The doctrine of ‘soul-sleep’ interprets the period between a believer’s death and final resurrection as one of uninterrupted unconsciousness.

Habermas and Moreland identify a number of problems with this view:

First, numerous biblical texts (e.g., Luke 23:43; Phil 1:23; 2 Cor 5:1-10) clearly teach that death is a transition into conscious enjoyment of the presence of Christ. How could Christ’s presence be enjoyed if one were asleep?

Second, some of these same Bible passages describe death as a gain because the deceased is with Christ. But if that person fell asleep at death, what would be the gain? In fact, why would the apostle Paul wish to go to be with Christ instead of continuing in his bodily state (Phil. 1:21-23)?

Third, 1 Thessalonians 5:10 reads, “[Christ] died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him” (NASB). This verse makes sense if it means we can enjoy Christ whether we live on earth or die, but if being asleep means being unconscious, how could this verse make sense?

Fourth, sleep is an activity of the body. The soul needs sleep because it is embodied. It is not clear, however, that a disembodied soul could sleep, much less need this kind of rest.

Fifth, the existence of angels shows that spirits can and do live con­scious disembodied lives, so there is no problem with the idea of a con­scious disembodied intermediate state for humans.

And sixth, the word sleep commonly describes the appearance and posture of the body, not that of the soul. This term was used metaphor­ically by ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures to describe the state of the dead. Those cultures believed in conscious existence in the afterlife. This word also sometimes simply means that the person is not alive to earthly surroundings (but could still be alive to other surroundings). It is also used as a softened euphemism for death when applied to believ­ers, and in the verb form it probably represents punctiliar action (to fall asleep or die at a point of time), not continuous action (to remain in a state of sleep). So even the history and common usage of the word sleep makes it very difficult for the soul-sleep advocates to justify their posi­tion by appealing to linguistics and biblical usage.

Although not all of these objections are of equal weight, taken together they offer a robust set of reasons for rejecting the doctrine of ‘soul-sleep’.

Habermas, G. and Moreland, J. (2004) Beyond Death. Wipf and Stock.