Anybody here believe in "Soul sleep" when a person dies?
Are they conscience or brain dead.
What about the great gulf that separates the paradise of the redeemed from hell of the lost. The rich man and Lazurus do not seem to be soul sleeping.
I do not find warrant in Scripture for psychopannychia (soul sleep).
Concerning all who die prior to Christ's return, the Bible teaches that at the moment of death the human spirit (
soul) departs its body to one of two possible destinations:
Heaven or
Hades (Luke 16:19-31; Phil. 1:19-26; James 2:26; Rev. 6:9, 20:4). Those who reach Heaven do so based not upon their own good works, but upon the work of Christ in their behalf—His righteous life and atoning death—and upon their God-given faith in Him (Mark 10: 45; John 1:12, 3:16; Rom. 3:21; Eph. 2:8-10).
The saints in Heaven (
Abraham’s bosom)—fully aware of their surroundings and delighted by its manifold blessings per their walk of faith (Heb. 12:22-24)—eagerly await their Lord's return at the end of the age, when Our Lord will consummate their redemption by raising them from the dead with new, glorified, resurrection bodies just as He now possesses, and by creating for them a glorious new world in which they will forever live together with Him (Luke 20:27-40, John 5:28, 1 Cor. 15, Phil. 3:20-21; 2 Pet. 3:13).
Those who enter
Hades (
Sheol in Hebrew) do so based upon their own evil works, especially upon the evil work of suppressing the truth that God made known to them through nature, the Law, and the Gospel, the Gospel being God's only provision for the forgiveness of sin and the acquisition of eternal life (John 3:19,36: John 5:29; Acts 13:46, Rom. 2:8; 2 Thess. 1:8; Rev. 20:12).
In
Hades the lost are in the torments of eternal punishment, deprived of God's every life-giving blessing, conscious of God's abiding wrath, and subject to the positive pains of divine retribution all according to their particular sins. Also, to the extent that they may be aware of it, the lost are tormented in this intermediate state of prison by anticipation of the Resurrection and the Day of Judgment, when Christ will send them—body and soul—into
Gehenna (
Hell), the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 8:29, Mt. 10:28, 25: 41; Mark 9:48, Luke 16:19-31; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev. 20:14) where they will remain forever afterwards suffering unending punishment.
AMR