September 8 – State of Being at Death

    Philippians 1:21-23: "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, this means fruitful labor for me; I do not know which I prefer. I am hard-pressed between the two; my desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better."

    Some Christians believe that after bodily death, the spirits of these same people are in a state of sleep until the end of time when a resurrection will occur in order to have a final judgment. I believe that those who believe in this have arrived at this conclusion partly because of the metaphorical word "sleep", which is used by Jesus and Paul to refer to physical death.

    In Mark 5:21-43, we have the story of Jesus raising the daughter of Jairus from the dead. In verse 35, we are clearly told that the girl was physically dead, which prompted the messengers to question bothering Jesus any further. Nonetheless, Jesus tells Jairus to not fear but to believe. When they arrive at the house of Jairus, Jesus asks why the mourners were making such a commotion, when the girl was "not dead but asleep". She was clearly dead, and Jesus was not refuting that claim, but simply using a metaphor. He really did make her spirit come back into a dead body.

    In John 11, we have the story of raising Lazarus from the dead. In verses 11-14 we read, " 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.' The disciples said to him, 'Master, if he has fallen asleep, he will be alright.' Jesus had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead.' " Jesus clearly uses the terms of physical death and sleep interchangeably.

    Paul also does the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15, which is his lengthy discourse on the future resurrection of the physical body. In verse 6 he contrasts the state of two different groups: those who are still alive and those who have fallen asleep. In the context of his discourse, "fallen asleep" has to mean physical death. He uses the same language in verses 18 and 20.

    None of the previous three examples, however, disprove the concept of soul sleep, because they are all referencing physical death. As Christians, we believe that at physical death, the spirit departs the body and goes elsewhere. Where does it go, and what is its state of being?

    Before we can answer the question of where a departed spirit lives, we have to think about what a spirit is. Christians believe that there are only three major types of spirits – God, angels/demons, and people's. Spirits are other-worldly, inter-dimensional beings that can live apart from the physical world that we feel and experience every day as "living" entities. That physical world can be seen, felt, heard, smelled in the space of width, length, depth, and time. Any other dimensions that exist would be considered in some way as spiritual (metaphysical). The Bible does refer to spiritual places as seeming to be physically located, although I believe that this reference is only to help us humans to grasp the reality of a spiritual dimension, which does not need a physical place to exist. One passage that gives a glimpse into the physical references of the "grave" and its opposite term "heaven" is in Ephesians 4, where Paul quotes part of Psalm 68. He refers to Jesus descending to the lower parts of the earth and then ascending far above all the heavens. Lets break this down into specifics.

    The concept of the afterlife in the Old Testament is nebulous at best. Many ancient cultures believed in an afterlife of sorts, which is why the dead were sometimes buried with personal belongings. The departed spirit needed some things in order to live well in the next life. We get some mixed thoughts from the Old Covenant on this idea. David states in Psalm 6:5, "For in death there is no remembrance of you; who can give you praise in Sheol?" One could infer from this the idea of "soul sleep", because David recognizes a place for departed spirits, but implies that they may "know nothing". Psalm 30:9 and Isaiah 38:18 also echo this sentiment. David furthermore predicts a resurrection from this state in Psalm 15:10, where he states that "you will not abandon me to Sheol". This line is also referenced by Peter in Acts 2:27, as he talked about Jesus dying and resurrecting. David furthermore states in Psalm 17:15 that "when I awake, I shall be satisfied in seeing your likeness." These verses alone could make a good argument for "soul sleep".

    From here, though, let us look at the transliterated word above – Sheol. This Hebrew word is often translated as "hell", "hades", or "the grave". The closer word to the concept in English is "grave", but it is not referring to a physical piece of dirt in which a dead body is laid. It means the "abode of the dead". This simple definition is a general term without reference to the home of the righteous or the unrighteous.

    In 1 Samuel 28, King Saul is in desperate straits to know the will of God, who has been silent on giving him direction. Saul disguises himself and goes to a medium, intending on speaking with the dead, specifically with the great prophet Samuel, who had recently died. (I personally believe this event to be a one-off occurrence allowed by God, and not a general possibility of contacting dead spirits, which was forbidden by God in Deuteronomy 18:11.) In 1 Samuel 28:15, the departed spirit of Samuel indeed speaks to Saul, saying, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" The Hebrew word here that is translated as "disturbed" has nothing to do with being asleep. It has a simple meaning of "being agitated or shaken". Samuel did not imply that he was asleep and then aroused from sleep. He was simply in a state of consciousness. Interestingly, he tells Saul that "tomorrow, you and your sons shall be with me." There is no differentiation between the righteous and the unrighteous, if we assume that Samuel was on the side of righteousness, and that Saul was on the side of unrighteousness (seeing that God had "forsaken" him as king, since his heart was not fully committed). That is an assumption that I am not really endorsing, nor is it relevant for this topic. What is relevant is the fact that Samuel was conscious.

