The Death of Socrates and of Christ. To
illustrate the Biblical view of death, Oscar Cullmann
contrasts the death of Socrates with that of Jesus.36
In his book Phaedo, Plato offers an
impressive description of the death of Socrates. On
the day of his death, Socrates taught his disciples
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and showed
them how to live out such a belief in dying. He
explained to his disciples how to liberate the soul
from the prison of the body by occupying oneself with
the eternal truths of philosophy. Since death
completes the process of liberating of the soul, Plato
tells us that Socrates went to his death by drinking
the hemlock in complete peace and composure. For
Socrates, death was the soul’s greatest friend
because it sets the soul free from the shackles of the
body.
How different was Jesus’ attitude toward death!
On the eve of His death in Gethsemane, Jesus was
"greatly distressed and troubled" (Mark
14:33) and said to His disciples, "My soul is
very sorrowful, even unto death" (Mark 14:34).
For Jesus, death was not a great friend but a dreadful
enemy, because it would separate Him from His Father.
He did not face death with the composure of Socrates
who met death peacefully as a friend. When confronted
with the reality of death, Jesus cried to God saying:
"Father, all things are possible to thee; remove
this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou
wilt" (Mark 14:36).
Jesus knew that to die meanstto be separated from
God. Thus, He cried to God because He did not want to
be forsaken by the Father or even by His disciples.
What a contrast between Socrates and Jesus in their
understanding and experience of death! Cullmann notes
that "The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews .
. . writes that Jesus ‘with loud cries and tears
offered up prayers and supplications to him who was
able to save him’ (Heb 5: 7). Thus, according to the
Epistle of Hebrews, Jesus wept and cried in the face
of death. There is Socrates, calmly and composedly
speaking of the immortality of the soul; here Jesus,
weeping and crying."37
The contrast is evident, especially in the
death-scene. Socrates drank the hemlock with sublime
calm. Jesus cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). This is not
"death as a friend," but as an enemy. Paul
rightly calls it "the last enemy" (1 Cor
15:26), which at the end will be cast into the lake of
fire (Rev 20:14).
If death released the soul from the body and thus
made it possible for the soul to enjoy communion with
God, then Christ would have welcomed death for
offering Him the opportunity to be reunited with His
Father. But Jesus saw death as separation from God,
who is life and the Creator of all life. He sensed
this separation more than any other human being,
because He was and still is closely connected to God.
He experienced death in all its horror, not only in
the body but also in His soul. This is why He cried:
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
(Matt 27:46).
The contrast between the death of Socrates and the
death of Jesus helps us to appreciate the Biblical
view of death. In Greek thought, the death of the body
was not in any sense the destruction of the true life.
In Biblical thought, death is the destruction of all
life created by God. "Therefore it is death and
not the body which must be conquered by the
resurrection."38 This is why the
resurrection of Jesus is so fundamental to the
Christian faith. It provides the needed reassurance
that death has been conquered for those who accept
Christ’s provision of salvation.
Cullmann points out that "belief in the
immortality of the soul is not belief in a
revolutionary event. Immortality, in fact, is only a negative
assertion: the soul does not die, but simply
lives on. Resurrection is a positive assertion: the
whole man, who has really died, is recalled to life by
a new act of creation of God. Something has
happened—a miracle of creation! For something has
also happened previously, something fearful: life
formed by God has been destroyed."39
Sin and Death. To understand the
Biblical view of death, we need to go back to the
account of creation where death is presented, not as a
natural process willed by God, but as something
unnatural opposed to God. The Genesis narrative
teaches us that death came into the world as a result
of sin. God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil and added the warning:
"In the day that you eat of it you shall
die" (Gen 2:17). The fact that Adam and Eve did
not die on the day of their transgression has led some
to conclude that human beings do not actually die
because they have a conscious soul that survives the
death of the body.
This figurative interpretation can hardly be
supported by the text, which, literally translated,
reads: "dying you shall die." What God
simply meant is that on the day they disobeyed, the
dying process would begin. From a state in which it
was possible for them not to die (conditional
immortality), they passed into a state in which it was
impossible for them not to die (unconditional
mortality). Prior to the Fall the assurance of
immortality was vouchsafed by the tree of life. After
the Fall, Adam and Eve no longer had access to the
tree of life (Gen 3:22-23) and, consequently, began
experiencing the reality of the dying process. In the
prophetic vision of the New Earth, the tree of life is
found on both sides of the river as a symbol of the
gift of eternal life bestowed upon the redeemed (Rev
21:2).
The divine pronouncement found in Genesis 2:17
places a clear connection between human death and the
transgression of God’s commandment. Thus, life and
death in the Bible have religious and ethical
significance because they are dependent upon human
obedience or disobedience to God. This is a
fundamental teaching of the Bible, namely, that death
came into this world as a result of human disobedience
(Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21). This does not diminish the
responsibility of the individual for his participation
in sin (Ez 18:4, 20). The Bible, however, makes a
distinction between the first death, which every human
being experiences as a result of Adam’s sin (Rom
5:12; 1 Cor 15:21), and the second death experienced
after the resurrection (Rev 20:6) as the wages for
sins personally commited (Rom 6:23).
