Whoa whoa Nathan be at peace. There is support in scripture for both soul sleep and conciousness after death. When Adam was created he became a living soul, Jesus came as a life-giving spirit.
The soul will sleep, this is true, but the spirit will continue on in conciousness. I see scripture making it plain that the unbeliever will be asleep until the Day of Judgement, why is this? They are not born of the Spirit, they have not been made alive in their spirits,
For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. (1 Peter 4:6)
Ignoring the controversy surrounding this verse, Peter plainly says here that there is such a thing as being made alive in our spirits, it follows that we are originally dead in our spirit. Also if we are made alive in our spirit the way God lives, it would be silly to say our spirits are not concious. The view that our spirit is just like electricity to an appliance (soul) seems to ignore many scriptures, Such as,
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. (Romans 8:16)
I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. (1 Corinthians 14:15)
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?(1 Corinthians 2:11)
So the spirit of a person can think, pray, sing, and testify according to the above verses. When Jesus returns he will come with the believers who died in Him, just as Paul says,
Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 4:14)
This verse explains how ‘Fallen Asleep’ simply refers to in this life, they are made alive in the Spirit just like Jesus was on his death (1 Peter 3:18). The dead wicked will sleep/wait in Hades, until the second ressurection.
That just my 2 cents on it. My view is still open to change, so if you have another better explanation I’m all ears.
It’s evident that this topic has hit a nerve for you. The question you ask at the end of your last post implies that what you’ve said in response to me so far has perhaps “put this soul sleep thing to rest already,” which I think is a bit premature on your part. While I’m not sure I have enough time right now to engage in the kind of long-winded discussion/debate I’ve had with others on this topic (such as Lefein and atHisfeet), I would like to discuss it with you as much as I can and try and answer some of your objections as well as answer any questions you might have. But as a full-blown discussion of the question of whether or not Scripture teaches the dead to be conscious would kind of “derail” the more specific topic of this thread you created, I’ve opted to post my response on another thread where a discussion of this question is the main topic. Hope that’s ok with you.
While I’d rather have a more in-depth discussion on the broader topic of “soul sleep” on another thread (assuming you want to discuss this topic further), I just wanted to make a few remarks in response to your post.
You wrote:
My understanding is that the words translated “spirit” can refer to different things depending on the usage and context: Index to Gregory MacD’s EU
Sometimes the Hebrew and Greek words translated “spirit” refer to the animating “breath” from God which is in our nostrils and which we are said to share with the animals. It is this that was breathed into Adam’s nostrils to make him a “living soul,” and which is said to depart from man at death and return to God who gave it. But in the above verses I don’t believe this particular “spirit” is in view. Rather, I believe Paul is referring to a person’s mental disposition, which is the “spirit of our mind” (Eph 4:23). This is a different kind of “spirit” within man than the “spirit” which is in our nostrils and which is breathed out when we die. It was with his mental disposition that I believe Paul could pray and sing in addition to doing so with his mind, or understanding. And it is our mental disposition that is so intimately related to our thoughts as to be said to “know” them. But a human being’s mental disposition is not something that can exist apart from a human mind, and a human mind is not, I don’t believe, something that can exist apart from a functioning human brain (and a brain cannot, of course, function unless a person has the “breath of life” within them).
The ESV reads, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
I don’t think Paul is saying that anyone who had died will be with Jesus before Jesus raises the dead. Those to whom Paul’s referring had “fallen asleep” and would be asleep at the time of Jesus’ return from heaven. These people who had fallen asleep weren’t in heaven when Paul wrote, but rather were in need of being “woken up” by Jesus and restored to a living, conscious existence. When Paul says that God will “bring with him those who have fallen asleep” he probably means that God will bring those who have fallen asleep from the dead in the same way that Christ had been “brought again from the dead” (see Heb 13:20). And I believe the expression “with [Christ]” has the same meaning in this verse as it does in 2 Cor 4:14, where we read (ESV), “…knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.” Here Paul is not saying that those raised from the dead will be “with Jesus” before the resurrection of which he’s speaking takes place. Even if that were the case, it’s not his meaning here, and I don’t think it’s his meaning in 1 Thess 4, either.
