1 Thessalonians 4:13

Did Paul teach the doctrine of soul-sleep?

PROBLEM: Several times the Bible refers to the dead as being asleep. Does this mean that the soul is not conscious between death and resurrection?

SOLUTION: The souls of both believers and unbelievers are conscious between death and the resurrection. Unbelievers are in conscious woe (see Luke 16:23; Mark 9:48; Matthew 25:41) and believers are in conscious bliss. “Sleep” is a reference to the body, not the soul. Sleep is an appropriate figure of speech for death of the body, since death is temporary until the resurrection when the body will “awake” from it.

1. Enoch was taken to be with God (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5).

2. David spoke of bliss in God’s presence after death (Psalms 16:10-11).

3. Elijah was taken up into heaven (2 Kings 2:1).

4. Moses and Elijah were conscious on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3) long after their time on earth.

5. Jesus said He went to the Father the day He died (Luke 23:46).

6. Jesus promised the repentant thief that he would be with Him in paradise the very day he died (Luke 23:43).

7. Paul said it was far better to die and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23).

8. Paul affirmed that when we are “absent from the body” then “we are present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

9. The writer of Hebrews refers to heaven as a place where “the spirits of just men [are] made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23).

10. The “souls” of those martyred during the tribulation were conscious in heaven, singing and praying to God (Revelation 6:9).