p. 245 | Notes on the Lesson

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 31, 1883

Notes on the Lesson.

"And when he had said this, he fell asleep."—There is not in the Bible a more striking instance of the power of the Christian religion to lift a man above his surroundings. Stephen was surrounded by a mob of frenzied fanatics, who were rending the air with their yells of rage. More than all this, huge stones were being showered upon his body. But these things did not disturb him. Amidst all the strife "he fell asleep." The original word has the meaning "to hush to sleep," "to lull to rest." The shouts of rage and the pelting of the stones served merely to lull him to rest, as an infant falls asleep in its mother's arms. And indeed this was Stephen's condition. He was not distracted by what was going on around him, because he was looking into Heaven. His eyes were fixed on Jesus. And so he fell asleep in Jesus. Blessed sleep! This should be a lesson for those who are annoyed and hindered in their Christian course, by their adverse surroundings. If we are only "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," as Stephen was, we may rise superior to every adverse circumstance. And it is the privilege of every one to have the same sustaining power that he had; and not only the privilege, but the duty.

"HE fell asleep" means simply that he died. Nothing could more fitly represent death than sleep, and the term is quite frequently used in the Bible. See John 11 : 11; Acts 13 : 36; 1 Cor. 15 : 17, 51; 1 Thess. 4 : 13–16, etc. Those who are asleep are unconscious of what is going on around them; they take no note of passing events. So it is in death. Eccl. 9 : 5, 6; Job 14 : 21. Those who go to sleep expect to awake again; and those who die will also be raised from their sleep. And for this reason it was peculiarly fitting that death should be spoken of as a sleep, to make the Christian's hope prominent as compared with the heathen notion that the dead would never rise.

"Now how is it possible to harmonize the fact that the dead sleep, with the popular idea that they are conscious and, if they have been righteous, in Heaven, actively engaged in praising God? Can folks that are asleep praise God? David said, "In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." Ps. 16 : 11. But he expected to go to sleep when he died, for he said, "Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God; lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." Ps. 13 : 3. And Paul declares that he really did sleep, for he said, "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep." Acts 13 : 36. Now can any one imagine that David is in Heaven in the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy, and fast asleep? When he said, "At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore," did he contemplate an eternal sleep? No; he contemplated an awakening from sleep. And we have positive proof that he did not go to Heaven, for Paul says farther that he "was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption;" and Peter says plainly (Acts 2 : 34) that "David is not ascended into the heavens." The facts are these: The Bible says that the dead are asleep; that, like persons in sound sleep, they are unconscious; that they will be awakened at the last day, and that then they will be forever with the Lord, in whose presence there are joys and pleasures. The conclusion is unavoidable that while they are asleep and unconscious they are not in heaven. The Bible and modern theology cannot by any possibility be made to agree. But the Bible is true; and therefore the Christian's hope is not to go to heaven at death, but to have a resurrection from the dead. This was what sustained Stephen in his trial and martyrdom.