The Sleep of Death

It is interesting, brethren, that the hymn we just sang is a good introduction to the message. So God's Spirit is surely guiding us in the Bible, and just everything fits together like a hand in the glove. A recent announcement on the E-News this week caught my attention. It had to do with the death of Diane Bailey, a very good friend of mine. And it said, on Tuesday morning at 6.07 a.m., December 8th, Diane Bailey fell asleep until the resurrection.

And that struck me how simple, but at the same time explaining what happens after death. It reminded me, in contrast to a funeral sermon I heard of a wife of a member that had died, and we were at this Protestant church. And there the minister strongly attacked the idea of what he called soul sleep. And instead, that the person was now happily living in heaven.

So, is this quote, sleep of death, biblical? Does the person have an immortal soul and lives on after death? It's important to have this doctrine clear in our minds. The way I present my messages is to an audience that one day they are going to be rulers in God's kingdom and teachers of God's truths. And so, this is the way to prepare for it, to have a deep and good understanding of what the Bible teaches. This truth is so comforting and removes the contradictions of thinking people die and go to heaven or hell. As a matter of fact, the way it is taught, it is so cruel that Catholics, back about a thousand years ago, developed the idea of a purgatory or a temporary hell to kind of give hope to the people. They also made a lot of money selling indulgences, which are these free passes or pardons from the Pope. If you're in purgatory, then you can get out and go to heaven. And, of course, creating this guilt complex. How are you going to leave your ancestors or your parents or somebody in hell when it just takes some money and you can have it released?

It was one of the bases for the Protestant movement in the 16th century. Also, this belief in an immortal soul weakens the focus on the future resurrection. As the author of the book, Bakioki, in his book Immortality or Resurrection, many years ago, we ordered that for the church. And, still, you can get it online. I do recommend it. He says, If at death the soul of the believer goes up immediately to heaven to be with the Lord, one hardly can have any real sense of expectation for Christ to come down to resurrect the sleeping saints. It barely leaves any interest in the coming of the Lord and the resurrection. That's why it's not taught. Neither Catholic or Protestant or evangelical churches are something major. In John 8, verses 31 and 32, Jesus brings this up. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. He's saying you're going to learn the truth, and you're going to avoid all the errors that they believed in. And that's how we have come to the knowledge of the truth and the blessing of avoiding false teachings. So let's look to the Scriptures and let them provide the answer.

Is there such a thing as the sleep of death in the Bible? Yes, there is. In Psalm 13, verse 3, David wrote, Psalm 13, verse 3, Consider and hear me, O Lord my God, enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. And so here's the term. David believed it.

Also in Psalms 6, verse 5 and 30, verse 9, he says that once he dies, who will praise God then? But if he had an immortal soul, he would be praising God in heaven. But he says that at death, you don't praise God anymore. This is such a fundamental truth, and yet so few know about it. 98% of the so-called Christianity doesn't teach that when a person dies, it's a type of a sleep. The person is unconscious and eventually will be awakened at the resurrection. So 98% of the churches you would go visit around the corner, anywhere around the world, that teaches some type of Christianity, they're not going to teach such a simple and fundamental truth in the Bible. So let's start at the beginning of the Bible and see how this truth is thought consistently throughout the Scriptures.

We begin in the first chapter of Genesis, a famous verse, 26, where God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. So the plan was to make physical beings that one day would become spirit beings, like God is, and be part of God's family. It doesn't talk anything about an immortal soul, but that they would become spirit beings one day. Then in Genesis 2, verse 7, it says, The term living being, nefesh haja, means a breathing, animated being. And that's not limited to human beings, because in this same chapter, Genesis 1, in verse 20, in 21, we have the same nefesh haja used, but not for man, but for animals. Notice in verse 20, it says, in chapter 1, Then God said, Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures. The term here, nefesh haja, living, breathing creatures.

It doesn't say they have some type of special category at this. And then in verse 21, So God created great sea creatures, and every living thing that moves, the term living thing, is the same nefesh haja. And so we see that everything that is animated, God created the animals as well, gave them life. They began to breathe.

In Genesis 3, verse 19, God tells man what he is.

In Genesis 3, 19, it says, In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

So this creature has a temporary life and goes into an unconscious state. A little further down in verse 22 of chapter 3, Then the Lord said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, after partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to know good and evil. And now lest he put out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. So the human being can acquire immortality, but it does not have immortality within it. That's why it needed to take of the tree, to receive this special element, which it did not have. And as we know, Satan deceived Adam and Eve at this time. In Genesis 3 verses 3 through 4, we introduced Satan and his false teachings, which also are the abundant belief around the world. If you look at the major different religions, they all teach this type of immortality of a soul, one way or the other. In Genesis 3 verses 3 and 4, Eve told Satan, But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. That is the devil's first lie. He basically said, if you take of this fruit, you will be like God. You will be immortal. And look at all you have to gain. You're going to get this other nature. You're going to learn a lot more. You can be more independent of God. So he tempted Eve, and Adam went along.