    Jesus gives us the best picture that we have for the depiction of Sheol or "hades", since his story was written in Greek. Hades is the direct Greek correlation to "Sheol". In Luke 16:19-21, Jesus tells the story of the unnamed rich man and the named paralytic Lazarus. (Apparently, Lazarus was a common name of that time, and should not be confused with the Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus raised from the dead. I also do not believe that this story was simply a parable, because Jesus named Lazarus specifically, whereas there are no names associated with people in all of his other parables.) When Lazarus dies, he is "carried" to Abraham's side, which was a place of "comfort", as Abraham mentions. The rich man is in torment not far from where Abraham and Lazarus are, but which is separated by a great chasm. Here we have the delineation of the righteous and the unrighteous in Sheol – one in torment and one in comfort. Both are conscious and not sleeping.

Jesus also gives us one more glimpse of the afterlife before his resurrection. While dying on the cross, he replies to the repentant fellow executee on his cross, "today you will be with me in paradise". This is almost a parallel of what Samuel had told King Saul. Why would it matter to tell someone that any type of paradise would await him, if he would never enjoy it bu    t simply be asleep? That makes no sense, to tease someone with bliss, then to never let him enjoy that bliss. After all, when one is asleep, there is no enjoyment (or torment, for that matter) experienced or felt.

    While it is not explicitly described in the New Testament, the following is what I believe to have occurred during the days of Jesus' physical death. Jesus makes a visit to the "tormented" side of Sheol to proclaim judgment to the unrighteous, either human or demonic, as hinted at in 1 Peter 3:20. (The arguments for, or against, such are outside the scope of this writing.) He then takes the horde of people who are with Abraham in "paradise", and "ascends" to Heaven with them to be with the Father. This is referenced in the aforementioned passage of Paul in Ephesians 4:7-10. None of this activity could have happened if Jesus was asleep in his temporary death.

    One other passage in the New Testament puts these ideas together within the puzzle. In John 14, Jesus states that he is about to return to the Father, who happens to be in Heaven (Matthew 6:9). Sometimes Heaven (the spiritual dimension) seems to be portrayed as "in the heavens" in the New Testament. These instances are often translated as such, almost interchangeably, since the Greek word used for each reference is only one word: "ouranois". This word is mostly used with an article as well, if only for the simple reason of proper Greek grammar: "tois ouranois", the heavens. The context of the passage usually helps us to distinguish between the cosmos (physical space) and an other-dimensional place where we conceive of the Father "residing". Jesus states that he would come back and take the disciples to be where he and the Father would be.

    Finally, when we add the statement of Paul in Philippians 1 (stated above in the preamble), we get a picture of one enjoying fellowship with the entities of the Trinity, not a non-experiential state of unconsciousness). 1 Thessalonians 4:17,18 also agrees with this sentiment: "...so we will be with the Master forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words." I personally can't see how encouraging it would be to look forward to centuries of sleep, only to be awakened to a positive judgment, even one that is totally blissful with no pain or sorrow, and even if centuries of sleep would only feel like one second had elapsed at the awakening.

    One other idea needs to be addressed as well. The previous scripture mentioned – 1 Thessalonians 4 – is a reference to "the rapture", which is also mentioned in Matthew 24. This rapture entails the resurrection of bodies for the spirits of saved individuals. If bodies are then re-united with spirits, does Jesus take them all back to a Heaven, that was previously prepared for only spirits? There are now glorified bodies involved in a possible other-dimensional place that is NOT mentioned specifically in either 1 Thessalonians 4 or Matthew 24. Another possibility is that at this "gathering" the glorified bodies will now live on the current earth, or that the "new heavens and earth" will now begin. In both passages, we are left hanging with the idea of "what happens next?" That answer (of end-time events) is outside the scope of this argument. While the possibility of "soul sleep" might seem plausible to some, I cannot see it as a logical possibility for believers who are meant to experience life to the full (John 10:10), no matter what dimension we are in.