Two questions, I guess. One is, weren’t there some people raised from the dead at the crucifixion? If so, how does that factor in? Also, what exactly is the purpose of the resurrection (assuming it’s not immediate after our deaths). My understanding is that the soul, contrary to popular teaching, is the whole man. (Typically, we’re taught that we have three parts, thanks to trinitarian theology; the body, the soul…mind, will, and emotions, and the spirit. But if you look at the OT Hebrew word nephesh, you will see that the ‘soul’ actually encompasses the body as well, and refers to the whole being. This idea of a distinction between our physical body and our soul is a Western and artificial notion).
They have actually done a scientific study that would seem to support this. A number of people had tissue scrapings taken from the inside of their mouths and placed in solution in petri dishes, then these samples were hooked up to low voltage (galvanic) monitors. These people were then instructed to record the time and date in a journal, whenever they experienced a stressful event . Some of these people were hundreds of miles away from their tissue sample when recording these events. Later, researchers collected the journals, matching them up with the donors’ tissue samples and the recordings in the galvanic monitors. The result? 100% correlation of a reaction in the tissue samples when the rest of the person was experiencing a stressful event! We are more wholistic than we realize!
If all that returns to God when our physical death occurs is the life giving, animating breath, that does not necessarily imply consciousness. We are being saved from permanent death, not ECT (which is only possible if we remain spirit beings). We have to remember that the inherent immortality of the “soul” (by which is actually meant spirit, in this concept) is a pagan idea that we don’t find in scripture.
My understanding is that Jesus’ resurrection is a guarantee of ours, but not necessarily immediately. Even Jesus himself was dead three days before his resurrection.
Okay, time for confession . . . what I wrote above was actually from another conversation I was having on another forum on the exact same thing . . .but WHY I wrote that last sentence the way I did . . .sigh . . .I’ll never know. I feel EXACTLY the same way as you do in your explanation here as well and I’ll even throw in that what Melchezedek says about the soul implying the “whole” of man . . .that really fits in with how I see the soul as well. I’d been in this same general discussion over on Tent a while back and it occurred to me, this was like 6 months ago or longer . . .that the idea that my soul is my “mind, will and emotion” is not something that God had shown me so much as it’s something that I was taught and adopted as my own understanding. When I realized that, I let go of it. When I let go of it . . .“this” analogy came to me . . .
First, we start where God created Adam . . .no life, just a corpse. So we have the first element of man . . the body. Nothing more, nothing less. Then . . .God BREATHED his spirit into man. Now, we have two major componants. We have a body and now, a spirit has entered into the body. And as a result man BECAME a living soul. The soul isn’t the third part of us as much as it is the evidence that one part is alive in the other part. My soul is the evidence that my spirit is living in my body. So, yeah, I can see how the definition of soul could mean “me” as a “whole”.
Now, the best analogy of that . . .someone on Tent brought this out . . .I don’t remember who but it changed me deeply about what my soul is and how it all fits together. If you take a yellow transparent piece of glass and we’ll label that as “spirit” and you take a red transparent piece of glass, we’ll label that as “body” and as you over lay the yellow with the red, a third color manifests . . “that’s” the soul. It’s the evidence that yellow is overlaying the red.
Now . . .when you remove the yellow (spirit) from the red (body) the third color (green?) disappears. “That’s” what I believe happens at death. Our spirit returns to the Father, our body returns to the earth and our soul doesn’t exist because spirit has left the body. BUT . . .that’s why our resurrection is so important . . .we are still in existance as a spirit in heaven, but we’re no longer manifesting the completeness of our being because our bodies have returned to the dust. So . . .at the end of all things, there “is” a resurrection of our bodies as we literally take mortality and put on immortality, our spirit returns to our bodies in a “glorified” state . .get to that in a sec . . .and once our spirits return, our souls manifest the return just as before. it also can be likened to a shadow.
If you are in an empty room, nothing but white walls . . .no light, just “you”. then when you add light, now it’s not just you and light, but now it’s you, light and your “shadow”. And like that third color, the shadow is the evidence that light is illuminating the body. But when you shut the light off, the shadow leaves . . .turn the light on, the shadow returns.
For me the glorified state is the return of everything back to the garden of Eden which is again, for me, predominantly spirit and that which is predominantly natural now will return to what spirit is now, the secondary state “to us”.
