Sleeping After Death

My wife, Joyce, my partner in 50 years of marriage, died last month. The point was made throughout her memorial service that she is now with God. I believe this wholeheartedly. But there is some question about what happens to a believer when he or she dies.
Many Christians preach that you go directly to heaven while others have said that you will be sleeping until Christ returns. Which, according to the Bible, is correct? The majority view, throughout the history of Christianity, is that the spirits (or souls as some prefer) who are dead in Christ are with God, in a conscious state. They are with God, and therefore, "in" heaven. Because God is omnipresent (everywhere at once, not subject to the limitations of time and space) he is not geographically defined.
So, heaven is best described as being with God rather than in some universal, spatial "place.”Of course, the body of the deceased decomposes — this we can know empirically, by observation. The Scriptures speak of the resurrection of the body of those who are dead in Christ (1 Corinthians 15) — and the glorification of our bodies to immortality, so that our bodies are not subject to decay and aging, as they are now. In this regard we will be "like him" (1 John 3:2) — his resurrection is therefore our hope, our victory and our eternal gift from God.
While the body of the deceased decomposes, the spirit (or soul as some prefer) goes to be with God. Some believe that the spirit (or soul) goes to sleep, to be awakened at the Second Coming, reunited with their body at the time their body is given a resurrection body. Two problems. Scriptures speak of being "with" God, present with him, at home with him (2 Corinthians 5:8). While one could try to explain that the spirit could be at home, present and with God while asleep, one is still left with "why." Why would God want to have — (or does he, presently have) a huge warehouse-like hospital ward in heaven filled with sleeping spirits? Why not enjoy them -- why not be with them?
Here’s the second big problem with “sleeping after death”. The Bible uses the term sleep to describe death, but it uses it as a metaphor, rather than a precise clinical description. Thus, when we read that "David slept with his fathers" we read it as a metaphor, rather than assuming that David's spirit was literally placed in a big heavenly bed where he snored with his fathers. This takes a metaphor and attempts to twist it into a precise description of the state of the spirit during the intermediate state.
Having said all of that — we still don't know for sure, do we? No one has gone to the intermediate state and come back with a full report — not even Geraldo Rivera (yet, anyway). So how vital is this belief to our salvation? It isn't — but that doesn't mean that it isn't worth discussing.

[Back to Home]