What is the truth about “Soul Sleep”?

The following description about the topic of “Soul Sleep is taken from the website of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (carm.org). The URL of that description is (https://carm.org/annihilationism/what-is-soul-sleep/)

“Soul sleep is the teaching that when a person dies that his soul “sleeps” until the time of the future resurrection. In this condition, the person is not aware or conscious. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists hold to this doctrine as do most conditionalists (those who say that the wicked are judged and don’t exist anymore). But the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach annihilation. This means that after death a person ceases to exist. At the future resurrection, they maintain that the soul is made again. Basically, it is a re-creation of the individual. The Seventh-day Adventists teach that the soul is simply inert and resides in the memory of God.”

For those who think rationally, the only thing needed to have certainty that this is a false teaching would be to provide examples from the Scriptures that describe people who have died but who are clearly conscious.  Here are some examples:

1. I Samuel 28:4-20 – King Saul talked to the dead prophet Samuel, who was able to talk back to him.

2.  Jesus said, regarding the “dead” (Luke 20:37): “37 “But even Moses showed in the [burning] bush [passage] that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’38 “FOR HE IS NOT THE GOD OF THE DEAD BUT OF THE LIVING , FOR ALL LIVE TO HIM.” It might be argued that this passage is not clear enough to PROVE that all the dead were still somehow “alive”; rather it might be argued that they were only alive “in God’s mind.” Yet Jesus did not say that, did he! And what he obviously DID mean by it is demonstrated in the next passage.

3. Abraham “saw” Jesus (John 8:56). “Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day; yes, he saw it and rejoiced.” Would Jesus have said that if Abraham was not able to “see” and get “overjoyed” in the incarnate Son of God?

4. Then there is the [presumed] “parable” of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16-19:31. Jesus never said this was a parable, so we should not assume that it was. But even if it WERE a parable, we should remember that Jesus did not include in His parables things that were untrue. Both the rich man and Lazarus, as well as Abraham himself, were quite conscious and communicative, even devoid of their earthly bodies, no?

5. Another very conclusive example is the description of what Jesus did between His death and resurrection: “… being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly did not obey…” (1 Peter 3:18-20). Peter gives another description of what happened then: “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 ESV). If those dead were not conscious or did not exist temporarily, that preaching would have been meaningless, no?

6. The last example I shall bring up is found in Revelation 6:9-11: “9 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 testimony which they held.10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”11 Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both [the number of] their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they [were,] was completed.”

This is not an exhaustive list of examples, merely what came to mind. You can probably come up with some of your own (e.g., His “transfiguration”). Wouldn’t it have been wise for those who perpetuated this clearly false idea of “soul sleep” to have meditated on these passages before forcing their interpretation into other Scriptural passages that they had insisted taught their doctrine (e.g., Ecclesiastes 9:5 and 12:7)?

*****************