Yeah; this event is referred to in Mt. 27:51-53. On another thread (Miroslav Volf - Yale Divinity) I wrote the following concerning this passage in response to StudentoftheWord:
My understanding is that the resurrection is the event by which all who are dead will be restored to a living, conscious existence (which is necessary if all are to be saved!). It will also, I think, be the time when God’s redemptive plan for humanity will be fully realized so that he may be “all in all.” Human nature will be perfected and all will live as they were ultimately created by God to live. In the resurrection I believe Christ will exercise the fullness of the power and authority God gave him when he made him “Lord of all.” All who are in rebellion against Christ and alienated from God will be subjected to Christ and reconciled to God, and all who are lost will be found.
Wow, that’s really fascinating…I’d love to read more about this study. Do you have any information on when and where it was done?
I agree with what you say above, Mel. And I’d love to see more of an emphasis on the resurrection (both of Christ and of the rest of humanity) among Evangelical Universalists.
Aaron; It was some time ago that I read about the study. I believe it was cited in a book titled “Death by Modern Medicine”, which was a compilation of evidence from various independent studies from which the author (A dual degree M.D and N.D.) used the data to demonstrate that Western medicine is actually the leading cause of death in the United States (more than cancer or heart disease individually). I believe her point in using this particular study, among others, (in a chapter that was devoted to scientific findings that actually demonstrate our nature as wholistic vs. mechanistic beings) was to illustrate the point that the mechanistic foundations of Western medicine are a large part of the faulty thinking that causes so many problems with it. I found that section of the book fascinating; it read a lot like something you’d expect from “What the bleep do we know.”
It is an indisputable fact (in the Bible at any rate) that our “being” comes from God who is The Being, and who maintains our being as beings.
I believe that our being goes back to God who gave it, our spirit and soul and body all go back to God who gave it some how or another. Our body goes back to the dust that is God’s dust (as he made it, and is the source of it) our spirit (our being) goes back to God directly who gave it, and in God - who is omnipresent, our being resides. And I believe it resides consciously, I see no reason why it shouldn’t. I see especially no reason why we should cease to exist, and in fact if our being is the breath of God it cannot cease to exist.
I believe our physical bodies are an expression of our supernatural being, in the same way that Nature is a physical expression and element of Supernature. Or to put it poetically; the canvas and oil are the physical expression and element of the Meaning and Being and Spirit and Story (synonymous?) of the painting which exists for ever as part of the Artist who made it, as it came from the Artist to begin with.
For the being of a person to cease to exist after death - would be that God forgot them, I believe. And if God forgot them, they would never be remembered again, as they would be forgotten out of the very mind of the Omniscient God.
I also believe that God, in his incredible Godhead, is also God “The Heaven” - and I believe the Bible attests to this when it mentions God as our refuge, and our strong fortress, and his presence as our dwelling place, and certainly there are multiple dimensions of meaning (I believe) behind Christ saying that there are many rooms in his Father’s house, and that the temple of God is the body; God’s body, Christ’s body especially.
I believe there is much support interpretively for God being “Heaven” also, for being our Paradise (even our corrective Paradise), just as his presence is Heaven on Earth for us here, and we are already seated in Heavenly places - we already are in the presence of God.
We go back to God, we go back to Heaven. I will not sleep or cease to exist. God does not hate me enough to do that, he cannot hate me enough to give me such a wicked stone when I have directly asked him for bread.
On a side note, concerning the side-topic;
I am content to believe in the resurrection and look forward to it; even put emphasis on it, Aaron, as you so wish. But I (and many others) will not put emphasis on the event if it comes with such a gross price tag, what would be for me the death of my (any) Spirituality and its replacement with Physicalist Materialism; and all the destructive effects it would have existentially and existentially regarding my being in the presence of God. All things I’ve expressed before, and abundantly so, which others can most likely attest and agree.
I don’t think Materialists (Physicalists) and other Soul-Sleep advocates quite understand or appreciate the sheer existential cost (existential bankruptcy as it would be in my case) that Soul-Sleep demands, if it is to be believed.
