutrons – these are better understood as probability clouds of energy than as tiny billiard balls.

And what sustains these patterns? What keeps atoms from flying apart? What grounds all reality and holds the universe in existence moment by moment?

The Apostle Paul tells us plainly: “In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The writer to the Hebrews adds that Christ is “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). God is not a distant clockmaker who wound up the universe and stepped back. He is the active, sustaining force – the energising power – that keeps every atom in existence. If God were to withdraw his sustaining presence for even an instant, the universe would cease to be.

This isn’t mysticism or poetic license. It’s physics meeting theology. The force that sustains the energy patterns we call “matter” is divine power itself.

Physics and Eschatology

For most Christians, this sounds like abstract physics with little relevance to daily faith or eternal hope. What does quantum mechanics have to do with the resurrection of the dead? What does Einstein’s relativity have to do with the question of what happens when we die?

Everything, as it turns out.

Because if we understand that time and space are not absolute, eternal realities but created features of this universe – and that God exists outside the very spacetime he created – it fundamentally changes how we approach eschatology. Most evangelical eschatology, whether premillennial, postmillennial, or even some versions of amillennialism, operates on outdated Newtonian assumptions. It assumes absolute time – a universal clock ticking away the same for everyone, everywhere. It imagines eternity as an infinitely long timeline stretching forward. It pictures the afterlife as occurring “later” on some cosmic calendar.

But what if heaven isn’t later? What if it’s outside?

Einstein and Hawking showed us that time is relative, that it bends and warps, that it is fundamentally linked to space as a single fabric: spacetime. Time is not the stage on which the universe performs; it is part of the performance itself. And if time is created – if it had a beginning at the moment God spoke “Let there be light” – then God Himself cannot be bound by it. The Creator must exist outside his creation.

This insight demolishes some of our most stubborn eschatological assumptions and solves problems that have plagued Christian thinking for centuries. Where are the dead “stored” between death and final judgment? How can there be an “intermediate state” that somehow lasts for two thousand years from the believer’s perspective but also involves being immediately “present with the Lord”? Why do we need bodily resurrection if we already possess immortal souls that go to heaven at death?

These questions create logical knots that most Christians simply ignore, accepting incoherent frameworks because “that’s what we’ve always believed” or because they’ve attached themselves to eschatological labels – premillennial, postmillennial, amillennial – without thinking through what those labels actually entail.

The Problem

The uncomfortable truth is that most contemporary Christians – respectfully including many pastors and theologians in my experience – do not have a coherent eschatology. They have labels. They have slogans. They have bumper-sticker theology about “the Rapture” or “already but not yet” or “this-worldly hope.” But when pressed on the details, the framework falls apart.

Ask the average premillennialist: “Where are the righteous dead right now? Are they conscious? If so, where? If they’re already ‘with the Lord’ in heaven, why do they need to be resurrected for a thousand-year earthly kingdom? And if judgment doesn’t happen until after the millennium, does that mean someone who died in AD 50 has been waiting in some holding pattern for two thousand years?”

The answers, when they come at all, are vague hand-waving about “soul sleep” or “Abraham’s bosom” or “paradise” as some temporary waiting room. The pieces don’t fit together.

Or ask someone who holds to eternal conscious torment: “If the wicked are already suffering in hell the moment they die, what is the purpose of the resurrection and final judgment? Are they resurrected just to be sentenced to continue the punishment they’re already experiencing? And doesn’t Revelation 20:14 say that death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire – meaning death itself is destroyed, not that people continue existing in death forever?”

Again: incoherence.

The problem isn’t that these are bad people or careless thinkers. The problem is that they’ve inherited frameworks that were constructed piecemeal over centuries, often in reaction to various heresies, and never fully integrated. Augustine gave us one set of assumptions about the soul and time. The Reformers kept some and rejected others. Dispensationalism added another layer. And now we’re left with what I feel is eschatological Frankenstein’s monsters – stitched together from incompatible parts, shambling along because we’re too polite or too tired to admit they don’t work.

I know this incoherence intimately, because I lived in it for decades.

The Storage Problem – Where My Journey Began

I was raised in the Christadelphian movement – a restorationist group that rejected the Trinity, traditional Christology, and the doctrine of the immortal soul. For fifty years, I believed that when people die, they simply cease to exist in any conscious form. The dead are dead – truly, completely dead – until the resurrection. “Soul sleep,” though Christadelphians dislike the term because it implies an immortal soul that sleeps, captures the idea: there is no conscious intermediate state. You die, time passes (from the perspective of the living), and then – in what feels like the very next moment to you – you are resurrected at Christ’s return.

This was paired with premillennialism: Christ would return, raise the dead (both righteous and wicked), judge them, and then establish a literal thousand-year kingdom on earth with its capital in Jerusalem. The righteous would be granted immortality and reign with Christ. The wicked would be destroyed – annihilated, not eternally tormented.

It was a clean system. Internally coherent. No immortal souls floating around. No eternal conscious torment. No theological gymnastics required.