Death as the Separation of the Soul from the
Body. A major question we need to address at this
point is the Biblical view of the nature of death. To
be specific: Is death the separation of the immortal
soul from the mortal body, so that when the body dies
the soul lives on? Or, is death the cessation of
existence of the whole person, body and soul?
Historically, Christians have been taught that
death is the separation of the immortal soul from the
mortal body, so that the soul survives the body in a
disembodied state. For example, the new Catechism
of the Catholic Church states: "By death the
soul is separated from the body, but in the
resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our
body, transformed by reunion with our soul."40
Augustus Strong defines death in similar terms in his
well-known Systematic Theology: "Physical
death is the separation of the soul from the body. We
distinguish it from spiritual death, or the separation
of the soul from God."41
In his Lectures in Systematic Theology (widely
used as a textbook), Calvinistic theologian Henry
Clarence Thiessen expresses himself in a similar way:
"Physical death relates to the physical body; the
soul is immortal and as such does not die."42
In his Christian Dogmatics, Francis Pieper, a
conservative Lutheran theologian, states most clearly
the historic view of death: "Temporal death is
nothing other than a tearing asunder of men, the
separation of the soul from the body, the unnatural
disruption of the union of soul and body which has
been created by God to be one."43
Statements like these could be multiplied, since they
are found in most systematic theology textbooks and in
all major confessional documents.
The above historical view of the nature of death as
the separation of the soul from the body has come
under a massive attack by many modern scholars. A few
examples suffice to illustrate this point. Lutheran
theologian Paul Althaus writes: "Death is more
than a departure of the soul from the body. The
person, body and soul, is involved in death. . . . The
Christian faith knows nothing about an immortality of
the personality. . . . It knows only an awakening from
real death through the power of God. There is
existence after death only by an awakening of the
resurrection of the whole person."44
Althaus argues that the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul does not do justice to the seriousness of
death, since the soul passes through death unscathed.45
Moreover, the notion that a person can be totally
happy and blessed without the body denies the
significance of the body and empties the resurrection
of its meaning.46 If believers are already
blessed in heaven and the wicked are already tormented
in hell, why is the final judgment still necessary?47
Althaus concludes that the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul rips apart what belongs together: the body
and the soul, the destiny of the individual and that
of the world.48
In his book The Body, John A. T. Robinson
states: "The soul does not survive a man—it
simply goes out, draining away with the blood."49
In his monograph Life after Death, Taito
Kantonen makes this pointed statement: "The
Christian view of death is in full accord with the
view of natural science as far as the latter goes.
When we die we are really dead. Our hopes and desires
cannot change this fact. Man does not differ from the
rest of creation by having a soul that cannot
die."50
Even the liberal Interpreter’s Dictionary of
the Bible, in its article on death explicitly
states: "The ‘departure’ of the nephesh
[soul] must be viewed as a figure of speech, for it
does not continue to exist independently of the body,
but dies with it (Num 31:19; Jud 16:30; Ez 13:19). No
Biblical text authorizes the statement that the
‘soul’ is separated from the body at the moment of
death. The ruach ‘spirit’ which makes man a
living being (cf. Gen 2:7), and which he loses at
death, is not, properly speaking, an anthropological
reality, but a gift of God which returns to him at the
time of death (Eccl 12:7)."51
The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia
acknowledges that "we are influenced always more
or less by the Greek, Platonic idea, that the body
dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is
utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is
nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man
dies, when in death the spirit (Ps 146:4; Eccl 12:7),
or soul (Gen 35:18; 2 Sam 1:9; 1 Kings 17:21; Jonah
4:3), goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his
soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to
the nether-world; therefore the Old Testament can
speak of a death of one’s soul (Gen 37:21; Num
23:10; Deut 22:21; Jud 16:30; Job 36:14; Ps
78:50)."52
This challenge of modern scholarship to the
traditional view of death as the separation of the
soul from the body has been long overdue. It is hard
to believe that for most of its history, Christianity
by and large has held to a view of human death and
destiny which has been largely influenced by Greek
thought, rather than by the teachings of Scripture.
What is even more surprising is that no amount of
Biblical scholarship will change the traditional
belief held by most churches on the intermediate
state. The reason is simple. While individual scholars
can and will change their doctrinal views without
suffering devastating consequences, the same is not
true for well-established churches.
A church that introduces radical changes in its
historical doctrinal beliefs undermines the faith of
its members and thus the stability of the institution.
A case in point is the Worldwide Church of God which
lost over half of its members when doctrinal changes
were introduced by its leaders early in 1995. The high
cost of rectifying denominational religious beliefs
should not deter Bible-believing Christians who are
committed, not to preserve traditional beliefs for
tradition’s sake, but to constantly seek for a
fuller understanding of the teachings of Word of God
on issues relevant to their lives.