And so we begin understanding that human beings do not possess immortality. They are activated, animated dust. And when we die, that physical being as such disintegrates. But the Spirit goes up to God. But it is not awake. It is not activated. It's in a dormant state until the resurrection. Notice now about Abraham when he was going to die. What did God tell him was going to happen?

In Genesis chapter 15 verse 15, he says, Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried at a good old age. So here God introduces that just like your ancestors, you also will be buried with them. You shall rest in peace. Didn't say anything about, oh, you're going to be up here in heaven. I'm looking forward to seeing you. You have an immortal soul. No, you will be also gathered with your, you shall be buried. Then in chapter 25 verse 8, talking about Abraham's death, it says, Then Abraham breathed his last, so this was a physical nefesh who breathed his last gasp of air, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.

So he was buried, as people are usually, in family plots, where you are gathered with your people. And that happens even today. So Abraham went, Sarah later was buried in the same place, and they actually had a cave where they buried their ancestors, which today is in ancient Hebron in Israel. That's an area where Abraham's ancestors and descendants, many of them were buried. So there is this concept of resting in peace, along with the ancestors, that you are not conscious afterward. Notice what it says about Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 31 in verse 16.

Now I'd like to introduce here a concept, because in the New King James, they weren't very comfortable translating the term death and sleep. And so they changed the King James version, which says sleep, or slept, with their fathers. They rested with their ancestors, because they don't want to teach this soul sleep. So here you start in the Old Testament, and you already have the concept of sleeping with your ancestors. So notice in Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 16, and that's why we should never trust any translation 100%.

And here is a bias of the translators with King James version. It says they slept with their fathers, but they felt uncomfortable. The translators and the new, they rested. In Deuteronomy 31 verse 16, in the King James version, it says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. From the term, to sleep, to lie down, Shacab, S-H-A-K-A-B, Shacab, to lie down, to sleep. But modern versions use the term rest, so they don't have to answer these uncomfortable questions about why people are mentioned as going to sleep when they die, if you have an immortal soul, and that you still are going to be conscious after death.

David also believed he was going to sleep with his fathers when he died. Notice in 2 Samuel chapter 7, in the King James version again, verse 12, you'll notice in the New King James, it doesn't say sleep, it says rest. It says, When your days are fulfilled, and you, quote, rest with your fathers, and in the King James version, it says, sleep with your fathers.

I will set up your seed after you who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. Now, if you take King James' concordance with the King James version, you'll find that the next 15 kings are all described as they slept with their fathers.

That is the same term for sleeping. But again, you won't find that in the New King James, it's always rest with your fathers. To eliminate having to explain this soul sleep, or this concept of sleeping. But here, you'd have to start in Genesis, it's already saying that you're going to rest in peace. It didn't say, Oh, you're going to be up here with me, and we're going to be able to talk, because you're going to have your soul come up to heaven. You're going to rest. That's the difference.

In Job chapter 7, Job teaches the same truth. Job chapter 7, in verse 21, in the King James version, it says, Job is going to be unconscious when he dies. If God seeks him, he won't find him. And so again, this hits in the head, the idea of having an immortal soul. And in the New Testament, the Apostle Peter mentions in 2 Peter 3-4 the same expression about those who died. He says about the dead, quote, For since the fathers fell asleep. So here we have the same idea that people fall asleep when they die. As Basil Atkinson, a Bible scholar, mentions, Thus the kings and others who died are said to sleep with their fathers. If their spirits were alive in another world, in other words, your soul would be conscious, because could this possibly be regularly said without a hint that the real person was not sleeping at all? It doesn't hint that at all. It says they are sleeping. When you are asleep, you're not conscious. You wake up in the morning.

This is a very good point, and we know the Bible can't lie, so this is the truth about it. Notice in Daniel 12, I made the point of going over every one of those terms, where it said the kings, each one, slept with their fathers, and there were over 15 mentions of this same term. So you can go through it. All the kings, they died, and then they slept with their fathers. They all were gathered together and buried together. In Daniel 12, we have another term for sleep. In the Hebrew, this term is yashin. Y-A-S-H-E-N. And it means to sleep. Notice what Daniel says here. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation. And then in verse 2, it says, And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. If they were already conscious, they wouldn't be awake. They wouldn't have to be woken up. Some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. So here's teaching about the future resurrection and different resurrections. One for the just, one for the unjust. Thus we see a clear, Biblical teaching of death being a type of sleep. Sleep is used as what they term a metaphor, which is describing one thing with something that is similar in nature. And so sleep is something similar to death. In the New Testament, the concept is even clearer. It's more emphasized after Christ's resurrection. Because now you have a tangible evidence of someone waking up. He was three days and three nights asleep in the grave. And he woke up. He was resurrected. The first, the first fruits of those that are going to be resurrected into God's kingdom.