But it had one massive problem that nagged at me for years: the storage question.

If Christ hasn’t returned yet, and if judgment happens at his return, where are the dead right now? The answer was: nowhere. They don’t exist. They’re unconscious, non-existent, waiting (though they can’t experience waiting because they don’t exist to experience anything) for resurrection.

But this created a strange asymmetry. Paul says, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Jesus tells the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). (I know well the Christadelphian gymnastics with the text on that one!) The rich man and Lazarus are conscious immediately after death (Luke 16:19-31). Even if we grant that some of these are parables or figures of speech, the cumulative weight of Scripture suggests something happens at death – not thousands of years later at a future resurrection.

When I left Christadelphianism and embraced orthodoxy, I somewhat retained my commitment to conditional immortality (I’ll explain why later) but gradually abandoned premillennialism for amillennialism. This solved some problems but created new ones. If there’s no future millennium, and if the “new heavens and new earth” are the final state rather than an earthly kingdom, then what happens in the interim? Where are the dead?

The traditional Christian answer – that the righteous go to heaven and the wicked go to hell, both conscious, both waiting for a final resurrection and judgment – seemed to me to simply push the problem around. Why resurrect people who are already experiencing their final state? What does the resurrection add? And if they’re being punished or rewarded already, what’s the point of a final judgment?

This is the storage problem: the logical gap between death and resurrection that most eschatological frameworks cannot adequately explain.

And it was this problem – combined with reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell about twenty years ago – that started me thinking about time, space, eternity, and what it means for God to exist outside his creation.

The solution, I came to believe, is that heaven is outside time.

Addressing the Surface Similarity – This Is Not Christadelphianism Redux

Before I go further, I need to address what will be obvious to anyone familiar with Christadelphian theology: the framework I’m about to present retains some distinctively Christadelphian elements, most notably conditional immortality and annihilationism. To someone observing from the outside, this might look like I’ve simply returned to my roots with a thin Trinitarian veneer painted over the top.

That would be a serious misreading.

Yes, I have returned to conditional immortality – the belief that humans do not possess inherent immortality, and that eternal life is God’s gift rather than an intrinsic property of human nature. Yes, I believe the wicked are ultimately annihilated rather than suffering eternal conscious torment. These are significant areas of agreement with my former tradition.

But the differences are equally significant – and they’re not cosmetic.

What I rejected from Christadelphianism: I rejected anti-Trinitarianism entirely. I now confess full Nicene orthodoxy: God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three persons, one being. I rejected their Christology, which reduced Jesus to an extraordinary human being rather than the incarnate second person of the Trinity. I rejected premillennialism and the dispensational focus on ethnic Israel’s restoration to a physical kingdom. I rejected the idea that resurrection happens at some future moment when Christ returns to establish an earthly millennium.

What I added that Christadelphianism never taught: The framework I’m proposing centres on the idea that heaven exists outside time and space, and that judgment occurs instantaneously at death rather than at some future event. This is not Christadelphian theology. Christadelphians believe in soul sleep and future judgment. I believe the righteous step immediately outside time into God’s presence at death, and that judgment is not a future courtroom scene but an immediate determination of one’s status before God.

I’ve integrated bridal theology – the idea that the ageless purpose of God is to expand his community from the Trinity to include a bride, the church, in eternal loving relationship. This is drawn from orthodox Christianity, from writers like John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and Frank Viola, not from Christadelphian sources.

The crucial difference is this: Christadelphian eschatology is premillennial and dispensational, focused on a this-worldly, temporal kingdom. My framework is amillennial, focused on the merger of heaven and earth in a final state where “God is all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). These are fundamentally different trajectories.

So yes, there is overlap. But this is integration, not regression. I’m not returning to Christadelphianism; I’m synthesising what I believe are biblical truths from multiple traditions – including some that Christadelphianism got right – into a coherent whole that is fully orthodox and Trinitarian.

If this makes you uncomfortable, I understand. But I’d ask you to engage with the arguments rather than dismissing the framework based on surface similarities to a heterodox movement.

What This Essay Proposes

Here’s what I’m going to argue in this essay – and I’m putting it upfront, so you know where we’re heading.

I believe judgment occurs instantaneously at death. Not at some future event. Not after a waiting period. At the moment of death, your status before God is revealed. If you are constitutionally righteous in Christ, you step immediately outside time into God’s presence. If not, you cease to exist. Your body corrupts naturally, and the breath of life returns to God. That’s it.

The righteous dead, I propose, exist outside time in heaven. They’re not “waiting” for anything because from their perspective – and from God’s – there is no waiting. They are present with the Lord. They may well be participating in what we call angelic ministry throughout history, observing and engaging with the unfolding story of redemption. When Paul says, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” I think he means exactly that – immediately, literally.

At Christ’s return, heaven and earth merge. Not replacement, but transformation. The physical universe isn’t discarded; it’s transfigured, caught up into the timeless reality of God’s presence. The righteous are resurrected – spirits reunited with glorified bodies. Living believers are transformed. Together, we participate in what Scripture calls the new heavens and new earth, where God becomes “all in all.”