(Psalms 118:17-20 - KJV)
*I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD. The LORD hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death. Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD: This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter. *
Why should we not just remain in a spiritual state after death then? The resurrection has no purpose if we do not truly die, which is what that amounts to. Think about it; did Jesus actually die, or did his body just go into the ground while ‘He’ hung out with the Father for a few days in the spirit, while he was waiting to re-inhabit his body? That’s called re-incarnation, not resurrection. We all know what Paul said it meant if Jesus was not truly raised from the dead.
That sounds like the same line of reasoning as an ETCer who claims that the cross is useless if everyone is saved.
The Resurrection is more than the mere re-embodiment of a person’s being. Christ is the Resurrection, I will add. The Resurrection is also us receiving spiritual bodies, I will remind you. The Resurrection serves a grand purpose of magnification I believe, a wonderful gift on top of the gift of already living in Life (Christ), and being one with God and knowing him.
The idea that if we go to Heaven, then the Resurrection is effectively “stupid” is a utilitarian idea that I believe turns the gifts of God into vapid machines whose only value is in its use as a tool. The Resurrection’s value is not in its use as a resuscitator, it is a beauty that is poetry and magnification of an already good creation into the heights of artistic glorydom.
The Resurrection should not be treated the way Theologians treat Jesus, and the way Religious people treat Christianity.
If you equate death with the cessation of existence (or at least most Soulsleepers do), I do not. If Jesus ceased to exist - then I as someone who believes Jesus is God the Son, or a person of God; would have to effectively say God ceased to exist. Or else abandon that Jesus is God - in which case I’d just go ahead and convert to something completely different and not even have to deal with the issue of soul-sleep or any Biblical interpretations of it. Because the Bible and all its effects, would be completely irrelevant to me.
If you equate death with lingering about in the body in a hole in the ground; then I say If Jesus basically lingered about in his body in a hole in the ground asleep…that’s hideous too. The vast majority of Christians would be little more than maggot food wallowing unconscious in their own rot until even the rot turns into filthy dust. So much for the Psalmist saying that God would not let his Son’s body decay…We being his body would be the very embodiment of decaying…
As for what he did, he went into the Unseen and freed the people there, and preached to the prisoners. He freed the beings who were not free, from the things that kept them imprisoned; he didn’t just “hang out with the Father” (which should not be a problem considering that God is everywhere and could have hung out with Jesus even in a sewer).
That is thoroughly incorrect. “Reincarnation” as it is traditionally known is inhabiting another life, and being reborn as a completely different individual. The Resurrection deals with the individual, and it maintains the individual’s being as that individual.
Christ died, he did not cease to exist. He killed death, which I do not believe to be the cessation of existence. I have no reason to think that because some how Christ did not cease to exist in the grave - that I am some how in awful danger of never having a resurrection or happy ending.
All in all, I find absolutely no compelling reason why I should be denied Heaven as well as Resurrection in order to satisfy any materialistic interpretation of anything (death, resurrection, Christ, Christ’s purposes or otherwise), especially when it consigns me either to rotting in the grave, or ceasing to exist in comparison to being happy, blissful, and fully in the presence of God - alive - in spirit, and then in spiritually embodied spirit in a win-win entirely upward growth in blessedness.
I’ll take the third option; Bliss, over what I feel is a pessimistic (Because it does not allow two good things, but insists that it is either/or), spiritless (because it is Materialistic), quite frankly gross (because it is either sleeping in rot, or ceasing to exist) tenancies of the former options.
Soul sleep doesn’t make me love, nor look forward to any resurrection. In fact it does quite the opposite, for me. It ruins the marriage, so to speak, and like ETC there is no comfort or reinterpretation or any consolation that will bring comfort or acceptance of it, because like ETC the problem is in the very idea itself…the expressions are just masks.
But perhaps that is all I should say on the matter…The thread is beginning to derail. For that I apologise to the original poster.
Look up the root words that make up our modern word re-incarnation. It does not have to mean we inhabit another body or another “life” (coming back as someone or something else), even though that is what the popular notion has made it into. What do we call the arrival of Logos as the baby Jesus? The incarnation. If he left that body at the crucifixion to come back into it three days later, then that would be? Re-incarnation.
He was only dead three days in order to fulfill the prophecy that his body would not suffer decay. That fact has no bearing on whether he actually died or not. If Jesus did not truly die, then he was not truly resurrected, only ‘re-incarnated’; which then means we are still very much “in the soup”, according to Paul.
