Soul sleep

: William B. Nelson Jr.

Old Testament. The Hebrew word seol [l/a.v], "Sheol, " refers to the grave or the abode of the dead ( Psalms 88:3 Psalms 88:5 ). Through much of the Old Testament period, it was believed that all went one place, whether human or animal ( Psalms 49:12 Psalms 49:14 Psalms 49:20 ), whether righteous or wicked ( Eccl 9:2-3 ). No one could avoid Sheol ( Psalm 49:9 ; 89:48 ), which was thought to be down in the lowest parts of the earth ( Deut 32:22 ; 1 Sam 28:11-15 ; Job 26:5 ; Psalm 86:13 ; Isa 7:11 ; Ezekiel 31:14-16 Ezekiel 31:18 ).

Unlike this world, Sheol is devoid of love, hate, envy, work, thought, knowledge, and wisdom ( Ecclesiastes 9:6 Ecclesiastes 9:10 ). Descriptions are bleak: There is no light ( Job 10:21-22 ; 17:13 ; Psalms 88:6 Psalms 88:12 ; 143:3 ), no remembrance ( Psalm 6:5 ; 88:12 ; Eccl 9:5 ), no praise of God ( Psalm 6:5 ; 30:9 ; 88:10-12 ; 115:17 ; Isa 38:18 )in fact, no sound at all ( Psalm 94:17 ; 115:17 ). Its inhabitants are weak, trembling shades ( Job 26:5 ; Psalm 88:10-12 ; Isa 14:9-10 ) who can never hope to escape from its gates ( Job 10:21 ; 17:13-16 ; Isa 38:10 ). Sheol is like a ravenous beast that swallows the living without being sated ( Prov 1:12 ; 27:20 ; Isa 5:14 ). Some thought the dead were cut off from God ( Psalm 88:3-5 ; Isa 38:11 ); while others believed that God's presence reached even to Sheol ( Psalm 139:8 ).

Toward the end of the Old Testament, God revealed that there will be a resurrection of the dead ( Isa 26:19 ). Sheol will devour no longer; instead God will swallow up Death ( Isa 25:8 ). The faithful will be rewarded with everlasting life while the rest will experience eternal contempt ( Dan 12:2 ). This theology developed further in the intertestamental period.

The New Testament. By the time of Jesus, it was common for Jews to believe that the righteous dead go to a place of comfort while the wicked go to Hades ("Hades" normally translates "Sheol" in the LXX), a place of torment ( Luke 16:22-23 ). Similarly, in Christianity, believers who die go immediately to be with the Lord ( 2 Cor 5:8 ; Php 1:23 ). Hades is a hostile place whose gates cannot prevail against the church ( Matt 16:18 ). In fact, Jesus himself holds the keys of Death and Hades ( Rev 1:18 ). Death and Hades will ultimately relinquish their dead and be cast into the lake of fire ( Rev 20:13-14 ).

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Phoneman777 said:

Friend, you're basing your "immortal soul" idea on three or four texts that you either misinterpret or fail to see are figurative. How do I know? Please answer whether the following texts line up with what you say or what I say about what happens when we die:

• The dead don't know anything. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead have no memory. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead feel no emotions. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not work. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not lay plans. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not have wisdom or knowledge. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead no longer have thoughts to think. Psalms 146:3-4 KJV
• The dead do not praise the Lord. Psalms 115:17 KJV
• The dead do not know the fates of their children. Job 14:21 KJV
• The dead do not remember anything. Psalms 88:11-12 KJV
• The dead do not return to the land of the living. Job 7:10 KJV
• The dead have nothing to do with anything that happens on Earth until the resurrection. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• Souls need to be saved from death. James 5:20 KJV
• Souls that sin will die. Ezekiel 18:4 KJV (refers to "literal death" b/c "spiritual death" is in present tense (1 Timothy 5:6 KJV)

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• Souls need to be saved from death. James 5:20 KJV

• "spiritual death" is in present tense (1 Timothy 5:6 KJV)

Phoneman777 said:

I disagree with "thought for thought" Dynamic Equvalence methodology - creates room for a spin zone. That's why the KJV translators stuck to Formal Equivalence and Verbal Equivalence.

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kerwin said:

This passage testifies that the dead go to Sheol in verse 10 and that Sheol is not under the sun.

It also seems that two shades would not be communicating according to this description but that may be a modern viewpoint. The Ancients looked at many things different than we do in this day and age.

