FALSE TEACHING # 3: SOUL SLEEP
The Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches that those who die do not go to heaven or to hell but their soul sleeps unconsciously in the grave until the resurrection.
“To be dead does not mean to go to heaven; it does not mean to go to hell; it does not mean to go to purgatory. Indeed, it does not mean to go anywhere at all. It means simply an end of life. … Death is cessation of life, an absence of life, the exact opposite of life. … The man does not live; the body does not live; the soul does not live; the spirit does not live; the mind does not live. Intelligence ends, consciousness ends, memory ends, knowledge ends, thought ends” (When A Man Dies, p. 20).
Adventism teaches that the body and soul are not separate entities that can be parted at death.
“…the soul of man nowhere is represented as a separate, conscious part of man existing as such when the body sleeps in death… the soul of man comes with the breath; it goes with the breath. … It has no function or power of manifestation or of action, no existence, apart from the body…” (When A Man Dies, pp. 32, 33).
They teach that the spirit is the breath.
“… notice Job 27:3: ‘All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.’ Again we find in the margin that spirit might also be translated ‘breath.’ The two words are often used interchangeably in Scripture. … Now listen. ‘And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ Nowhere are we told in Scripture that God gave man a living soul. Man became a living soul as the result of the union of the body with the breath of life. … It is clear that the spirit that a man received from God and that goes back to God when he dies, is what God put into his nostrils. … when he dies, the two separate. The dust returns to the ground. The breath, or spark of life, from saint or sinner, returns to God who gave it. The living, loving, acting soul does not go anywhere. It simply ceases to be a conscious entity until the resurrection morning, when the body and the breath of life are united again. That is Scripture pure and simple!” (Planet in Rebellion, pp. 320-323).
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
1. The word “soul” has different meanings in Scripture. Sometimes it does refer to the whole man. Often, though, it refers to a conscious, immaterial part of man that exists apart from the body beyond death. Words in the Bible must be defined by the context in which they are found.
Old Testament examples of the soul as an immaterial, conscious part of the man are seen in Genesis 35:18 and 1 Kings 17:21-22. In Genesis 35 the death of Rachel is recorded, and we are told that her soul departed when she died. “… as her soul was in departing, (for she died)…” In 1 Kings 17 a young boy died and was raised again through Elijah’s ministry. The Bible plainly says that his soul departed and then returned: “… O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.” Obviously the prophet Elijah did not have the same idea about the soul and death as the Adventists do.
In the New Testament, the word “soul” is also used to describe a spiritual part of man distinct from his body. “… I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Th. 5:23). Here we are told that man has three parts. Paul did not say man IS a soul; he says man HAS a soul.
2. The word “spirit” also has various meanings in Scripture. Just as the word “soul” does not always refer to the whole man, but often refers to the immaterial part of man, even so the word “spirit” does not always mean breath. Spirit often refers to the conscious, immaterial part of man that is distinct from his body and that is separated from the body at death.
This is the meaning in Genesis 45:26-27, where the spirit is used interchangeably with the heart. “And Jacob’s HEART FAINTED, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, THE SPIRIT OF JACOB THEIR FATHER REVIVED.” Obviously, this passage does not refer to the spirit as the breath! In Exodus 6:9, the children of Israel had “anguish of spirit.” Was it their breath that was anguished! How silly. The word “spirit” obviously means something different in Scripture than breath. Again, in Exodus 35:21, the Bible describes those who contributed toward the construction of the tabernacle as those “whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing.” Deuteronomy 2:30 is another example of this. Here we find God hardening the spirit of King Sihon. In 1 Kings 21:5 King Ahab is said to have had a “sad spirit.” Certainly none of these references could be construed as speaking of the spirit as the breath. The Seventh-day Adventist doctrine that the spirit is limited to breath is contrary to the Bible’s own teaching.
3. The New Testament plainly describes death as a departure of the spirit from the body. When we come to the New Testament, any uncertainty remaining from our Old Testament studies disappears in the light of full revelation. One uniform doctrine of death is found throughout the New Testament. Here death is plainly seen as a departure of the spirit from the body. Death means separation, not cessation. (This is how Adam and Eve could die the same day they partook of the fruit. They died spiritually. They were “dead in trespasses and sins.” Later they died physically and the soul was separated from the body.) This has been the orthodox doctrine of death throughout the New Testament age.
New Testament reasons for believing that death is a departure of the spirit from the body to another conscious realm of existence.
First, it is the body that dies (Jam. 2:26).
Second, Paul testified that death is a journey. See 2 Corinthians 5:6-7; Philippians 1:23-24; and 2 Timothy 4:6.