What most people don’t realize is that the immortality of the ‘soul’ is a pagan idea that is not found in scripture, and it leads to much confusion (and error).
Jesus gave up his spirit to the Father at the crucifixion, the ultimate in trust! The Father had complete control over it, because Jesus actually died, in every sense of the word. He experienced death for us! Note that the scripture says that Jesus was raised from the dead, he did not raise himself.
Yes, but it is also an indisputable fact that we begin our existence as mortal beings, and that we will not “put on immortality” until Christ returns to abolish death. Until then, one important aspect of our “being” will remain quite different from God’s (as well as from Jesus’ and the angels’).
Except what we’re told is that Adam - not merely Adam’s body while Adam (or Adam’s “being”) went somewhere else - returned to “the dust that is God’s dust.” Nowhere are we told that the breath of life/spirit that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils was Adam’s “being.” “Adam” refers to a personal being, but the “breath of life” breathed into Adam’s nostrils (and which made him a “living soul”) was an “it” not a “he.” Your breath - the “spirit” from God which you share with the animals and which is in your nostrils (Gen 2:7; 6:17; 7:15, 22; Job 27:3; 34:14-15; Ps 104:29; 146:4; Eccl 3:19) - is not your being, and you, as a human being, are not constituted by your breath. You are constituted by your body - i.e., that wonderfully designed organism which James says is “dead” without the “spirit” (which here refers to the “breath of life”).
But what about the “spirit” within us which can be “troubled” or “broken” or “haughty” or “lowly” or “provoked,” and which is said to “know a person’s thoughts” (etc.)? Well first, this “spirit” within us isn’t the “spirit” or breath that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils, and which is in the nostrils of all living, breathing things (both animal and human). While the word “spirit” in both cases refers to some invisible force, the same thing is not being referred to. But does it refer to our “being?” No. When the word “spirit” is used in this secondary way it’s referring to our mental disposition or to some dominant feeling that moves us to action. It’s something that I believe is inseparable from being alive. That is, in order for humans to even have such a “spirit” within us we must first, I believe, already possess the other “spirit” (i.e., the breath of life in our nostrils). When the “spirit” that is the “breath of life” from God departs from us, all mental activity ceases and we can no longer have thoughts, feelings or a state of mind. Whatever plans we had formulated in our mind perish when we die. The dead know nothing. Only the living - whether we’re talking about God, angels or man - can think and feel. The dead can’t do anything but remain dead until they are restored to a living existence.
How in the world does it follow that God has forgotten someone and will never remember them again just because they’ve stopped breathing and all mental activity has ceased due to the fact that their brain has stopped functioning? To be consistent you should also believe that human persons never even enter God’s mind - and are never thought of by God - until we first come into existence! But that’s obviously not true. God was thinking of us and “knew us” before we were even born. I think your reasoning is flawed and your worries and concerns are unfounded. Just because we cease to exist as living, conscious beings when we die doesn’t mean God has “forgotten us.” It simply means our existence as living, conscious persons has been temporarily suspended and put on hold until a future time. He loved us before we began to exist as living, conscious persons and he will continue to love us after we die. It is only a permanent loss of living, conscious existence - not a temporary one - that would be inconsistent with God’s unfailing love for us.
When did Christ say his disciples would join him in Heaven (his Father’s house), Lefein? When they breathed their last and died? No. He said they wouldn’t be able to follow him to where he was going until after he comes again to take them to himself (John 13:33; 14:1-3) - i.e., when he comes in the same way as they watched him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). And when, according to Paul, will we get to be “always with the Lord?” When we breathe our last and die? No. It’s after Jesus has descended from heaven “with a cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess 4:13-18). But does the fact that we “sleep” until Christ returns to take us to himself mean God hates us? Of course not. Again, your concern is unfounded. Death’s being a temporary cessation of living, conscious existence does not mean God hates us.