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OzSpen said:

Sheol was the Intermediate State of the OT that was translated as Hades by the Septuagint translators.

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kerwin said:

Yes, I am aware of that as that the reason is because Sheol and Hades were similar concepts. Tartarus is also probably a similar situation as it could be the Koine Greek equivalent of Abandon; which itself is possibly the lowest Sheol. Gehenna has no equivalent in Koine Greek and so did not get translated but was instead taken copied from one language to the other.

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• Sheol. OT believers knew that Sheol was visible to God (Job 26:6) and that they were in the presence and protection of God at death (Psalm 139:8).
• Hades (Morey 1984:81-87). It is the Greek equivalent of Sheol, although it translates other Hebrew words as well. We run into problems with the mistranslation by the KJV of Hades and Sheol. The post-resurrection teaching in the NT is that the believer goes to heaven at death (present with the Lord) to await the resurrection and the final eternal state. But for unbelievers they go to Hades, a temporary place of torment, awaiting their resurrection and the eternal punishment. Regarding 2 Peter 2:9, ‘the grammar of the text irrefutably establishes that the wicked are in torment while they await their final judgment. When the day of judgment arrives, Hades will be emptied of its inhabitants, and the wicked will stand before God for their final sentence (Rev. 20:13-15). Thus, we conclude that Hades will be emptied at the resurrection, and then the wicked will be cast into “hell” (Gehenna)’ (Morey 1984:87).
• Valley of Hinnom. It is mentioned in Josh 15:8; 18:16 and Neh. 11:30. It was the place where idolatrous Jews gave human sacrifices to pagan deities. In Christ’s day it became Jerusalem’s garbage dump. So, this garbage dump became a Jewish picture of the ultimate fate of idol worshippers (Morey 1984:87).
• Tartarus. This is used in 2 Peter 2:4 to refer to angels and where they were cast. He was using a word that in Greek literature meant a place of conscious torment in the netherworld. It did not mean non-existence, but referred to their being reserved in the place of mental anguish and terror until the day of judgment (Morey 1984:135).
• Gehenna. It’s the Greek equivalent of the Valley of Hinnom, so Gehenna is an appropriate description of the final, eternal garbage dump where idolators go after the resurrection. The wicked would suffer there forever. Even Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon concluded that it means ‘the place of eternal punishment’. Coon and Mills define Gehenna as ‘the place of eternal punishment’. So Gehenna is the final place of punishment, the ultimate place of torment for the wicked. It will be eternal, conscious torment (Morey 1984:87-90).

"All the references to gehenna, except James 3:6, are from the lips of Christ himself, and there is an obvious emphasis on the punishment for the wicked after death as being everlasting. The term gehenna is derived from the Valley of Hinnom, traditionally considered by the Jews the place of the final punishment of the ungodly. Located just south of Jerusalem, it is referred to in Joshua 15:8 and 18:16, where this valley was considered a boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. In this place human sacrifices were offered to Molech; these altars were destroyed by Josiah (2 Kings 23:10). The valley was later declared to be 'the valley of slaughter' by Jeremiah (Jer. 7:30-33). The valley was used as a burial place for criminals and for burning garbage. Whatever its historical and geographic meaning, its usage in the New Testament is clearly a reference to the everlasting state of the wicked, and this seems to be the thought in every instance. In James 3:6 the damage accomplished by an uncontrolled tongue is compared to a fire which 'corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.' "Christ warned that a person who declares others a fool 'will be in danger of the fire of hell' (Matt. 5:22). In Matthew 5:29 Christ states that it is better to lose an eye than to be thrown into gehenna, with a similar thought regarding it being better to lose a hand than to go into gehenna (Matt. 5:30). In Matthew 10:28 believers in Christ are told not to be afraid of those who kill the body, but rather to 'fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell' (KJV). A similar thought is mentioned in Matthew 18:9, where it is declared better 'to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.' In Matthew 23:15 Christ denounces the Pharisees who 'travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.' In Matthew 23:33 he denounces the Pharisees and the scribes, asking the question, 'How will you escape being condemned to hell?' In Mark 9:43, 45, 47, the thought recorded in Matthew about it being better to lose part of the body than to be cast into hell is repeated (cf. Matt. 5:22, 29, 30). Luke 12:5 contains a similar thought to that expressed in Matthew 10:28, that one should fear the devil far more than those who might kill them physically. Though not always expressly stated, the implication is that the punishment will have duration and be endless." John F. Walvoord in Four Views on Hell, p. 20