The wicked? They have no part in this. They were annihilated at death. No resurrection. No second chance. No eternal conscious torment either. Death is their end. When Revelation speaks of “the second death,” I think it’s describing the destruction of death itself – the final enemy eliminated from creation.

This framework solves the storage problem. It makes sense of immediate post-death consciousness without requiring soul sleep or holding tanks. It eliminates the theological and moral problems of eternal conscious torment. And it’s grounded in the nature of God as the one who exists outside his creation, sustaining all things.

I’m not claiming this is airtight or that I’ve got it all figured out. But I think it’s more coherent than the alternatives, and I think it takes both Scripture and the nature of reality seriously.

A Roadmap

Here’s how this essay unfolds.

First, I’ll lay out the foundational commitments that underpin this framework – the theological, philosophical, and hermeneutical building blocks. This includes why I believe God exists outside time and space, what conditional immortality means and why I hold it, and how I approach Scripture (particularly apocalyptic literature like Revelation).

Second, I’ll tackle the fate of the wicked – addressing eternal conscious torment, universalism, and annihilationism in turn. I need to do this early because it’s impossible to understand the framework without knowing where I land on this question. I’ll explain why I reject both eternal conscious torment and universalism, and why I believe annihilationism is the most biblically coherent position.

Third, I’ll present the eschatological framework itself – what happens at death, what the intermediate state looks like, what occurs at Christ’s return, and what the final state entails. This is the heart of the essay.

Fourth, I’ll provide detailed biblical support for each element, working through key texts carefully and showing how they fit together.

Fifth, I’ll address objections and difficult passages – the Great White Throne judgment, “eternal punishment” language, and other texts that seem to complicate the picture. I’ll also acknowledge areas where I’m still working things out and where humility is required.

Finally, I’ll close with why I think coherence matters, what questions remain open, and an invitation for dialogue and feedback.

Fair warning: this is going to be long. Eschatology done properly requires careful exegesis, systematic thinking, and engagement with alternative views. If you’re looking for a quick read, this isn’t it. But if you’re genuinely interested in thinking through these questions, I hope you’ll find it worthwhile.

My Journey from Christadelphian to Orthodox

I came to these conclusions through a long and often uncomfortable journey. There were no clean breaks, no sudden moments of clarity where everything fell into place. Instead, there were years of uncertainty, false starts, and genuine wrestling with questions I couldn’t easily answer.

As I mentioned, I spent fifty years in the Christadelphian movement. I was baptised into it. I married within it. I raised my children in it. For half a century, I believed I had “the truth” – that we alone had recovered the authentic Christianity of the first century, free from the corruptions of creeds and councils. We rejected the Trinity as pagan philosophy. We insisted on conditional immortality and annihilationism. We held to a literalistic premillennialism with Jesus returning to establish a physical kingdom in Jerusalem.

In 2017, after years of questioning and a crisis of faith, I left – slowly, with lots and angst and discomfort and uncertainty. The reasons are complex and not the subject of this essay, but the short version is that I could no longer deny the Trinity or the full deity of Christ. The biblical testimony was too strong, the patristic witness too clear. I had been wrong – deeply, fundamentally wrong – about the nature of God.

But leaving Christadelphianism didn’t mean I instantly adopted a neat, packaged evangelical eschatology. I entered a period of profound uncertainty. I didn’t know what to believe about the afterlife, about judgment, about resurrection. I had rejected my old framework, but I hadn’t yet found a new one that made sense.

For a couple of years, I simply sat in that uncertainty. I read widely – N.T. Wright, John Stott, F.F. Bruce, Wayne Grudem, John Piper. I enrolled in a Master of Divinity at Brisbane School of Theology. I attended a Baptist church where I was free to ask questions and work things out without pressure to conform to a particular eschatological position.

During my Apologetics course, I briefly tried to hold to eternal conscious torment. It was the “safe” orthodox position, after all. But the more I thought about it – theologically, exegetically, morally – the less it made sense to me. I couldn’t reconcile infinite punishment for finite sins with the God revealed in Christ.

At another point, I flirted with universalism. The idea that God’s love ultimately wins everyone was appealing. But I couldn’t square it with the biblical testimony to judgment’s finality, and it seemed to me to undermine human agency and the seriousness of sin.

So where did that leave me? Back at annihilationism – but now I had to figure out how that fit with orthodox Trinitarian theology, with amillennialism, with the immediate post-death consciousness that Scripture seems to teach.

This framework didn’t emerge because I wanted to be provocative or different. It emerged reluctantly, as I tried to piece together a coherent picture from Scripture, from theology, and from an honest reckoning with the nature of God and reality. I don’t claim to have it all figured out. But I think what follows is more biblically faithful and internally consistent than the alternatives I’ve encountered.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “He’s just cobbled together bits from different traditions that don’t belong together,” I understand that reaction. But I’d ask you to judge the framework on its merits, not on whether it fits neatly into pre-existing categories.

Now let’s get into the substance.

The next chapter is here.