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Originally Posted by Findegil
After his return Gandalf confirmes, that he was outside space and time. This can in the context of Middle-Earth only mean that he was with Eru.
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What he actually says is
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Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
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The wording is somewhat ambiguous -
out of thought and time could (I'm not saying does) mean something as simple as being unconscious and unaware of time passing, and
roads that I will not tell could also refer to the West - he wouldn't say explicitly he'd been with the Valar as that would reveal his Maiarin nature.
Nevertheless, your argument that, being incarnated in a mortal body, he died and went to Eru like a mortal is convincing for me, and the Prof himself confirms it in Letter 156:
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Gandalf really 'died', and was changed[...] He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up the plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure.
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No need to assume Saruman's death was different, although Authority's verdict on him certainly was.
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Originally Posted by Inziladun
The similarity I see is that both were given a judgement, it seems, by someone, in the form of the wind that takes them.
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I think the wind obviously points to Manwe. If we accept that Saruman died a mortal's death, Manwe probably didn't pass judgement on Saruman himself, but we could say he refused Saruman's appeal and referred him to Eru's Supreme Court.
(x-ed with
Legate, who makes some valid points which I still have to digest.)