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"In the New Testament the final destination of the wicked is pictured as a place of blazing sulfur, where the burning smoke ascends forever. This would have been an effective image because sulfur fires were part of life for those who lived in the Jerusalem of Bible times. Southwest of the city was the Valley of Hinnom, an area that had a long history of desecration. The steep gorge was once used to burn children in sacrifice to the Ammonite god Molech (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 32:35). Jeremiah denounced such practices by saying that Hinnom Valley would become the valley of God's judgment, a place of slaughter (Jer. 7:32; 19:5-7). As the years passed, a sense of foreboding hung over the valley. People began to burn their garbage and offal there, using sulfur, the flammable substance we now use in matches and gunpowder. Eventually, the Hebrew name ge-hinnom (canyon of Hinnom) evolved into geenna (gehenna), the familiar Greek word for hell (Matt. 5:22, 29; 10:28; 18:9; 23:33; Mark 9:43, 45; Luke 12:5). Thus when the Jews talked about punishment in the next life, what better image could they use than the smoldering valley they called gehenna? "In the intertestamental period, gehenna was widely used as a metaphor for hell, the place of eternal damnation. Later, in rabbinic literature, we find gehenna given a location—in the depths of the earth, and sometimes in Africa beyond the Mountains of Darkness. Some Jews, of course, took the fiery images literally, supposing that Hinnom Valley itself would become the place of hellfire and judgment (1 Enoch 27:1-2; 54:1-6; 56:3-4; 90:26-28; 4 Ezra 7:36). But this view was minor and not widely held in Judaism. The New Testament also rejects this view, saying that gehenna is already in some sense prepared elsewhere (Matt. 25:41), just as heaven is (Matt. 25:34; John 14:2; Heb. 11:16)." William Crockett in Four Views on Hell, p. 58

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Quote: OzSpen
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OzSpen said:

kerwin,

Tartarus is NOT a place of similar situation to Sheol and Hades. It is only used once in the entire NT and is the place where fallen angels are cast.
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OzSpen said:

Phoneman,

It's amazing the Scriptures you skip past to avoid the immortality of the soul. You claim:

• Souls need to be saved from death. James 5:20 KJV

Yes, 'let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins' (James 5:20 ESV). This refers to bringing back a wanderer from the truth (James 5:19 ESV). So this restoration of the sinner refers to his/her spiritual death in v. 20 - the inner life of the this person before the Lord. This is a serious condition from which the strayer needs to be rescued. Physical death is not adequate to explain the situation in vv 19-20. It is better to see this as referring to spiritual death where a person has wandered from the way of Christ and is in grave spiritual danger if he/she is not restored. It agrees with the picture James has already given us in James 1:13-15 (ESV).

You continue to push your agenda:

• "spiritual death" is in present tense (1 Timothy 5:6 KJV)

What does 1 Tim 5:6 (ESV) state? 'but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives'. Of course she continues to be spiritually dead. This is the opposite of John 11:25 (ESV).

Now to the

Nature of the immortal soul

The NT teaches immortality after Christ's resurrection, but it also teaches the conscious existence of the soul between death and the resurrection, in what is known as the intermediate state.

Christ’s promise to the thief on the cross was “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43 ESV). This is consistent with what happened to Stephen, the martyr, who prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59 ESV). He did not pray, “Lord Jesus, send me to the grave in which to sleep until the resurrection of the just and unjust.”

Paul’s classic statement of the immortality of the soul is in 2 Cor. 5:8 (ESV), “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Paul as he was contemplating his own death, wrote: “I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil. 1:23 ESV). There is no hint in Paul’s teaching of going to sleep in the grave before the resurrection of the just. He knew that when he died he would “be with Christ.” How does that compare with this life? It is “far better.”

Some contend that in I Corinthians 15 (ESV) Paul is correcting a false doctrine in Corinth of the immortality of the soul. Nowhere does Paul even hint at this. He wrote this passage to correct a false doctrine: “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (I Cor. 15:14 ESV).

This passage of I Cor. 15 corrected a Sadducees-kind-of false doctrine, that there is no resurrection of the dead. It is fallacious to say that Paul was correcting a false doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Paul’s punch line is in v. 16: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.” Immortality of the soul means that the soul continues in conscious existence after death and will be reunited with the body in the resurrection of all people.

