You will be raised from the dead

Recently, some within non-Trinitarian and Biblical unitarian circles have been rethinking what happens when we die. The debate is often framed as “physicalism” versus “continuity” or “substance dualism.” By physicalism is meant the view that a person does not continue to exist consciously after death, but truly dies and awaits resurrection. By continuity-dualism is meant that a person continues to exist after their bodily death. This is related to, though not always identical with, the more popular doctrine historically known as “the immortality of the soul.”

The question here is not whether God remembers the dead, nor whether He can raise the same person who died. Scripture clearly teaches both. The question is whether the Bible teaches that some conscious, immaterial part of the person must remain alive between death and resurrection in order for personal identity to continue. That claim, however, assumes what must first be proved from Scripture: that personal continuity requires conscious survival after death. But the Bible clearly teaches that the dead are truly dead. Nonetheless, God does not forget them, and He will raise them at the resurrection.

The Old Testament clearly describes the state of the dead as one of complete inactivity and therefore no conscious life whatsoever. Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 says:

“The dead do not know anything…because there is neither work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going.”

The Psalms repeat the same theme, equating death with “dust” and people going down into Sheol, the place of graves or tombs underground. This is a place of total silence and a state in which there is no activity.

“For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?” Psalm 6:5

“The dead do not praise Yah, Nor do any who go down into silence.” Psalm 115:17

“Do not trust in nobles, In a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit goes out, he returns to the ground; In that very day his thoughts perish.” Psalm 146:3-4

This is why the state of death is repeatedly described as “sleep.” Job describes death as lying down in silence, sleep, and rest when, in his distress, he asks:

“Why did I not die from the womb, Come forth from the womb and breathe my last? For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest.” Job 3:11, 13

The point is not that the dead are secretly, out of view active somewhere else, but that they are unconscious, unable to act, think, praise, plan, or participate in life. This is why Scripture uses the formulaic language of the patriarchs, leaders, and kings “sleeping” or “lying down” with their fathers, whether they were righteous or wicked (Deut. 31:16; 2 Sam. 7:12; 1 Kings 2:10; 11:43; 14:20, 31; 15:8, 24; 16:6, 28; 22:40, 50; 2 Kings 8:24; 10:35; 13:9, 13; 14:16, 22, 29; 15:7, 22, 38; 16:20; 20:21; 21:18; 24:6).

The New Testament does not change the condition of the dead or the biblical understanding of death.

In John 11:11, Jesus says: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep and is sleeping, but I am going to wake him up.” He then plainly explains that “Lazarus has died” (John 11:14). Here Jesus follows the biblical belief in “the sleep of death” (Psalm 13:3).

Jesus says the same will happen to everyone else at the future resurrection in John 5:28-29. He places the dead “in the tombs,” corresponding to the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades, the resting place of the dead under the earth. The picture is of the dead not alive somewhere else awaiting bodily reunion. They will one day come out from death back to life when they hear the voice of the Son of God.

Paul says the same in 1 Corinthians 15. If there is no resurrection, then those who have “fallen asleep in Messiah have also perished” (vv. 16, 18). Nowhere in this chapter is conscious personal existence in an intermediate state taught. If the dead in Messiah are already alive elsewhere enjoying reward, Paul’s warning loses its force. Without resurrection, the dead have perished. Resurrection is not an optional improvement to an already living person. It is the only way back from actual, literal death to life.

The continuity-dualist theory also assumes that if no part of me remains consciously active after death, then resurrection would be like God making a replacement of myself, like a clone or copy. But that does not follow biblically. Scripture grounds personal identity in God’s knowledge, memory, promise, and power, not in uninterrupted conscious existence. The God who created and knows the person is able to bring that same person back from the dead. There is no need for theories based on modern science-fiction movies or computer terms like “copy and paste.”

Again, when Jesus says to his friend, “Lazarus, come out!” God does not produce a replica or clone of Lazarus. Jesus raises the same person he knew from the dead. Lazarus’ identity is secured by the authority of God working through Jesus, not by Lazarus remaining consciously alive somewhere during death. This is also Jesus’ point in Matthew 22:31-32, where he appeals to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “regarding the resurrection of the dead.” This also proves that the faithful from Old Testament times are not lost to God either.

Peter at Pentecost explains that David, the man after God’s own heart, had not gone to heaven but was dead and buried (Acts 2:29). That is, “David did not ascend into the heavens” when he died (Acts 2:34).

Paul later says the same in Acts 13:36: “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and saw corruption.”

Paul then directly addresses the continuity-dualist view in 1 Corinthians 15. When someone asks, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” Paul does not answer, “The dead continue to exist without bodies and later receive new ones.” Instead, he uses the analogy of a seed:

“And what you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished” (vv. 37-38).

There is continuity, but it is continuity through God’s resurrecting power, not through the person continuing to exist apart from the body or through the reassembly of every former atom. Scripture never says God must preserve every particle of the old body in order to raise the same person. Even now, our bodies undergo constant change, yet we remain the same persons. Personal identity is not bare sameness of matter. Scripture shows the same person is known, remembered, and raised by God.

For Paul, bodily resurrection is essential because human life is embodied life. That is why he says:

“For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1 Corinthians 15:53

Simply put: no body means you are a nobody!

The popular belief that Jesus was conscious and active while dead also undermines the plain apostolic claim that God raised him from the dead.

In Acts 2:32, Peter says: “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.” The risen Jesus was not a clone, but neither was he already alive in some disembodied state so that he never truly died. “This Jesus” was really dead. That is why he entrusted himself to God, praying:

“Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke 23:46

Here Jesus meant that he was committing his very life to his God. He was echoing David in Psalm 31:5: “Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O Yahweh, God of truth.”

Lastly, the continuity-dualist theory often leans heavily on so-called near-death experiences, or NDEs. For the most part, such stories lack hard evidence, but even the rare documented cases should not become the authority by which death, anthropology, or resurrection are defined. Scripture must interpret personal experiences and feelings, not the other way around.

In sum, the claim that rejecting continuity-substance dualism creates a “new you,” a copy, or a clone imports a philosophical requirement Scripture does not share. Biblical resurrection is how God will raise the same person who died. The continuity is secured by the faithful Creator who has promised not to forget His people. This is the one Jewish-Christian hope expressed in both the Old and New Testaments.

Job expects God to call him from the grave (Job 14:13-15) and confesses that even after his body is destroyed, he will see God (Job 19:25-27).

The Psalms speak of God bringing His servant up again from the depths of the earth and remaining the believer’s portion forever (Psalm 71:20; 73:24-26).

Paul comforts believers, not by saying the dead are already alive in heaven, but by pointing to the future resurrection at the parousia, the second coming of Messiah, when “the dead in Messiah will rise first.” And then he commands us: “Comfort one another with these words” that is no others or theories! (1 Thessalonians 4:15-16, 18)