I voted for other, because according to scriptures as I understand them, at least one group of souls don’t go into a “soul sleep” and that group would be martyrs for the faith.
Re 20:4
Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Here, the final judgment has not yet occurred.
“Beheaded” in the verse, probably indicates all those who were martyred for the Faith, regardless of method. It includes all martyrs throughout time, not just the ones murdered during the rign of the anti-christ.
“They reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” In other places of Scripture, “thousand” is not to be taken literally. Sometimes it is symbolic for “a lot” and other times it is symbolic for “completeness.” So, at least some of those who have died reigned with Christ in heaven prior to the end of the world.
Some of the dead, I believe will not reign with Christ until after the figurative thousand years is over. These would be those who did not sin seriously enough to enter hell, but are not yet purified for heaven. This would be those who are stuck in purgatory until the final judgment.
And, I believe that some souls do go to Hell and are suffering there, even as we speak.
In the above verse, notice the order of things: the martyrs came to life first, then they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. When I continue reading this passage, I see that after the symbolic thousand years is finished (completed) it says that “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”
So, this scene takes place just before the anti-christ begins to reign. The martyrs are obviously not in soul sleep, they’re described as reigning in heaven with Christ, waiting to be vindicated at the final Judgment, which has not occurred yet.
I’m murkey on the what happens to those in purgatory though. Are these souls really alive in the same sense of those in heaven? They’re not living on earth or in heaven . . . and they’re not living in hell . . . they’re in-between. They are still part of the Church – the Church suffering, but is it possible that they are considered as being in a dead state, simply because they are not allowed to be fully united with Christ until they’ve paid the last farthing? Honestly, I don’t understand where the souls of Purgatory fit in to all of this. But, I think this verse is showing that the martyrs are not asleep and fully aware of what is happening to them.
In summary, my take on this is: those in heaven, waiting with Christ for a thousand years, are the souls of all the martyrs throughout history. In this verse, the final judgment has not yet taken place yet, so while these martyrs are in heaven, they are not yet united with their bodies . . . and they won’t be until after the reign of the anti-christ is over – when Christ comes to deliver Final Judgment upon Mankind.
I want to touch on something related . . . I believe that the first resurrection is of the soul only. This is what happens to people today when they die–their bodies die and are buried in the gournd, but their souls continue on and go to purgatory, or rise to God in Heaven or fall into the pit. The final resurrection is when Christ raises everyone’s bodies from their graves and re-unites them with their souls. This will be the last day of earth as we know it–Judgment Day.
So, I believe some souls go straight to heaven, some go to purgatory and some go straight to hell. At the end of the world, purgatory will cease to exist and it will be heaven or hell for everybody.