Let's see what Jesus taught about this. Did he teach that a person goes to sleep? Or does he teach that a person has an immortal soul? Notice what Jesus mentioned in John chapter 5 verse 25. Here we see the echoes of what we just read in Daniel 12 verse 2. John chapter 5 verse 25. It says, Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

So he's saying there's going to be this resurrection, and people will hear the voice of the Son of God. That's because they are resurrected. They're able to hear. They're able to see. And those who hear will live. It goes on to say in verse 28 and 29, it says, Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming, in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

Christ is identifying the moment, who is going to be doing the resurrecting, and those that are involved. Who's going to be doing it? They're going to hear the voice of Jesus Christ. As he returns, he will awaken all those saints that have died, that are asleep. He will awaken them, and then they will have life again. Notice also in John 11, verse 11, and of course we have many, many examples. I don't have time to cover each one, just highlighting the most important.

In John 11, verse 11, these things he said, and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up. Of course, he was talking about Lazarus, who had died. In verse 14, he makes that clear. Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, using this comparison of a person that is unconscious. He didn't say Lazarus had an immortal soul, that was already conscious, not at all. Then it goes on to say, verse 24, he says, Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day, in that future time.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.

And then he resurrected Lazarus from the dead. So again, showing that there was a dear friend who had died, had fallen asleep in that way, he was unconscious, and then Jesus Christ raised him up from the dead. Another scripture in Matthew 27, in verse 52. Notice how many times the Bible uses this term for those that are asleep, that have died. Matthew 27, in verse 52, it says, And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared too many. So they had already gone up to heaven, they had souls that were immortal.

Now why bring them back to live out their physical lives? But no, they were asleep. That is the term. The Greek term is koi-mal, K-O-I-M-A-O. And it's used 14 times in the New Testament to refer to the sleep of death. By the way, this koi-mal is the root of the derivative koi-mitirian, where we get our word cemetery. It comes from this koi-mal. Cemetery means the place of sleep, the place of those sleeping. So not only does it teach us that people die, they go into this unconscious state, similar to going to sleep, but there is a place that they go, and that is where they're buried.

That's the place of those that sleep. And then the Apostle Paul, in two main places in his epistles, focuses on the sleep of death and what it means. And it's interesting that actually there are two resurrection chapters in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, where it really elaborates on the resurrection, what's going to happen at that time. And notice how many times the term, those that sleep, is mentioned in these two places. Let's go first to 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 6.

1 Corinthians 15 verse 6. He says about those that witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it says, After that he was seen by over 500 brethren at once. This was a huge gathering. And they all saw Jesus Christ after he had died, after he had been buried for three days and three nights.

And yet they saw him and were there present. They saw him, he spoke with them, he showed them the power of the resurrection. He says, of whom the greater part remained to the present. So he says the majority of those 500 people are still witnesses that are alive. But of course, this probably took place 20-25 years after Christ's resurrection. So he says, but some have fallen asleep.

They have died. And then he goes on to say in verse 17-20, he says, And if Christ is not risen from the dead, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. There's nobody that paid for your sins if Jesus Christ did not resurrect. He says, then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. So those who had that hope, if Christ did not resurrect, their hope is in vain. He says, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

Christ was just a teacher. Why? Going through all the changes and all the sacrifices. Verse 20, But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So he is the first one of those who die in Christ that has resurrected into a spirit being, into the kingdom of God.

And then it goes on to say in verse 51, again, using the term those that sleep. Verse 51, it says, Behold, I tell you a mystery, which actually means I'm going to reveal something that had been hidden before. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. So here he's saying that some people, if they're alive when Christ returns, then they're not going to go through that death experience and have to wait. They will be resurrected. And then he goes on to say, verse 53, For this corruptible, this physical body, must put on incorruption. And this mortal, talking about the mortal body, must put on immortality. Then is when that gift of God is given to us, not before. And so everybody that dies in Christ is asleep in Christ. They're awaiting their reward in the future. They will receive immortality. They won't have to die anymore. Notice in Romans chapter 6, again of key scripture, Romans 6 verse 23, it says, For the wages or the payment of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So eternal life is a gift. It's not something that is inherent, that we are born with, but we have to receive it from God. Now the second scripture is in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13. Let's go there. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And notice here we have three times the mention of sleep as a metaphor for death.

It starts out, it says, 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. That's why the title of my sermon is The Sleep of Death, Hope for Tomorrow. Because we do have that hope. He says, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. There's a second time it uses the term. 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 proceed those who are asleep. So here we have a continual mentioning of that metaphor, that example of falling asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Here we see Christ, the equivalent is saying they are dead in Christ. 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. He's coming down to establish his kingdom. We're going to get to see that descent with Jesus Christ. We're going to be part of that with the angels and all of the saints from the time of Enoch, as it was mentioned, all through that time up to the kingdom of God and the return of Jesus Christ.

It says, verse 18, Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Yes, we should be comforted with this wonderful truth and better understand this topic. So few do. 98% of those that call themselves Christians don't believe such a fundamental belief as this. And they've been deceived by Satan. They have believed a lie.

So we should be very thankful and always love the truth that sets us free from error. So we can better prepare. We can be at peace when some loved ones fall asleep and we long for them. We miss them, but we're looking forward to it. Just like Diane Bailey. She fell asleep until the resurrection. And if we're faithful, so will we.