Have you ever noticed how those two terms – sleep and death – are used interchangeably throughout the entire Bible? All the prophets, all the apostles, and Jesus Christ when speaking of death, or the dead, say they sleep or are asleep. There are NO EXCEPTIONS – not one! Isn’t that strange? If in death one is more vibrantly alive than they ever were in this life why refer to the dead as being asleep? Wouldn’t that make God the author of confusion???
“After that (after Jesus was seen by Peter and the rest of the apostles following His resurrection), He was seen above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain (alive) unto this present day (the day of Paul’s writing this letter to the Corinthian believers), BUT SOME ARE FALLEN ASLEEP!” (See I Corinthians 15:6).
“And if Christ be not raised (resurrected), your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins (they have thus not been forgiven). Then they also which ARE FALLEN ASLEEP in Christ are perished” (See I Corinthians 15:18). If there is to be no resurrection of the dead, then Christians who have already died are decaying and turning to dust and will never experience any manner of life again!
Paul then writes of how all the redeemed shall be made alive again when Christ returns. (See I Corinthians 15:22-23). We are not made alive at the moment we die. That’s an absurdity. That’s like saying, “Those who die are resurrected the moment they expel their last breath.”
Paul then asks what advantage is it to him to risk his life for Jesus Christ and the truth “if the dead rise not?” (See I Corinthians 15:32). He then argues, “Let us eat, drink and be merry” if there is to be no resurrection from the dead. (Same verse). Paul said he was WILLING to be absent from the body and present with the Lord, a far cry from saying “to be absent from the body IS to be present with the Lord.” One little tiny word, one little comma can change completely what someone has said. Paul was merely assuring the Greek converts that they need not fear the disintegration of their bodies. They would not need their fleshly bodies to enjoy immortality and eternal life with Jesus Christ.
Jesus uses the terms death and sleep interchangeably when speaking of the death of His friend Lazarus, saying, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep…howbeit Jesus spoke of his death” (See John 11:11, 13). Someone who is asleep is in an unconscious state, knowing nothing. That is how Jesus spoke of the dead. “The dead know not anything” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). You can believe Pastor So-and-So. I will believe Solomon. I believe Solomon’s wisdom is probably a cut above that of Reverend Leroy’s.
Jesus’ promise to the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in paradise was NOT that they would both be together in paradise that same day, but that on the day they were dying still Jesus could make the promise to him that they would someday be together in a far better world, a world where Satan was bound and could deceive that thief no longer. Where one places the comma in that statement Jesus made to the thief makes all the difference in the world. The translators put the comma in the wrong place, making it appear that Jesus was telling the thief they would both be together in paradise that very same day. And, boy, what confusion that has caused for centuries. Had they placed the comma AFTER the word “today” then readers would have instantly seen that Jesus was merely assuring that thief that though dying together that day, still they would someday be joined together in a far better world! (See Luke 23:43).
THAT is rightly dividing the Word of God. Something few do. Do YOU?
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley