A Scriptural Refutation of "Soul Sleep"

The Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists deny that the Christian goes to Heaven upon death. The former claim that the spirit is destroyed at death, to be recreated at the Judgment. The latter claim that the spirit remains, unconscious, with the body, often referred to as "soul sleep." Though their doctrines are different, they both derive from the earlier Millerite movement.

While both groups claim to be Bible-cased, this doctrine is certainly not Bible-based. And it is very easy to demonstrate that assertion.

"When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, 'O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before You will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been" (Revelation 6:9-11).

We see several things about these martyrs which are inconsistent with the JW and SDA claims. First, we can see that they are dead, because it explicitly states that they were slain. Yet, they are crying and speaking, so they are neither annihilated nor unconscious. Then they are given heavenly garments and commanded to wait. Not to sleep. That is, they are to be conscious of the accumulation around them of the spirits of Christians down through the ages, until the end of mortal existence.