Third, Jesus’ promise to the thief on the cross shows that death is a departure. “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Adventists claim that this passage is not translated correctly, that the comma should be after the word “today.” “Verily I say unto thee today, ‘Thou shalt be with me in paradise.’” No Bible translation reads like this. It is merely an effort to twist the passage to fit false Adventist doctrine, but the Lord Jesus Christ promised the repentant thief that he would be with him in paradise that very day.
Fourth, the story of Lazarus and the rich man shows that death is a departure. The proper names (Lazarus, Abraham) Jesus used in this story prove that He was speaking about an historical scene, rather than giving a parable. The Lord’s parables did not contain such details. Yet even if it this was a parable, it would still teach literal truth. “… the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…” (Lk. 16:22-23). This passage teaches that death is a journey of the soul either to Heaven or to Hell.
Fifth, the dead saints will return with Christ from Heaven at the time of the resurrection and rapture of the saved. This shows that dead saints go to Heaven at death. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so THEM ALSO WHICH SLEEP IN JESUS WILL GOD BRING WITH HIM” (1 Th. 4:14). According to the Bible, the dead are not sleeping in the grave as the Adventists claim. Rather, they are in Heaven and they will return from there with Jesus!
Sixth, John’s heavenly visions show dead saints in Heaven before the resurrection and during the Great Tribulation on earth. See Revelation 6:9-11. This is another indisputable testimony that dead saints are not sleeping in the grave, but are residing in Heaven awaiting the return of Christ to earth.
Seventh, Moses’ and Elijah’s appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration proves that the dead have conscious existence between death and resurrection. See Luke 9:28-33. That Peter and the other apostles were not just seeing a future millennial scene is demonstrated by the fact that Moses and Elijah were speaking with the Lord Jesus about His approaching death. Moses and Elijah, though dead, appeared on that mountain and conversed about events that were soon to take place in Jerusalem. It is obvious that Moses and Elias are not sleeping in the grave.
It is plain from this survey of the New Testament that man has a spirit or soul that departs from his body at death and that lives eternally either in Heaven or in Hell. The Bible speaks of death BOTH as a sleep and as a journey. It is the sleep of the body and the journey of the spirit.
Even in the Old Testament we are taught that death meant separation from the body by the spirit. In Genesis 25:8 Abraham “gave up the ghost, and died … and was gathered to his people.” This cannot mean simply that he was gathered to the grave, because Abraham’s people were not buried in Mamre. They were buried in Haran a long distance away (Ge. 11:31-32). In Genesis 35:18, it is recorded that Rachel’s soul departed at her death. 1 Kings 17 tells us that when the widow’s son died, his soul had departed (vv. 21-22). God told Moses in Numbers 27:13 that he would be “gathered unto” his people. For two reasons, this could not mean that he would sleep in a grave. First, Moses’ people were not buried in the wilderness where he died. Second, Moses appeared centuries later with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he was quite conscious at that time.
Thus, no matter where we look in the Scripture, we see that death does not mean sleeping unconsciously in the grave. The passages that speak of death as sleep are speaking poetically. Some Old Testament references to death, particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes, speak of it from the viewpoint of this world. In that sense, it is true that the dead do not praise God in this world. The theme of Ecclesiastes is “under the sun,” and it describes man’s attempt to understand life apart from divine revelation.
4. The doctrine of immortality was not fully revealed until the New Testament. See 1 Timothy 1:9-10. It was with the coming of Christ that the doctrine of life beyond the grave was brought to full light. Thus, we must not interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament, but the Old in light of the New!
and these are the Signs of the Times…….
This report is excerpted from AVOIDING THE SNARE OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM. This book has been called the best on the subject by the editor of The Baptist Challenge. Now it has been throughly updated and enlarged. It is diligently researched from official publications of the Seventh-day Adventist organization and proves conclusively that the Seventh-day Adventist gospel is false. The book begins with a chapter entitled “Adventists Wanted Me to Revise This Book,” describing a deceptive attempt by Seventh-day Adventists to have me change the book. The major divisions of the book are: “Adventist History Proves It is Heretical” and “Adventist Doctrine Proves It Is Heretical.” The book analyzes Adventist doctrines such as Sabbath-keeping, Soul-sleep, Annihilation of the wicked, Ellen White as a Prophetess, Investigative Judgment, Misuse of the Mosaic Law, and Vegetarianism. The chapter “Why Some Have Considered Seventh-day Adventism Evangelical” analyzes Walter Martin’s (author of Kingdom of the Cults) faulty view of Adventism. The book includes selections from D.M. Canright’s 1898 book Seventh-day Adventism Renounced. Canright was an early leader in Adventism who left and became a Baptist pastor.
