"Being confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ."--PHIL. I. 6 (_R.V._) The Intermediate Life is not a state of sleep, but a waiting time. But is it a time of mere waiting, and of unemployed quiescence? This would be no better than sleep. There must be a reason for the waiting. And what other reason can there be than that, during it, there is something to be done which can only be done then? S. Paul speaks, in the text, of work which he is confident will be carried on till it is brought to completion on the Day of Judgment. What is this work? We have seen that the Scriptural conception of the happiness of heaven is that it consists in the sight of GOD, the Beatific Vision. But there can enter the heavenly city nothing that defileth, nothing imperfect. It is the pure in heart who shall see GOD. Isaiah dare hardly approach the vision of GOD'S glory on earth, because he felt himself to be a man of unclean lips. The very heavens, the stars themselves, are not clean in GOD'S sight. And at death, who is pure? Who is free from stain? Who is perfect, that he should be fit to look upon GOD? Then, if no one that is imperfect can enter heaven, and none are perfect at death, can we not see what the work is that has to be done between death and the Resurrection? It is this work of purification, that the soul may be fitted for the vision of GOD in heaven. And this is what S. Paul is speaking of in the text. The work begun in life, under the conditions of earth's life, shall not stop at death, but, under new conditions, shall be carried on to perfection until the day of Jesus Christ.