Death as Cessation of Life. When we search
the Bible for a description of the nature of death, we
find many clear statements that need little or no
interpretation. In the first place, Scripture
describes death as a return to the elements from which
man originally was made. In pronouncing sentence upon
Adam after his disobedience, God said: "In the
sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return
to the ground, for . . . you are dust and to dust you
shall return" (Gen 3:19). This graphic statement
tells us that death is not the separation of the soul
from the body, but the termination of one’s life,
which results in the decay and decomposition of the
body. "Since man is created of perishable matter,
his natural condition is mortality (Gen 3:19)."53
A study of the words "to die,"
"death," and "dead" in Hebrew and
Greek reveals that death is perceived in the Bible as
the deprivation or cessation of life. The ordinary
Hebrew word meaning "to die" is muth,
which occurs in the Old Testament over 800 times. In
the vast majority of cases, muth is used in the
simple sense of the death of men and animals. There is
no hint in its usage of any distinction between the
two. A clear example is found in Ecclesiastes 3:19,
which says: "For the fate of the sons of men and
the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies
the other."
The Hebrew muth "to die" is
sometimes used, as in English, in a figurative way to
denote the destruction or elimination of a nation (Is
65:15; Hos 2:3; Am 2:2), a tribe (Deut 33:6; Hos
13:1), or a city (2 Sam 20:19). None of these
figurative uses supports the idea of individual
survival. On the contrary, we find that the word muth
["to die"] is used in Deuteronomy 2:16 in
parallel with tamam, which means "to be
consumed" or "to be finished." The
parallelism suggests that death is seen as the end of
life.
The corresponding, ordinary Greek word meaning
"to die" is apothanein which is used
77 times in the New Testament. With few exceptions,
the verb denotes the cessation of life. The exceptions
are mostly figurative uses which depend upon the
literal meaning. For example, Paul says: "We are
convinced that one has died for all; therefore all
have died" (2 Cor 5:14). It is evident that this
is not referring to physical death but to the effects
of Christ’s death on the believer’s position
before God. We could translate "therefore all
have died" as "therefore all are counted to
have died." None of the literal or figurative
uses of the Hebrew muth or of the Greek apothanein
suggests that the "soul" or
"spirit" survives the death of an
individual.
Old Testament Descriptions of Death. We
have just noted that the Hebrew and Greek verbs used
in Scripture for "to die" do not really
explain the meaning and nature of death, except to
tell us that the death of men and animals is
identical. More revealing is the use of the Hebrew
noun maveth which is used about 150 times and
is generally translated "death." From the
use of maveth in the Old Testament, we learn
three important things about the nature of death.
First, there is no remembrance of the Lord in
death: "For in death [maveth] there is no
remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee
praise" (Ps 6:5). The reason for no remembrance
in death is simply because the thinking process stops
when the body with its brain dies. "His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that day
his thoughts perish" (Ps 146:4). Since at death
the "thoughts perish," it is evident there
is no conscious soul that survives the death of the
body. If the thinking process, which is generally
associated with the soul, survived the death of the
body, then the thoughts of the saints would not
perish. They would be able to remember God. But the
fact is that "the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing" (Eccl 9:5).
Second, no praise of God is possible in death or in
the grave. "What profit is there in my death [maveth],
if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise thee?
Will it tell of thy faithfulness?" (Ps 30:9). By
comparing death with dust, the Psalmist clearly shows
that there is no consciousness in death because dust
cannot think. The same thought is expressed in Psalm
115:17: "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do
any that go down into silence." Here the Psalmist
describes death as a state of "silence."
What a contrast with the "noisy" popular
vision of the afterlife where the saints praise God in
Heaven and the wicked cry in agony in Hell!
Third, death is described as a "sleep."
"Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten
my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" (Ps
13:3). This characterization of death as
"sleep" occurs frequently in the Old and New
Testaments because it fittingly represents the state
of unconsciousness in death. Shortly we examine the
significance of the "sleep" metaphor for
understanding the nature of death.
Some argue that the intent of the passages we have
just quoted and which describe death as an unconscious
state "is not to teach that the soul of man is
unconscious when he dies," but rather that
"in the state of death man can no longer take
part in the activities of the present world."54
In other words, a dead person is unconscious as far as
this world is concerned, but his soul is conscious as
far as the world of the spirits is concerned. The
problem with this interpretation is that it is based
on the gratuitous assumption that the soul survives
the death of the body, an assumption which is clearly
negated in the Old Testament. We have found that in
the Old Testament the death of the body, is the death
of the soul because the body is the outer form of the
soul.
In several places, maveth [death] is used
with reference to the second death. "As I live,
says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of
the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and
live" (Ez 33:11; cf. 18:23, 32). Here "the
death of the wicked" is evidently not the natural
death that every person experiences, but the death
inflicted by God at the End on unpenitent sinners.