I don’t believe death in and of itself is something we’re supposed to “like,” Lefein. Considered by itself, death is not supposed to bring a smile to our face. Death is an enemy that I believe exists primarily for the purpose of contrast. Death highlights life. That which makes death so undesirable and unappealing to us is what makes life even more desirable and appealing to us than it would be otherwise. Death also helps manifest God’s character in that it gives God the opportunity to work redemptively on behalf of those who are dead and dying, just as the blindness of the man referred to in John 9:1 gave God the opportunity to heal the man through Jesus. It’s about contrast and God’s giving himself the opportunity to bring about a greater good than would’ve been possible had there been nothing from which to save and heal us.
You seem troubled that God would allow or ordain something to be a part of our present existence that we aren’t supposed to like (such as a loss of conscious existence when we die). But the fact that certain aspects of our existence are not meant to make us feel good does not mean God hates us. Adopting your reasoning an agnostic could complain, “I cannot believe in a God who would hate us enough to allow anyone to suffer in any way during this life, or who would allow all of the ambiguity and heartache and loss that makes life so hard sometimes. I cannot believe in a God who would hate his human creatures enough to give us such a wicked stone when so many have asked him directly for bread. I refuse to believe in such a hateful God.” That’s what I hear you saying when you speak of “soul sleep” as if it meant God hated us. Similarly, a single Christian who desperately longed to be married and have children could say (adopting your reasoning), “God does not hate me enough not to give me a spouse and children; he cannot give me such a wicked stone when I have directly asked him for bread.” But would they be correct just because they felt so strongly in this way? Of course not.
The fact that death entails a loss of life and conscious existence is not something that, in itself, produces in me any warm or pleasant feelings. It’s not supposed to; we were created ultimately for life, and long for a time when we will be free from all pain and sorrow and death. But the fact that our conscious existence temporarily ceases at death doesn’t mean God hates us any more than the fact that we are exposed to pain and sorrow in this life means that God hates us. While we would often prefer that God did things differently or chose not to allow certain things, neither “fact of life” is inconsistent with God’s love for us. And while I don’t think our having to die is inconsistent with God’s love for us, I think a person adopting your reasoning could make a better argument for this being less consistent with God’s love than the fact that our conscious existence ceases when we die. Some have a greater aversion to and fear of dying than of simply ceasing to consciously exist after they’ve died, and someone who had adopted your reasoning could say (even if such a belief was ultimately delusional), “I do not think I will die. God does not hate me enough to do that, he cannot hate me enough to give me such a wicked stone when I have directly asked him for bread.” You would probably respond to this person by saying that our having to die does not mean God hates us at all. God may not be “safe” (in the sense that God has ordained or allowed certain aspects of our existence that we would prefer he didn’t), but he is still good because he has not ordained (or does not allow) anything to happen to us that is inconsistent with our ultimate happiness. Like dying itself, being dead is only temporary. God is not going to let death have the last word for anyone. God did not forget Adam after he died and returned to the dust, and he has not forgotten anyone else who has died, either (except perhaps in a figurative sense, as he is said to “remember” Israel after her exile). He is one day going to “swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all people, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces…”
Your words seem to betray a disdain for the physical and material, and a refusal to see anything that is fundamentally physical and material as being in any way sacred or spiritual. I disagree with your view. I don’t see the spiritual as being in any way in conflict with the physical and material. I don’t think a being which is constituted by a physical, material body is “unspiritual” merely by virtue of its being a physical or material being. Contrary to what you seem to think, “physical” or “material” is not the opposite of “spiritual.” “Spirit” simply refers to something’s being an invisible force (such as a current of air or a mental disposition), and in most places in the NT, “spiritual” refers to something’s being inspired by or under the governing influence of the Holy Spirit, and has nothing to do with whether they are wholly material, physical beings or not. Paul refers to some persons as “spiritual” and others as “natural” (or “soulish”) not because the former are immaterial, non-physical beings and the latter aren’t, or because the former have a “spirit” or breath that departs from them at death and the latter don’t. That’s obviously not Paul’s meaning here. He’s talking about people who are taught by the Spirit and who set their minds on the things of the Spirit, and those who don’t.
