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Dr. J Vernon McGee
Most of this section comes from Dr. McGee’s comentary. The only other major belief about what happens when people die is the concept of soul sleep. This is by and large based on the following passage, (although many other passages are cited as support)…
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. [14] For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. [15] For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. [18] Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Because of the reference to falling asleep, some believe that the time in the present Heaven or intermediate state will be a time of unconsciousness.
But sleep here is a euphemism for death, a temporary condition to be followed by rising up to resume life. We know this because of other passages…
Alcorn
Dr. McGee’s Treatment of ‘Soul Sleep’.
Paul is referring to the death of the body. This never refers to the soul or the spirit of man, because the spirit of man does not die. We shall note that as we move through this section, but first I want to mention several reasons that the death of the body is spoken of as being “asleep.”
Dr. J Vernon McGee
- There is a similarity between sleep and death. A dead body and a sleeping body are actually very similar. A sleeper does not cease to exist, and the inference is that the dead do not cease to exist just because the body is asleep. Sleep is temporary; death is also temporary. Sleep has its waking; death has its resurrection. It is not that life is existence and death is non–existence, you see.
- The word which is translated “asleep” has its root in the Greek word keimai, which means “to lie down.” And the very interesting thing is that the word for “resurrection” is a word that refers only to the body. It is anastasis, and it comes from two Greek words: histemi which means “to stand,” and ana, the preposition, “up.” It is only the body which can stand up in resurrection.
- The same Greek word for “sleep” is used here as is used when referring to a natural sleep when the body lies down in bed. Let me give you two illustrations of this.
- “And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow” (Luke 22:45). Imagine that Peter, James, and John went to sleep at this time of crisis! The word is the same word that is used here in 1 Thessalonians.
- Again, in Acts 12:6, “And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison”. Again, the same word for “sleep” is used, and it is the natural sleep of the body.
- The Bible teaches that the body returns to the dust from which it was created, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. Even the Old Testament teaches this. In Ecclesiastes 12:7 we read: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” “The dust”—that is our body. God told Adam, “… for dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return” (Gen. 3:19). It was the body that was taken from the dust, and then God breathed into man the breath of life, or the spirit, you see. It is the body that will go to sleep until the resurrection—only the body. The spirit of a believer will return to God.
- The spirit or the soul does not die, and therefore the spirit or the soul is not raised. Only the body can lie down in death, and only the body can stand up in resurrection. This is quite obvious when Paul says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (see 2 Cor. 5:8).
- Daniel is another writer who spoke of the death of the body as “sleep.” “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). Dust will go back to dust—that’s the body; but the spirit goes to God who sent it.
- The early Christians, adopted a very wonderful word for the burying places of their loved ones—the Greek word koimeterion, which means “a rest house for strangers, a sleeping place.” It is the same word from which we get our English word cemetery.
- The same word was used in that day for inns, or what we would call a hotel or motel. A Hilton Hotel, a Ramada Inn or a Holiday Inn—they are the places where you spend the night to sleep. You expect to get up the next day and continue your journey.
- This is the picture of the place where you bury your believing loved ones. You don’t weep when you have a friend who goes and spends a weekend in a Hilton Hotel, do you? No, you rejoice with him. The body of the believer has just been put into a motel until the resurrection. One day the Lord is coming and that body is going to be raised up.