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A Question About Soul Sleep
Question: Hello I am still struggling with the idea of soul sleep, especially with this verse "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." I know sleep and death are interchangeable in the Bible but this does not sound like Paul is talking about bodily sleeping, but actual sleep, like our spirit is asleep until Christ comes again. Also in Job it says, "And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God". Job is clearly saying he will be resurrected one day and only then will He see God, not when he is a spirit...thus pointing to another clue that we are asleep in the intermediate state. Thanks.
Answer: Thank you for your question. The topic of the “intermediate state” has been around since the earliest days of the church. What happens to people who die before the return of Christ? This was the question that plagued the believers in the church of Thessalonica to whom Paul wrote. In a classic passage, Paul tells them:
[1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NKJV] But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Three times Paul refers to the “dead in Christ” as those who have “fallen asleep,” those who “sleep in Jesus,” and those who are “asleep.” In all three occasions, the word for “sleep” is the Greek word koimaō, which simply means “to cause to sleep, put to sleep.” As with many words in most languages, there are also metaphorical uses of the word koimaō. It can mean “to still calm, quiet,” and it can mean “to die.” That is the intended meaning in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that Paul has in mind. He is using “sleep” as a metaphor for those who die in the Lord. As a side note, this word carries the same literal and metaphorical meanings in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) in verses such as Genesis 28:11 (literal sleep) and Genesis 47:30 (metaphor for death).
Now the question that needs to be answered is this: What is said to have “fallen asleep?” Is it the body? The Soul? Both? The Bible clearly teaches that human beings are a body-soul unity. We have physical bodies and immaterial souls. That is how we were created in the very beginning, and that is normal for the length of our existence. What is not normal is death. Death was introduced into God’s very good creation through sin (see Genesis 3:1ff and Romans 5:12-21). Death is an invader, death in an intruder, death is the “last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26). When we die, that body-soul unity is disrupted. The body goes into the grave to sleep and the soul goes to be with the Lord. Paul teaches this in another longer passage that I will quote at length:
[2 Corinthians 5:1-8 NKJV] For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Paul refers to our physical bodies as an “earthly house” a “tent,” and says that we “groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.” He then goes on to describe physical death as a state of “nakedness.” In other words, in this life we’re in our earthly tents. When we die, our earthly tent is destroyed and we are “naked” longing to be “further clothed” with our “heavenly tents” (i.e., our glorified, spiritual bodies). Now Paul closes this passage by saying that when we are “absent from the body” we are “present with the Lord.” That, in a nutshell, is the intermediate state. When we die, we are absent from the body and present with the Lord. The body sleeps in the grave and the soul goes to be with the Lord.
There is no place in Scripture that explicitly states the soul sleeps. The concept of “soul sleep” is inferred from certain places in Scripture, but not explicitly taught. Whenever the Bible uses the word “sleep” metaphorically to refer to death, it is always to say that the body is dead and in the grave. That’s why Paul can say, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Why is it gain? Because Paul will be absent from the body and present with the Lord; he will be beholding the face of Jesus. How can soul sleep be said to be gain. It would seem absurd for Paul to be longing to be dead and unconscious until the return of Christ in glory. To further prove my point, we’re told in Matthew’s Gospel that when Jesus died on the cross, “the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27:52). It is the body that sleeps in the grave, not the soul. One more passage, in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), both men die and their souls are conscious, whether that’s in “Abraham’s bosom” or in “Hades.”
So again, thank you for your question, and I hope I was able to bring some clarity to your mind on this topic.
~ Pastor Carl