I shall answer with a question: are you dead when you’re asleep?
dead = asleep
Several times, the apostles, people in the Bible and even Jesus calls the dead asleep. So dead means asleep.
I will begin with Psalms 6:5.
No one remembers you when he is dead.
Who praises you from the grave? (Psalms 6:5)
I would certainly remember God, if I would go to Heaven. Who would consciously forget Him?
What gain is there if I am silenced,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness? (Psalms 30:9)
David calls the dead “silenced”.
Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction? )(Psalms 88:11)
*It is not the dead who praise the LORD,
those who go down to silence;
it is we who extol the LORD,
both now and forevermore.
Praise the LORD. * (Psalms 115:17)
Perhaps Isaiah 38:18-19 is the easier to understand.
*For the grave [Sheol] cannot praise you,
death cannot sing your praise;
those who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your faithfulness.
The living, the living—they praise you,
as I am doing today;
fathers tell their children
about your faithfulness.* (Isaiah 38:18-19)
So those who went down into the grave do not praise the Lord. Only the living, the ones that are not asleep, only the living can praise God. When you pray, you, consciously or unconsciously, give glory to the Lord. When you pray, you say loudly that God can hear you, and since you obviously are not alone in this world, and others are praying as well, that He hears all prayers. By praying to Him you acknowledge that He is all powerful. So praying is giving glory, thus praising Jesus our Lord and the Spirit and the Father. But the dead, or asleep, do not give glory tot he Lord. They are silenced. They are sleeping. They are unconscious and are waiting for the day of the resurrection.
After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” (Luke 11:11)
This does not even need interpretation. God calls Lazarus asleep.
I will quote some more passages from the New Testament.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:6)
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:20)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51)
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)
Now I would like to get back to the Old Testament.
- Why were there knees to receive me
and breasts that I might be nursed?
For now I would be lying down in peace;
I would be asleep and at rest
with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,
with rulers who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child,
like an infant who never saw the light of day?
There the wicked cease from turmoil,
and there the weary are at rest.
Captives also enjoy their ease;
they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.
The small and the great are there,
and the slave is freed from his master.* (Job 3:12-19)
So the dead are resting; they have fallen asleep waiting for resurrection.
Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more. (Job 7:21)
This is quite direct. If he “will be no more”, we understand that he will be dead, that he lies in the dust. So, if he will be no more, how can he be in Heaven/Hell?
*But man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
As water disappears from the sea
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
so man lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, men will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.*
"If only you would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
and then remember me! (Job 14:10-13)
Of course, we will resurrect at the end of times, and we will have a new heaven and earth. So while this heaven and earth are still here, nobody is going anywhere. While this sky and this earth is here, nobody is resurrecting to get eternal life.
I am sure that there are more in the Bible, but these are more than enough to realize that we are sleeping, and that there will be no immediate judgment from our point of view. Actually, for the dead, or asleep, time has no importance. Time does not affect them. Either if they died 2,000 years ago, or a day before the ending of times, it will be the same for them. Their last breath is on earth, and the new one would be at the judgment or in the new earth. But it will only take a breath (breath being the time between breathing). A second, if you wish to call it that way. So the dead are asleep waiting for the resurrection.
