State of the Dead

The Bible describes death as an unconscious state in which the dead know nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5–6, 10) and have no awareness of what takes place under the sun. Death is likened to sleep, as when Jesus said of Lazarus, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11–14). The dead do not praise the Lord in their present state (Psalm 115:17), and human beings return to the dust until God restores life (Psalm 146:4). The hope of the believer is therefore not an immortal soul consciously departing at death, but the resurrection at Christ’s return, when “the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17), and the faithful receive immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51–54).