When we go to the Book of Revelation, we find an example of the souls of martyred people who are conscious and in heaven: “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Rev. 6:9). But as for the wicked, even the beast and the false prophet who were thrown alive into the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20) were alive 1,000 years later (Rev. 20:10). What will happen to the devil, the beast and the false prophet? “They will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). There’s no soul sleep here!

In Matt. 17:3 (ESV) we read, “And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” Here Moses and Elijah, who had been dead for hundreds of years, were alive and conversing about Christ’s death on the Mount of Transfiguration. There’s no soul sleep here! (from my article, Immortality of the Soul).

Life continues in the Intermediate State of Hades (for unbelievers) and Paradise (for believers). There is no soul sleep for all until the resurrection or zapping of unbelievers with annihilation.

Oz

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Phoneman777 said:

Friend, you're basing your "immortal soul" idea on three or four texts that you either misinterpret or fail to see are figurative. How do I know? Please answer whether the following texts line up with what you say or what I say about what happens when we die:

• The dead don't know anything. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead have no memory. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead feel no emotions. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not work. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not lay plans. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead do not have wisdom or knowledge. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• The dead no longer have thoughts to think. Psalms 146:3-4 KJV
• The dead do not praise the Lord. Psalms 115:17 KJV
• The dead do not know the fates of their children. Job 14:21 KJV
• The dead do not remember anything. Psalms 88:11-12 KJV
• The dead do not return to the land of the living. Job 7:10 KJV
• The dead have nothing to do with anything that happens on Earth until the resurrection. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 KJV
• Souls need to be saved from death. James 5:20 KJV
• Souls that sin will die. Ezekiel 18:4 KJV (refers to "literal death" b/c "spiritual death" is in present tense (1 Timothy 5:6 KJV)

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StanJ said:

The 'DEAD' in the Bible relate only to people that no longer have physical animation in their lives. Using the word soul from the KJV is not doing proper biblical studies as it is a word that was only used as such in the 16 hundreds when the KJV was written.
James 5:20
remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

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• "Deliver not the soul of thy turtledove". Psalm 79:14 KJV Will we argue that turtledoves have "a poltergeist that flies off to heaven or hell" when the bird dies?
• "...every living soul (marine life) died in the sea" Revelation 16:3 KJV , which refers to fish, mammals, marine life, not people.

Phoneman777 said:

Genesis 2:7 KJV refers to the "Living Soul" as a creature formed by the union of the Body and the Breath of Life. ANY creature, according to the following:

• "Deliver not the soul of thy turtledove". Psalm 79:14 KJV Will we argue that turtledoves have "a poltergeist that flies off to heaven or hell" when the bird dies?
• "...every living soul (marine life) died in the sea" Revelation 16:3 KJV , which refers to fish, mammals, marine life, not people.

Living Souls are not entities that fly away once the body drops off in death - that comes from paganism. A Living Soul comes exists as a consequence of the union of the Bod and the Breath of Life, and a Dead Soul is simply a reference to the previously animated Living Soul which has gone out of existence.

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Phoneman777 said:

Genesis 2:7 KJV refers to the "Living Soul" as a creature formed by the union of the Body and the Breath of Life. ANY creature, according to the following:

• "Deliver not the soul of thy turtledove". Psalm 79:14 KJV Will we argue that turtledoves have "a poltergeist that flies off to heaven or hell" when the bird dies?
• "...every living soul (marine life) died in the sea" Revelation 16:3 KJV , which refers to fish, mammals, marine life, not people.

Living Souls are not entities that fly away once the body drops off in death - that comes from paganism. A Living Soul comes exists as a consequence of the union of the Bod and the Breath of Life, and a Dead Soul is simply a reference to the previously animated Living Soul which has gone out of existence.

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Born_Again said:

I contend that when it says "dead" in the bible, it is at times referring to spiritually dead. Not always physical.

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Born_Again said:

I contend that when it says "dead" in the bible, it is at times referring to spiritually dead. Not always physical.

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StanJ said:

Sorry BA, but I have to disagree. I'm not aware of any verses in the Bible that say anybody is spiritually dead.
Dead involves the body as 1 Thes 4:16 clearly states;
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

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Born_Again said:

Stan, i love ya brother, but do you assert that at no point in scripture it speaks of being spiritually dead?

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StanJ said:

Again you're referring to a 400 year old English version of the Bible that is not at all accurate.

Genesis 2:7 New International Version (NIV)
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

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kerwin said:

Would you please remind me where Scripture is broken and is says "a Dead Soul is simply a reference to the previously animated Living Soul which has gone out of existence"? Thank you?

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