The idea of an intermediate state in which souls are kept for judgment, previous to entering heaven or hell, is to be found in the most ancient mythologies and philosophies.
It was a current doctrine with the Jews. Josephus expressly defines the word sheol, which our translators render hell, as "that place wherein the souls of the righteous and of the unrighteous are detained."
It was universally accepted as an article of rational faith in the Christian church until the time of the Protestant reformation.
Dr. Jung Stilling, in his "Theory of Pneumatology," affirms:
"The universal Christian world from the very commencement, believed in an invisible world of spirits, which was divided into three different regions: heaven, or the place of the blessed; hell, or the place of torment; and then a third place, which the Bible calls hades, or the receptacle for the dead, in which those souls which are not ripe for either destination, are fully prepared for that to which they have adapted themselves in this life."
The only theory which can account for the manner in which the scriptural doctrine of an intermediate state has been ignored by Protestant theology,
