Soul sleep - Calvin on what happens when we die.

A friend had suffered a bereavement. Why, she wondered, did so many passages of Scripture speak of the believer's soul sleeping (eg 1 Thess 4:13; Jn 11:11; Acts 7:60; Job 14:7-12)? I had enough answers to deal with the immediate enquiry, but the question caused me to do a little extra reading. In particular, one systematic theology referred in glowing terms to Calvin's 'Psychopannychia' (with a subtitle measured in inches) written in 1534 when the Reformer-to-be was only 25 and not long converted. As I had invested the princely sum of £45 last autumn in the Banner of Truth's new edition of Calvin's 'Tracts and Letters' I was pleased to have some pastoral justification for acquiring them and turned to volume three.

What does Calvin say about the state of the soul after death?

1. He demonstrates from Scripture that the soul is distinguishable from the body though normally not separable from it. It has a real existence in itself. 1 Peter 1:9,13,22; Heb 12:9,23; 2 Cor 7:1; 1 Cor 2:11; Rom 8:16.
2. After death the soul still survives endued with sense and intellect. Acts 7:59; 1 Pet 3:18; the account of Lazarus and Dives (Lk 16).
3. The soul rests when freed from the body though this is not sleep. Rest is tranquillity of conscience, complete on death though known by the believer in this life. Ps 17:15 is our goal.
4. The life Christ begins in the soul cannot be conceived of as ending ( in unconsciousness) on death. Jn 5:24, 6:40.
5. Death is to be understood primarily as being under the anger and judgement of God. But Christ underwent this death for his people. His death was different from theirs hence the cry of forsakenness because of fear of torment.
6. For those who trust in him there is no condemnation; the sting of death has been taken. The blessedness of the believer is in progress from the time of first faith until the consummation. Perfection of blessedness only exists in perfect union with God. 'Seeing, then, that the reward appointed for all who have part with Abraham is to possess God and enjoy him, and that, besides and beyond it, it is not lawful to long for any other, thither must our eyes be turned when the subject of our expectation is considered' (p. 463).

Calvin's work extends to seventy pages, much of it dealing with abstruse arguments particularly from passages in the Psalms and Job, from Anabaptists (or as Calvin calls them, Catabaptists) and this is hardly an adequate survey; one could add many Scripture references, some of which he does deal with, which evidence the consciousness of the soul after death - Ps 16:11; 17:15; John 17:24; Rom 8:18; 1 Cor 13:12,13; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:21,23; Heb 12:23; Rev 4,5,7,12; Rev 6:10; 7:15f; 20:4.

The strength of Calvin's case though is the rooting of the case for soul consciousness after death in the blessedness of the believer - if to live is Christ and to die is gain, then death cannot mean a diminution of the fellowship enjoyed in life. Moreover that life has begun in the death of death in the cross of Christ. Fulness of life and pleasures forevermore have been won for his people by Christ and to suggest they are interrupted by unconsciousness (a kind of death in itself and therefor something of the curse which has been taken) is a slur on his work. Calvin's argument is essentially Christ-centred.

So maybe I would not turn to this work for the most handy practical treatment of this subject today but Calvin does not fail to inspire.

And he was only 25...and not long converted.