None of the literal descriptions or figurative
references to death in the Old Testament suggests the
conscious survival of the soul or spirit apart from
the body. Death is the cessation of life for the total
person.
New Testament References to Death. The
New Testament references to "death," a term
rendered by the Greek thanatos, are not as
informative regarding the nature of death as those
found in the Old Testament. The reason is partly due
to the fact that in the Old Testament many of the
references to death are found in the poetic or wisdom
books like Psalms, Job, and Ecclesiastes. This kind of
literature is absent in the New Testament. More
important is the fact that death is seen in the New
Testament from the perspective of Christ’s victory
over death. This is a dominant theme in the New
Testament which conditions the Christian view of
death.
Through His victory over death, Christ has
neutralized the sting of death (1Cor 15:55); He has
abolished death (2 Tim 1:10); He has overcome the
devil who had power over death (Heb 2:14); He has in
His hand the keys of the kingdom of death (Rev 1:18);
He is the head of a new humanity as the first-born
from the dead (Col 1:18); He causes believers to be
born anew to a living hope through His resurrection
from the dead (1 Pet 1:3).
Christ’s victory over death affects the
believer’s understanding of physical, spiritual, and
eternal death. The believer can face physical death
with the confidence that Christ has swallowed up death
in victory and will awaken the sleeping saints at His
coming (1 Cor 15:51-56).
Believers who were spiritually "dead through
trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1; cf. 4:17-19; Matt
8:22) have been regenerated into a new life in Christ
(Eph 4:24). Unbelievers who remain spiritually dead
throughout their lives and do not accept Christ’s
provision for their salvation (John 8:21, 24), on the
Day of Judgment will experience the second death (Rev
20:6; 21:8). This is the final, eternal death from
which there is no return.
The figurative meanings of the word thanatos–death
depend entirely on the literal meaning as cessation of
life. To argue for the conscious existence of the soul
on the basis of figurative meaning of death is to
attribute to the word a meaning which is foreign to
it. This runs contrary to literary and grammatical
rules and destroys the connections among physical,
spiritual, and eternal death.
Death as Sleep in the Old Testament. In
both the Old and New Testaments, death is often
described as "sleep." Before attempting to
explain the reason for the Biblical use of the
metaphor of "sleep" for death, let us look
at a few examples. In the Old Testament, three Hebrew
words meaning "sleep" are used to describe
death.
The most common word, shachav, is used in
the frequently occuring expression so-and-so
"slept with his fathers" (Gen 28:11; Deut
31:16; 2 Sam 7:12; 1 Kings 2:10). Beginning with its
initial application to Moses ("Behold, you are
about to sleep with your fathers" – Deut
31:16), and then to David ("Thou shall sleep with
thy fathers" – 2 Sam 7:12, KJV), and Job
("Now I shall sleep in the dust" – Job
7:21, KJV), we find this beautiful euphemism for death
running like an unbroken thread all through the Old
and New Testaments, ending with Peter’s statement
that "the fathers fell asleep" (2 Pet 3:4).
Commenting on these references, Basil Atkinsom aptly
observes: "Thus the kings and others who died are
said to sleep with their fathers. If their spirits
were alive in another world, could this possibly be
regularly said without a hint that the real person was
not sleeping at all?"55
Another Hebrew word for "sleep" is yashen.
This word occurs both as a verb, "to sleep"
(Jer 51:39, 57; Ps 13:3) and as a noun,
"sleep." The latter is found in the
well-known verse of Daniel 12:2: "And many of
those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt." Notice that in this
passage both the godly and ungodly are sleeping in the
dust of the earth and both will be resurrected at the
End.
A third Hebrew word used for the sleep of death is shenah.
Job asks this rhetorical question: "But man dies
and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is
he?" (Job 14:10). His answer is: "As waters
fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries
up, so man lies down and rises not again; till the
heavens are no more he will not awake, or be roused
out of his sleep [shenah]" (Job 14:11-12;
cf. Ps 76:5; 90:5). Here is a graphic description of
death. When a person takes the last breath,
"where is he?" that is, "what is left
of him?" Nothing. He does not exist any more. He
becomes like a lake or river whose water has dried up.
He sleeps in the grave and "will not awake"
till the end of the world.
One wonders, would Job have given us such a
negative description of death if he believed that his
soul would survive death? If death introduced Job’s
soul into the immediate presence of God in heaven, why
does he speak of waiting "till the heavens are no
more" (John 14:11) and "till my release
should come" (Job 14:14)? It is evident that
neither Job nor any other Old Testament believer knew
of a conscious existence after death.
Death as a Sleep in the New Testament. Death
is described as sleep in the New Testament more
frequently than in the Old. The reason may be that the
hope of the resurrection, which is clarified and
strengthened by Christ’s resurrection, gives new
meaning to the sleep of death from which believers
will awaken at Christ’s coming. As Christ slept in
the tomb prior to His resurrection, so believers sleep
in the grave while awaiting their resurrection.
