Let's Go Back to the Bible

The “Sleep” of Death?

What does it mean when the Bible talks about death as “sleep”?  Does it mean that the person who dies goes into a state of unconsciousness?  Does it mean that the soul itself enters a state of sleep until the return of Jesus?  Or is it talking metaphorically about the body as being “asleep”?  Let’s examine the Scripture to understand this matter.

The Bible does speak about death with the word “sleep.”  Jesus said that Jairus’ daughter was “not dead, but sleeping” (Matt. 9:24), and later He said about Lazarus, “I go that I may wake him up,” when Lazarus was “dead” (John 11:11-14).  Paul wrote “concerning those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess. 4:13).  But is this addressing a physical sleeping?  A sleep of the body?  A sleep of the soul?

When the prophet Daniel foresaw the time of the resurrection, he wrote, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).  Note that the “sleep” is taking place “in the dust of the earth.”  This is an obvious reference to the body, as are the passages from the lips of Jesus above.  But the soul is not in the ground.

The Bible describes what transpires at death.  James said, “The body without the spirit is dead” (Jas. 2:26).  So, it is the body that is dead, not the spirit.  Death of the physical body results when the life-giving spirit (Gen. 2:7; 7:22) departs from the body.  This coincides precisely, for example, with the death of Jesus, when He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” and then “He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46).  The soul of Jesus went to Paradise (Acts 2:27-31), where He had told the thief they would be together (Luke 23:43), but His body went into the tomb (John 19:38-42).

Thus, at death, there is separation.  The body (made of “the dust”) “will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7).  The body is dead.  Is the spirit still conscious?  Yes!  Very much so!  This is demonstrated plainly in two passages.  In Luke 16, two men died in verse 22, but in verse 23, both men (along with Abraham) were still conscious and completely aware of their surroundings.  The same is true in Revelation 6, when John saw (in verse 9) “the souls” of Christian martyrs who had been beheaded, and those souls (in verse 10) were conscious, speaking, and aware of their surroundings and their past life. 

The word “sleep” is simply used as an idiom for death in Scripture (like we might say, “He passed away”), but it is only used of the body (which is often lying in a position of rest) and not of the spirit (the person himself).  The spirit is still very much awake and alert in his/her new environment.  Scripture does not support the doctrine of “soul-sleeping” after death.