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While I don't necessarily subscribe to the doctrine of soul sleep, it answers to objection of materialists for belief in an afterlife. If human consciousness ends at the moment of death, that means nothing to an all-powerful God who can raise us on the last day.
John 11
11 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.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.”
13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep...
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
However, the best known advocate of soul sleep was Martin Luther (1483–1546).[98] In writing on Ecclesiastes, Luther says
Salomon judgeth that the dead are a sleepe, and feele nothing at all. For the dead lye there accompting neyther dayes nor yeares, but when they are awoken, they shall seeme to have slept scarce one minute.[99]
Elsewhere Luther states that
As soon as thy eyes have closed shalt thou be woken, a thousand years shall be as if thou hadst slept but a little half-hour. Just as at night we hear the clock strike and know not how long we have slept, so too, and how much more, are in death a thousand years soon past. Before a man should turn round, he is already a fair angel.[100]
Christian mortalism - Wikipedia