Christian Anthropological Implications Contradicting Soul Sleep

2023-09-16

Nobody is going to argue that Christians, when they die, immediately go to heaven physically. They spiritually go to heaven, and their lifeless body remains on the earth. People consist of body, soul, and spirit, as discussed elsewhere. The body is asleep at death, but the soul is not asleep, as the soul sleep adherents believe.

It is said that the story of Lazarus (John 11:1-44) shows that Christians do not go to heaven when they die. There are some problems with this. First, I cannot find any situation in Scripture where Lazarus was interviewed after his rising from the dead. Do we know from him if he were conscious those four days his body laid in the grave?

While we cannot know for sure, it is rather strange that Jesus tells a story where there is a poor man named Lazarus who does have consciousness after death. “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16:22-23). These two men, Lazarus and the rich man, both are conscious after their deaths, one presumably in heaven, and we are explicitly told the other one is in hell. This is before the first resurrection (still future), because we are told that the rich man still had five living brothers: “For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (Luke 16:28).

There is a strong likelihood that this is the same Lazarus as John’s gospel since Jesus was close to Lazarus and his family. “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Why choose this name of someone close to Him if it were just a story? Regardless of whether the Lazarus of this story is the same Lazarus, it does not really matter. The story shows that Jesus Himself taught that there was consciousness after death and before the resurrection, and that consciousness is tied to the immaterial part of the person. That immaterial part departs from their body and goes elsewhere; the immaterial Lazarus was with the immaterial Abraham in a distinct location, and the immaterial rich man was in another distinct location.

How about Jairus’ daughter, whom Jesus rose from the dead, when it is written, “And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat” (Luke 8:55)? Her spirit was somewhere else, and it came into her body again.

How about the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, after He died and before He was risen? Jesus was with the thief in paradise, or third heaven: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). And again, He also went to hell: “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (1 Peter 3:19-20).

Nobody who has studied the Bible at all is going to argue that people are dying, and their bodies are immediately going to heaven. The immaterial part of people is with the Lord when they die, while the body “sleeps” in the ground awaiting the resurrection.

And if you are willing to hear, there is a spiritual reality of every Christian already in heaven before they die. “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). And again, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).