Are you saying that the only reason I’m not existentially bankrupt or haven’t sunk into existential despair is because I don’t really believe that my existence as a living, conscious being is going to temporarily cease at death and then be restored to me at the resurrection? I’ve thought a great deal about this subject over the years, and even if I’m wrong I think it would be pretty ungracious of you to claim I don’t really believe what I claim to believe, or that I would be going through some existential crisis if I really did believe it. Temporary cessation of life and consciousness is certainly not something for which I’m “groaning” (my desire is to be further clothed at the resurrection, assuming Christ doesn’t return before I die), but it’s not something that troubles me a great deal, either. That there will be a “gap” in my existence as a living, conscious being is not something that makes me think God hates me. It’s not like I’ll be aware of being dead, and since it won’t trouble me then it doesn’t trouble me now. From my perspective, as soon as I close my eyes in death I will be opening them again on the morning of the resurrection. What does trouble me is the same thing that troubles those who don’t believe in “soul-sleep”: the thought of dying before my wife and “leaving her behind,” or the thought of my wife dying before me (but even then, I’m confident that we’ll see each other again!).
To interpret the Psalmist as saying he would never experience the death that is referred to in (for example) Psalm 6:5 or 13:3 or 30:9 would mean the Psalmist believed himself to be immortal and “equal to the angels.” That’s obviously not his meaning: “What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah” (Ps 89:48). But if by “not dying” the Psalmist means he had been delivered by God from a premature death (and this was occasionally a cause for thanksgiving in the Psalms), this Psalm becomes consistent with the rest of Scripture. Adam Clarke (who did not believe in “soul-sleep”) interpreted the Psalmist’s words in v. 17 as follows: “I was nigh unto death; but I am preserved, - preserved to publish the wondrous works of the Lord.”
The Peshitta is a translation. As such, it is no more authoritative than any other translation. All that one need say in response to your quote of the Peshitta is that the translators of the Peshitta either didn’t recognize that Jesus was using a noted Hebrew idiom, or the translators knew it but chose to translate the verse in a way that revealed their bias that humans don’t really die, or that the dead aren’t really dead (and I say that because I think everyone knows intuitively that consciousness and life are inseparable). Also, another Aramaic translation of the NT (the Curetonian Syriac) translates Luke 23:43 in a way that does recognize the idiom I think Jesus was using, and reads, “Amen say I to you today that with me you will be in the garden of Eden” (a point I argued in the following post: Should we form universalist congregations?).
So if it’s true that you “will not soulsleep,” I don’t think it’s because of what Luke 23:43 says. But that you will, in fact, “soulsleep” after you die is evident to me from the following two Scriptural facts:
I’m sorry you view my belief as being as offensive and “damnable” as we both view ECT, but I’m not going to apologize for simply stating what I believe to be the clear teaching of Scripture. “May any teaching that is inconsistent with Scripture be damned with a violent damning.” And while I was hoping our conversation might continue, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m writing more for the benefit of those who aren’t already hostile to what I think Scripture teaches and science confirms.
I did, in several translations, and I see the resurrection being equated very much to clothing, I am not my clothing.
It does not convert me to soul sleep, it only strengthens my resolve that my being is not my raiment, and that my raiment is not my being; as it should be, as it is, as it will be - for me at the very least.
You mean the parts of this chapter where Paul refers to a certain category of human persons as “the dead,” refers to these persons as having “fallen asleep,” says that “we shall not all sleep,” talks about how essential the resurrection is to our having a future, post-mortem existence, refers to Adam as being the “man of dust,” and speaks of the mortal as putting on immortality and the perishable as putting on the imperishable at the “last trumpet?” Yeah, I think this whole chapter is pretty devastating to the belief that human persons are really immortal souls or spirits that go to heaven at death.
We don’t have to be “immortal souls” that exist in a conscious, disembodied state after death in order for our body to be figuratively spoken of as “clothing” or as a “building.” But we shouldn’t stretch the metaphor too far. Even for those who believe we are really “immortal souls,” there is much that is true about our relationship to our bodies that is not true of our relationship to our clothes or where we live. And one big difference, I believe, is that, while we aren’t identical with our bodies, we are constituted by our bodies and cannot consciously exist without a body of some sort (a good book in which the “Constitution View” is defended is Rethinking Human Nature by Kevin J. Corcoran). Because we are constituted by our bodies, when a person’s body dies, the person is said to die as well. And when a person’s body is buried or entombed, the person is said to be buried or entombed as well.
Yeah, I think this whole chapter is pretty devastating to the belief that human persons are really immortal souls or spirits that go to heaven at death.