“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13 KJV).

In sound sleep one is wholly lost in consciousness; time goes by unmeasured; and the mental functions which are active during consciousness are suspended for the time being: “(1 Cor 15:18, 20; Jn 11:11, 14).

The sleep of death

The soul and the body are not separated in death as is commonly believed; the body doesn’t get left behind as the soul flies to God; the corpse, body and soul, sleeps in the grave, whatever form that grave might take.  “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Eccl 3:20). 

And: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” (Eccl 9:10).

There is now knowledge of the loved ones the dead has left behind him: “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them” (Job 14:21).  Furthermore, he can’t even think: “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Ps 146:4).

And again, he knows nothing: “We know that we will die, but the dead don’t know a thing.  Nothing good will happen to them – they are gone and forgotten.  Their loves, their hates, and their jealous feelings have all disappeared with them.  They will never again take part in anything that happens on earth” (Eccl 9:5-6).

Thus, the word of God exposes the fraud of lying psychics and mediums who make a living preying on vulnerable people seeking contact with or consolation for the loss of a loved one.

The corpse remains in its death-sleep until the end of time.  “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep” ((Job 14:12).

But sleep implies an awakening: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2).

Job tells us he would await this great and promised event: “If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come” (Job 14:14).

In the interim, he tells us: “If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness” (Job 17:13).

But until then, the corpse, body and soul, is dead, asleep in its grave.  “…their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun” (Eccl 9:6).

If one continued in consciousness after death, he would know of the promotion or dishonour of his sons and daughters.  But God, through Job, says he does not know.  Not only so, but in death one loses all the attributes of mind – love, hatred, envy, etc.  Thus, it is plain that his thoughts have perished, and that he can have nothing more to do with the things of this world.  But if, as taught and held by some, man’s powers of thought continue after death, he lives; and if he lives, he must be somewhere.

So, where is he?  Is he in heaven or in hell?  If he goes to either place at death, what then is the need for a further judgment, or of a resurrection, or of the second coming of Jesus?  If the judgment does not take place at death, but men go to their reward at death, then their rewards precede their awards, and there would arise the possibility that some have at death gone to the wrong place, and must needs be sent to the other, after having been in bliss or torment for ages, perhaps.

The dead can neither praise God, nor even know of Him.  “The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence” (Ps 115:17).  “For in death there is no remembrance of thee” (Ps 6:5).

There is not even a remembrance of God in the grave (I’m sure there are many alive today for whom this would be ideal).  As already seen, the Bible everywhere represents the dead as asleep.  If they were in heaven or in hell (there is no third option), would it be fitting to represent them thus?  Was Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, in heaven when Jesus said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth”? (Jn 11:11).

If so, calling him to life was really robbing him of the bliss of heaven that rightly belonged to him.  The parable of the rich man and Lazarus recorded by Luke (ch 16), was given to teach, not consciousness in death, but that in the judgment riches will avail nothing unless rightly and beneficently used, and that poverty will not keep one out of heaven.

So, the righteous dead are not in heaven.  “For David is not ascended into the heavens” (Acts 2:34).  Before the righteous dead can praise God, they must be woken from their death-sleep.  “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead” (Isa 26:19).

David, also, stated this as a fact; he knew what his destiny was – that he would see God in the resurrection: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Ps 17:15).

However, if the dead are not raised, they would not be asleep, but dead, inanimate, devoid of anything at all associated with like, forever.  “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished” (1 Cor 15:16-18).

But when Jesus returns with hosts of his angels to bring his people to be with him forever, and to restore the fallen creation to its pristine origin, he will put all things right, and wickedness will be rooted out and destroyed from his Creation forever.  “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess 4:16).

So if, as stated in Ecclesiastes 9:5, the dead “know not anything”, then they have no knowledge of the lapse of time.  “Six thousand years in the grave to a dead man is no more than a wink of an eye to the living”.  To them, consciousness, our only means of measuring time, is gone; and it will seem to them when they awake that absolutely no time has elapsed.   And herein lies a most comforting thought in the Bible doctrine of the sleep of the dead, that in death there is no consciousness of the passing of time.  To those who sleep in Jesus, their sleep, whether long or short, whether one year, one thousand years, or six thousand years, will be but as if the moment of sad parting were followed instantly by the glad reunion in the presence of Jesus at His glorious appearing and the resurrection of the just. 

It ought also to be a comforting thought to those whose lives have been filled with anxiety and grief for deceased loved ones who persisted in sin, to know that they are not now suffering in torments, but with all the rest of the dead, are quietly sleeping in their graves: “There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest” (Job 3:17).

Again, it would dampen the joy of one’s enjoyment in heaven could he look upon earth and see his friends and relatives suffering from persecution, want, cold, or hunger, or sorrowing for the dead.  God’s way is best, that all sentient life, animation, activity, thought, and consciousness should cease at death, and that all should wait till the resurrection for their future life and eternal reward. 

“And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” (Heb 11:39-40).

This article is a reworked version of “The Intermediate State” in “Bible Readings for the Home Circle”, p. 511-513.  The original article is in catechism form.

Bible Readings for the Home Circle, New Edition, Revised and Enlarged, 1921, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington DC.

Unless stated otherwise, all scripture references are from King James Bibe.