John Murray on the Future Resurrection vs the "disembodied state"

It seems it took a controversialist like N T Wright to get evangelicals thinking more about Christ's return and the future new heavens and new earth, rather than just "dying and going to heaven". Great to read this recently by John Murray, I think first published in 1970:

It is well to take account of the concreteness of this hope. Too frequently the expectation that the Christian entertains is defective in this respect. It is the bliss of what he calls “heaven” and may not partake of the definiteness that characterizes the biblical representation. Or his hope may be framed in terms of bliss that awaits the believer when he departs this life and goes to be with Christ in heaven…But if it is the bliss of the disembodied state that is the focal in the hope of a believer, then the perspective of hope has been gravely diverted from the biblical witness. There are two respects, particularly, in which this is true. First, preoccupation with the disembodied state fails to have prime concern for the honour and glory of Christ… Second, the fault mentioned fails to accord to the resurrection the place it occupies in the salvation of the just.

(Found it in the article, "The Advent of Christ" in Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume 1, pp87f. Reprinted from The English Churchman, August 1970.)

John Calvin on "Heaven", the Resurrection, and the Immortality of the Soul

As usual, Calvin has some helpful comments regarding the human "soul" and what happens after death. These days a number of people have high-lighted the fact that as Christians we often speak too much about heaven in a sense that is less than fully Biblical, with an emphasis on our disembodied spirits "going to heaven" immediately after we die. As Calvin reflected in his commentary on the parallel passages of Matthew 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-40, we see that this concern is not just novel for our times. This is what he says:

And, indeed, if we consider properly the doctrine of Scripture, the life of the soul, apart from the hope of the resurrection, will be a mere dream; for God does not declare that, immediately after the death of the body, souls live, — as if their glory and happiness were already enjoyed by them in perfections — but delays the expectation of them till the last day. I readily acknowledge that the philosophers, who were ignorant of the resurrection of the body, have many discussions about the immortal essence of the soul; but they talk so foolishly about the state of the future life that their opinions have no weight. But since the Scriptures inform us that the spiritual life depends on the hope of the resurrection, and that souls, when separated from the bodies, look forward to it, whoever destroys the resurrection deprives souls also of their immortality.

The apostolic church was captivated with the hope of the resurrection, at Christ's return. May that also be our hope, and may we not be so short-sighted, as to merely look forward to that imperfect, temporary state, in between the death of the body and the resurrection of the body.