There are two Greek words meaning "sleep"
which are used in the New Testament. The first is koimao
which is used fourteen times for the sleep of death. A
derivative of this Greek noun is koimeeteerion
, from which comes our word cemetery.
Incidentally, the root of this word is also the root
of the word "home–oikos." So the
home and the cemetery are connected because both are a
sleeping-place. The second Greek word is katheudein,
which is generally used for ordinary sleep. In the
New Testament it is used four times for the sleep of
death (Matt 9:24; Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52; Eph 5:14; 1
Thess 4:14).
At the time of Christ’s crucifixion, "many
bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep [kekoimemenon]
were raised" (Matt 27:52). In the original, the
text reads: "Many bodies of the sleeping saints
were raised." It is evident that what was
resurrected was the whole person and not just the
bodies. There is no reference to their souls being
reunited with their bodies, obviously because this
concept is foreign to the Bible.
Speaking figuratively of Lazarus’ death, Jesus
said: "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep [kekoimetai],
but I go to awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11).
When Jesus perceived that He was misunderstood, He
"told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead"
(John 11:14). Then Jesus hastened to reassure Martha:
"Your brother will rise again" (John 11:23).
This episode is significant, first of all, because
Jesus plainly describes death as "sleep"
from which the dead will awaken at the sound of His
voice. Lazarus’ condition in death was similar to a
sleep from which one awakens. Christ said: " I go
to awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11). The Lord
carried out His promise by going to the tomb to awaken
Lazarus by calling: "‘Lazarus, come out.’ And
the dead man came out’" (John 11:43-44).
The awakening of Lazarus out of the sleep of
death by the sound of Christ’s voice parallels the
awakening of the sleeping saints on the day of His
glorious coming. They, too, shall hear the voice of
Christ and come forth to life again. "The hour is
coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his
voice and come forth" (John 5:28; cf. John
5:25). "For the Lord himself will descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, . . . And the dead in Christ will rise
first" (1 Thess 4:16). There is harmony and
symmetry in the expressions "sleeping" and
"awakening" as used in the Bible for going
into and coming out of a death state. The two
expressions corroborate the notion that death is an
unconscious state like sleeping, from which believers
will awake on the day of Christ’s coming.
Lazarus Had No Afterlife Experience. Lazarus’
experience is also significant because he spent four
days in the grave. This was not a near-death
experience, but a real death experience. If, as
popularly believed, the soul at death leaves the body
and goes to heaven, then Lazarus would have had an
amazing experience to share about the four days he
would have spent in paradise. The religious leaders
and the people would have done all in their power to
elicit from Lazarus as much information as possible
about the unseen world. As Robertson Nichol puts it,
"Had he [Lazarus] learned anything of the spirit
world, it must have oozed out."56 Such
information would have provided valuable answers to
the question of life after death which was so hotly
debated among the Sadducees and Pharisees (Matt 22:23,
28; Mark 12:18, 23; Luke 20:27, 33).
But Lazarus had nothing to share about life after
death, because during the four days he spent in the
tomb he slept the unconscious sleep of death. What is
true of Lazarus is also true of six other persons who
were raised from the dead: The widow’s son (1 Kings
17:17-24); the Shunammite’s son (2 Kings 4:18-37);
the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-15); the daughter
of Jairus (Luke 8:41, 42, 49-56); Tabitha (Acts
9:36-41); and Eutychus (Acts 20:9-12). Each of these
persons came out of death as if it were out of a
profound sleep, with the same feeling and
individuality, but with no afterlife experience to
share.
There are no indications that the soul of Lazarus,
or of the other six persons raised from the dead, had
gone to heaven. None of them had a "heavenly
experience" to share. The reason being that none
of them had ascended to heaven. This is confirmed by
Peter’s reference to David in his speech on the day
of Pentecost: "Brethren, I may say to you
confidently of the patriarch David that he both died
and was buried, and his tomb is still with us to this
day" (Acts 2:29). Some could argue that what was
in the grave was David’s body, not his soul which
had gone to heaven. But this interpretation is negated
by Peter’s explicit words: "For David did
not ascend into the heavens" (Acts 2:34).57
The Knox translation renders it, "David never
went up to heaven." The Cambridge Bible has
the following note: "For David is not
ascended. Better ascended not. He went down
to the grave and ‘slept with his fathers.’"
What sleeps in the grave, according to the Bible, is
not merely the body but the whole person who awaits
the resurrection awakening.
Paul and the Sleeping Saints. In the two
great chapters on the resurrection in 1 Thessalonians
4 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul repeatedly speaks of
those who have fallen "asleep" in Christ (1
Thess 4:13, 14, 15; 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20). A look at
some of Paul’s statements sheds light on what Paul
meant by characterizing death as sleep.
