Beyond the Threshold of Mortality

. Kaiser Jr.’s 2008 promise-plan of God, Carmen Joy Imes’s 2023 ontologicalnnimago Dei, the holistic substance dualism of John W. Coopernn 1989/2000 and Joshua R. Farris 2020 , and—used only as illumination of the authors’ cosmic horizon—Michael S. Heiser’s 2015 divinecouncil reconstruction. Biblical hope is structured as an organic twostage eschatological arc. Physical death initiates a temporary, conscious intermediate state: the believer is with Messiah in Paradise, while the unrighteous dead await judgment in Sheol/Hades. That interval is not the end of the story. The climax of the promise-plan is bodilynnresurrection (anastasis) and the renewal of the material order. The raised Messiah, as aparchē (firstfruits), guarantees the descent of the New

Jerusalem to a transformed earth Rev. 21 22 , where glorified imagebearers resume royal-priestly vocation and the concrete promises to ethnic Israel remain intact within the one multi-ethnic people of God Rom. 11 17 29 .nnintermediate state, resurrection, promise-plan theology, Sheol, Paradise,nnimago Dei, new creation, non-supersessionism, holistic dualism, Walter C.