The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

XIII. Manchester’s Manson-Man Sleeps in Death

Restudy of the nature of man and of the interim of death has led an increasing number to recognize that death is an unconscious sleep, from which one awakens on the resurrection morning, with continuity of personal identity and personality. This is the view affirmed by Presbyterian professor of New Testament, THOMAS W. MANSON, ⁷⁶ of Manchester University, England. This Biblical concept of “sleeping and waking” explains how we pass over the “dark gulf of unconsciousness. CFF2 860.8

1. “FALLING ASLEEP AND WAKING UP.”

Here is Dr. Manson’s general statement:
“The nearest thing in our ordinary experience to the Jewish and early Christian idea of death and resurrection is falling asleep and waking up; and it is a very significant fact that the first unmistakable reference to the resurrection of the dead in the Old Testament is made in terms of sleeping and waking: ‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.’ And equally, when there is no expectation of a resurrection the natural way to express it is in terms of a sleep from which there is no awakening: CFF2 861.1

“‘Man lieth down and riseth not:
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
Nor be roused out of their sleep.’” ⁷⁷ CFF2 861.2

2. CONTINUITY OF PERSONALITY THROUGH RESURRECTION

Dr. Manson says we take up life again upon the resurrectionmorn awakening:
“Now one of the standing wonders of life is just the fact that when I come out of oblivion any fine morning, I am at once aware that I am the same person that lived in my home yesterday and went to sleep there last night. The task I left unfinished yesterday is still there, still my task, and I can take it up where I left off. The plans I was making yesterday are still there waiting for further consideration and elaboration. This continuity of personality and life is a great marvel: and it is only excessive familiarity with it that hides its wonder from us. CFF2 861.3

“When we try to think of death and resurrection, as the first Christians thought of them we cannot do better than think in terms of sleeping and waking, and the wonderful way in which the self contrives every night to leap the dark gulf of unconsciousness and arrive safely on the other side complete with all its hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, memories of the past and plans for the future.” ⁷⁸ CFF2 861.4