In writing to the Thessalonians, who were grieving
over their loved ones who had fallen asleep before
experiencing the coming of Christ, Paul reassures them
that as God raised Jesus from the dead, so He will
through Christ "bring with him those who have
fallen asleep" (1 Thess 4:14). Some maintain that
Paul is here speaking of disembodied souls, which
allegedly ascended to heaven at death and which will
return with Christ when He descends to this earth at
His return.
This interpretation ignores three major things.
First, our study has shown that the Bible nowhere
teaches that the soul at death ascends to heaven.
Second, in the context, Paul is not speaking of
immortal souls but of "those who are asleep"
(1 Thess 4:13; cf. v. 14) and of "the dead in
Christ" (1 Thess 4:16). "The dead in Christ
will rise first"from their graves
(1 Thess 4:16) and will not descend from heaven. There
is no hint that the bodies rise from the graves
and the souls descend from heaven to be
reunited with the bodies. Such a dualistic notion is
foreign to the Bible. Leon Morris’ comments that
"Paul says will bring, not ‘will
raise’"58 is inaccurate, because
Paul says both: Christ will raise the dead and bring
them with Him. Thus, the context suggests that Christ
brings with Him the dead which are raised first, that
is, prior to the translation of the living believers.
Third, if Paul really believed that "the dead
in Christ" were not really dead in the grave but
alive in heaven as disembodied souls, he would have
capitalized on their blissful condition in heaven to
explain to the Thessalonians that their grieving was
senseless. Why should they grieve for their loved ones
if they were already enjoying the bliss of heaven? The
reason Paul did not give such an encouragement is
obviously because he knew that sleeping saints were
not in heaven but in their graves.
This conclusion is supported by the assurance Paul
gave to his readers that living Christians would not
meet Christ at His coming before those who had fallen
asleep. "We who are alive, who are left until the
coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have
fallen asleep" (1 Thess 4:15). The reason is that
"the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who
are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air" (1 Thess 4:16-17).
The fact that the living saints will meet with
Christ at the same time as the sleeping saints
indicates that the latter have not yet been united
with Christ in heaven. If the souls of the sleeping
saints were already enjoying fellowship with Christ in
heaven and were to descend with Christ to earth at His
second Advent, then obviously they would have an
unmistakable priority over the living saints. But the
truth is that both sleeping and living believers are
awaiting their longed-for union with the Savior; a
union which both will experience at the same time on
the day of Christ’s coming.
Paul’s discussion of the sleeping saints in 1
Corinthians 15 confirms much of what we have already
found in 1 Thessalonians 4. After affirming the
fundamental importance of Christ’s resurrection for
the Christian faith and hope, Paul explains that
"if Christ had not been raised . . . Then those
also who have fallen asleep in Christ have
perished" (1 Cor 15:18-19). Paul could hardly
have said that the sleeping saints would have perished
without the guarantee of Christ’s resurrection, if
he believed that their souls were immortal and were
already enjoying the bliss of Paradise. If Paul
believed the latter, he probably would have said that
without Christ’s resurrection the soul of the
sleeping saints would remain disembodied for all
eternity. But Paul makes no allusion to such a
possibility, because he believed that the whole
person, body and soul, would have "perished"
without the guarantee of Christ’s resurrection.
It is significant that in the whole chapter which
is devoted to the importance and dynamics of the
resurrection, Paul never hints at the alleged
reunification of the body with the soul at the
resurrection. If Paul had held such a belief, he
hardly could have avoided making some allusions to the
reattachment of the body to the soul, especially in
his discussions of the transformation of the believers
from a mortal to an immortal state at Christ’s
coming. But the only "mystery" that Paul
reveals is that "we shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed" (1 Cor 15:51). This change
from a perishable to an imperishable nature occurs for
all, living and dead, at the same time, namely, at the
sounding of "the last trumpet" (1 Cor
15:52). The change has nothing to do with disembodied
souls regaining possession of their resurrected
bodies. Rather, it is a change from mortal to immortal
life for both the living and the dead in Christ:
"The mortal puts on immortality" (1 Cor
15:54).
The Significance of the "Sleep"
Metaphor. The popular use of the "sleep"
metaphor to describe the state of the dead in Christ
raises the question of its implications for the nature
of death. Specifically, why is this metaphor used and
what insights can we legitimately derive from it about
the nature of death? There are three major reasons for
the use of the "sleep" metaphor in the
Bible. First, there is a similarity between the
"sleep" of the dead and the
"sleep" of the living. Both are
characterized by a condition of unconsciousness and
inactivity which is interrupted by an awakening. Thus,
the "sleep" metaphor fittingly represents
the unconscious state of the dead and their awakening
on the day of Christ’s return.
