The Intermediate State.
I. In this passage we are told that the saints are at rest. "White robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season." The great and anxious question that meets us is, What is to become of us after this life? We fear for ourselves, we are solicitous about our friends, just on this point. Now here Scripture meets our need. It is enough, surely, to be in Abraham's bosom, in our Saviour's presence; it is enough, after the pain and turmoil of this world, to be at rest.
II. Next, in this description it is implied that departed saints, though at rest, have not yet received their actual reward. "Their works do follow them," not yet given in to their Saviour and Judge. They are in an incomplete state in every way, and will be so till the day of judgment, which will introduce them to the joy of their Lord. (1) They are incomplete inasmuch as their bodies are in the dust of the earth, and they wait for the resurrection. (2) They are incomplete as being neither awake nor asleep; they are in a state of rest, not in the full employment of their powers. (3) There is an incompleteness also as regards their place of rest. They are "under the altar," not in the full presence of God, seeing His face and rejoicing in His works, but in a safe and holy treasure-house close by, like Moses "in a cleft of the rock," covered by the hand of God and beholding the skirts of His glory. (4) The intermediate state is incomplete as regards the happiness of the saints. The blessed in their disembodied state admit of an increase of happiness, and receive it. "They cried out in complaint, and white robes were given them; they were soothed and bid wait a while."
III. Nor would it be surprising if, in God's gracious providence, the very purpose of their remaining thus for a season at a distance from heaven were that they may have time for growing in all holy things and perfecting the inward development of the good seed sown in their hearts. As we are expressly told that in one sense the spirits of the just are perfected on their death, it follows that the greater the advance each has made here, the higher will be the line of his subsequent growth between death and the resurrection.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iii., p. 367.