Churchwork,

You are reading an awful lot into the Scripture passages. For example Rev. 6:10 says nothing about God waking up the martyrs. Please read Revelation 6:9-11 again: “And when He broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also.”

Notice the timing is at the fifth seal, God gave them white robes and they are told to wait for their brethren who will be killed. This consummates in Rev.7:9-15 where they are gathered before the throne of God serving him day and night in his temple (v.15). This would be hard to do if one is asleep or out of existence.

All the O.T. passages need to be interpreted through the NT revelation. Without the NT teaching, what was unrevealed in the OT would stay a mystery as Paul states in 1 Cor.15:51: “behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Speaking of the resurrection of the body.

Matt 13:11, 35; Rom.16:25; I Cor. 2:7; Eph. 3:4-5 and 3:9 give us a definition of a mystery as something that was unrevealed in the OT and now revealed for the first time in the NT. Heaven was not explained in the Old Testament , the immortality of man, the resurrection to eternal life, the forgiveness of sins as permanent. There is the NT mystery of the revelation of God in Christ, 1 Tim. 3:16 “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh,” None of these were explained until we had NT revelation. Likewise so is the revealing of what actually transpires after death through the teaching of Christ and the apostles.

Soul-sleep is defined as silence, inactivity and an entire unconsciousness. That once death occurs it affects the spirit of man just as it does the body. This would mean the spirit is only alive when it has a body. We know this is not true and is contrary to the Bible. Jesus in Lk.23:46 said to the Father into your hands “I commit my spirit,” isn’t this clear he is having his spirit received into the Fathers hands while his body is to be laid in the tomb. This is the very same thing Stephen states in Acts 7:59 Stephen cried unto the Lord saying “receive my spirit.”

Jesus in Matt. 26:38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. He was not saying his soul was going to die and go to sleep.

James. 2:26: “the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Meaning only the body dies, as James uses the example that faith animates our works so the Spirit animates the body. The relationship between the material and immaterial when broken means we die physically. Our spirit is not dead like the body. The Spirit is just as alive outside the body as it is inside the body. The resurrection only applies to the body. When our spirit returns, our bodies come alive again. The correlation made is that real faith (which is invisible) is displayed to others by having works to show it is alive .

In Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus he was was not giving disinformation or representing them falsely. The rich man was very much aware of his misfortune as he suffered in Hades he had his thoughts (that temporary abode of the departed spirits of the wicked). While Lazarus enjoyed the blessedness of Paradise (Luke 16:19-31) It is obvious that the rich man is conscious, as Lazarus is conscious, and Abraham is conscious, though they are all dead. All the stories Jesus told always illustrated truth not something false. These two have recently died and one has been long dead. Indeed, their physical bodies are asleep but not their souls.

In Jn.11:11-14 Jesus says of Lazarus that he sleeps referring to his body. Jesus then says “I will wake him out of his sleep.” He then raised his body from the dead.

In Mt.27:52 the Scripture tells us that at the time of of the resurrection “many bodies of the saints which slept arose.” The specific mention of bodies makes the meaning clear of what actually slept. It was not the saints themselves that slept but their bodies.

The term “sleep” when it is used of death is in reference to the body. Whenever the Bible speaks of death in the sense of sleep it is always used of the physical body and not the soul. The term “sleep” is never applied to the soul or the spirit , but only the body. The soul and the spirit continue to exist after death. whenever the Bible uses the term “sleep” in reference to death of the body. It is never used of the unbelievers in the NT. It is a term used only of believers which shows God's viewpoint of the death of a believer. From God's perspective the death of a believer is a temporary suspension of physical activity. For example, in physical sleep there is a temporary suspension of physical activity until one wakes up, but there is no suspension of the activity of the mind, the soul or spirit, and the sub-consciousness keeps operating (as in Lk.16:19-36 death is not a cessation of existence for either the rich man or Lazarus.)