A second reason for the use of the
"sleep" metaphor is suggested by the fact
that it is a hope-inspiring figure of speech to
represent death. It implies the assurance of a later
awakening. As a person goes to sleep at night in the
hope of awakening in the morning, so the believer
falls asleep in the Lord in the assurance of being
awakened by Christ on resurrection morning. Albert
Barnes aptly remarks: "In the Scripture sleep is
used to intimate that death will not be final:
that there will be an awakening out of this sleep, or
a resurrection. It is a beautiful and tender
expression, removing all that is dreadful in death,
and filling the mind with the idea of calm repose
after a life of toil, with a reference to a future
resurrection in increased vigor and renovated
powers."59
When we hear or say that a person is dead, we
automatically think that there is no more hope of
bringing him/her back to life. But when we say that a
person is sleeping in the Lord, we express the hope
for his or her restoration to life on the day of the
resurrection. Bruce Reichenbach notes that the
"sleep" metaphor is not only a nice way to
speak about death, but more important still, "it
strongly suggests that death is not the end of human
existence. Just as a person who is sleeping can be
raised, so too the dead, as ‘sleeping,’ have the
possibility of being re-created and living again. This
is perhaps the significance of the difficult account
in Matthew 9:24ff where Jesus says that the girl is
not dead, but only sleeping. People who considered her
dead had no hope for her. But because Jesus considered
her sleeping, He saw that there was hope indeed that
she could be resurrected to live again. He saw a
potentiality in her that the others, unaware of the
power of God, could not see. The metaphor ‘sleep,’
then, does not describe the ontological state of the
dead [that is, the sleeping condition], but rather
refers to the possibility of the deceased: that though
they now no longer exist, by the power of God they can
be recreated to live again."60
The Sleep of Death as Unconsciousness. A
third reason for the use of the "sleep"
metaphor is suggested by the fact that there is no
consciousness of the elapse of time in sleep. Thus,
the metaphor provides a fitting representation of the
unconscious state of the deceased between death and
resurrection. They have no awareness of the passing of
time. In his early writings, Luther expressed this
thought in a most graphic way: "Just as one who
falls asleep and reaches morning unexpected when he
awakes, without knowing what has happened to him, so
shall we suddenly rise on the last day without knowing
how we have come into death and through death."61
Again Luther wrote: "We shall sleep until He
comes and knocks on the little grave and says, Doctor
Martin, get up! Then I shall rise in a moment and be
happy with Him forever."62
For the sake of accuracy, it must be pointed out
that later in life Luther largely rejected the notion
of the unconscious sleep of the dead, apparently
because of Calvin’s strong attack against this
doctrine. In his Commentary on Genesis, which
he wrote in 1537, Luther remarks: "The departed
soul does not sleep in this manner [regular sleep]; it
is, more properly speaking, awake and has vision and
conversation with the angels and God."63
The change in Luther’s position from the unconscious
to the conscious state of the dead only serves to show
that even influential reformers were not exempted from
the theological pressures of their time.
Like Luther, most Christians today believe that the
"sleep" metaphor is used in the Bible to
teach, not the unconscious state of the dead, but that
"there is a resurrection, an awakening."64
Some scholars argue that death is compared to a sleep,
"not because a person is unconscious, but because
the dead do not return to this earth nor are aware of
what is happening where they once lived."65 In
other words, the dead are unconscious as far as what
happens on the earth, but are very conscious as far as
their life in Heaven or Hell.
This conclusion is not based on Scripture, but on
the use of the "sleep" metaphor in
intertestamental literature. For example, 1 Enoch,
dated about 200 B. C., speaks of the righteous as
having "a long sleep" (100:5), but their
souls are conscious and active in heaven (102:4-5; cf.
2 Baruch 36:11; 2 Esdras 7:32). After examining
this literature, John Cooper concludes: "The
metaphors of sleep and rest are used of persons in the
intermediate state who are conscious and active, but
not in earthly, bodily ways."66
The Biblical meaning of the "sleep"
metaphor cannot be decided on the basis of its use in
the intertestamental literature, because, as we have
seen, during that period, Hellenistic Jews tried to
harmonize the teachings of the Old Testament with the
Greek dualistic philosophy of their time. The outcome
was the adoption of such beliefs as the immortality of
the soul, the reward or punishment given immediately
after death, and prayers for the dead. Such beliefs
are foreign to the Bible.
Our study of the "sleep" metaphor in the
Old and New Testaments has shown that the metaphor
implies a state of unconsciousness that will last
until the awakening at the resurrection. It is worth
noting that in 1 Corinthians 15 sixteen times Paul
uses the verb egeiro , which literally means
"to wake up" from sleep.67 The
reiterated contrast between sleeping and awakening is
impressive. The Bible uses the term "sleep"
frequently because it enshrines a vital truth, namely,
the dead who sleep in Christ are unconscious of any
lapse of time until their resurrection. The believer
who dies in Christ falls asleep and rests unconscious,
until he awakes when Christ calls him back to life at
His coming.
The Meaning and Ground of Immortality. Immortality
in the Bible is not an innate human possession but a
divine attribute. We noted already that the term
"immortality" comes from the Greek athanasia,
which means "deathlessness," and hence
unending existence. This terms occurs only twice;
first in connection with God "who alone has
immortality" (1 Tim 6:16) and second in relation
to human mortality which must put on immortality (1
Cor 15:53) at the time of the resurrection. The latter
reference negates the notion of a natural immortality
of the soul, because it says that immortality is
something that the resurrected saints will "put
on." It is not something that they already
possess.
"The ground of immortality," as Vern
Hannah puts it, "is soteriological and not
anthropological."71 What this means is
that immortality is a divine gift to the saved and not
a natural human possession. As P. T. Forsyth said,
"a sure belief in immortality does not rest where
philosophy puts it, but where religion puts it. It is
not founded on the nature of the psychic organism, but
on its relation to Another."72 The
"Another" is Jesus Christ "who
abolished death and brought life and immortality to
light through the gospel" (2 Tim 1:10).
Nowhere the Bible suggests that immortality is a
natural quality or right of human beings. The presence
of the "tree of life" in the garden of Eden
indicates indicates that immortality was conditional
to the partaking of the fruit of such tree. Scripture
teaches that "immortality is to be sought
(Rom 2:7) and "put on" (1 Cor 15:53). It is,
as ‘eternal life," the gift of God (Rom
6:23) to be inherited (Matt 19:29) by knowingGod
(John 17:3) through Christ (John 14:19; 17:2;
Rom 6:23). In Paul’s view immortality is tied solely
to the resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15) as the ground
and pledge of the believer’s hope."73
Those who insist in finding the philosophical idea of
the immortality of the soul in the Bible, ignore
God’s revelation and insert dualistic Greek ideas
into the Biblical faith.
Conclusion. The traditional and popular
belief that death is not the cessation of life for the
whole person, but the separation of the immortal soul
from the mortal body can be traced back to Satan’s
lie, "You shall not die" (Gen 3:4). This lie
has lived on in different forms throughout human
history until our time. Today, belief in the survival
of the soul either in paradise or hell is promoted,
not through the superstitious and gruesome literary
and artistic representations of the Middle Ages, but
through the polished image of mediums, psychics, the
sophisticated "scientific" research into
near-death experiences, and the popular New Age
channeling with the spirits of the past. Satan’s
methods have changed, but his objective is still the
same: make people believe the lie that no matter what
they do they will not die but will become like gods by
living forever.
The traditional view of death limits the death
experience to the body, since the soul continues its
existence. Vern Hannah rightly states that "such
a radical re-definition of death is in fact a denial
of death—a definition, no doubt, which the ‘subtle
serpent’ of Genesis 3 would find most
appealing."74 The Bible takes death
much more seriously. Death is the last enemy (1 Cor
15:26) and not the liberator of the immortal soul. As
Oscar Cullmann puts it, "death is the destruction
of all life created by God. Therefore it is
death and not the body which must be conquered by the
resurrection."75
Helmut Thielicke keenly observes that the idea of
the immortality of the soul is a form of escapism
which allows the "real" person to evade
death. It is an attempt to disarm death. He goes on
explaining that "we may hold in idealistic
fashion to some ‘inviolable ego region,’ but death
is not a ‘passing over’ but a ‘going under,’
and it leaves no room for romanticiam or idealism. We
may not devaluate and obscure the reality of the grave
through the idea of immortality. The Christian outlook
is resurrection, not the immortality of the
soul."76
Our only protection against the popular
misconception of death is through a clear
understanding of what the Bible teaches on the nature
of death. We have found that both the Old and New
Testaments clearly teach that death is the extinction
of life for the whole person. There is no
remembrance or consciousness in death (Ps 8:5; 146:4;
30:9; 115:17; Ecc 9:5). There is no independent
existence of the spirit or soul apart from the body.
Death is the loss of the total being and not
merely the loss of well-being. The whole person
rests in the grave in a state of unconsciousness
characterized in the Bible as "sleep." The
"awakening" will take place at Christ’s
coming when He will call back to life the sleeping
saints.
The "sleep" metaphor is frequently used
in the Bible to characterize the state of the dead
because it fittingly represents the unconscious state
of the dead and their awakening on the day of
Christ’s coming. It suggests that there is no
consciousness of time elapsing between death and
resurrection. The "sleep" metaphor is truly
a beautiful and tender expression which intimates that
death is not the final human destiny because
there will be an awakening out of the sleep of death
on resurrection morning.
A major challenge to our conclusion that death in
the Bible is the extinction of life for the whole
person comes from unwarranted interpretations given to
five New Testament passages (Luke 16:19-31; 23:42-43;
Phil 1:23; 2 Cor 5:1-10; Rev 6:9-11) and to the two
words, sheol and hades, which are used
in the Bible to describe the dwelling place of the
dead. Many Christians find in these texts and words
Biblical support for their belief in the conscious
existence of the soul after death. We shall proceed to
examine these texts and words in chapter 5 which
focuses on the state of the dead during the interim
period between death and resurrection, commonly called
"the intermediate state."
