3. Did Jesus liken death to a sleep? Mark 5:22-23, 35, 39.
NOTE: ‘Jesus said, “The maid is not dead [in the sense of being beyond the summons of the Life-giver,] but sleepeth” (Matthew 9:24). And the record adds, then “He . . . took her by the hand, and the maid arose” (Matthew 9:25). In this connection it is interesting to note that our English word “cemetery” comes from the Greek “koimeterion”, a sleeping chamber or burial place (from koimao, to put to sleep).’ L. E. Froom: The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, volume 1, page 226.
4. After His friend Lazarus had died, how did Jesus speak of his death? John 11:11-14.
NOTE: ‘In such a sleep I should suppose Lazarus to have been lying, if it were asked whither his soul betook itself during those four days of death. For I cannot believe that it would have been called back from heaven to suffer again the inconveniences of the body, but rather that it was summoned from the grave, and roused from the sleep of death. The words of Christ themselves lead to this conclusion: John 11:11,13. “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep; howbeit Jesus spake of his death;” which death, if the miracle were true, must have been real. This is confirmed by the circumstances of Christ’s raising him. Verse 48. “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!” If the soul of Lazarus, that is, if Lazarus himself, was not within the grave, why did Christ call on the lifeless body which could not hear? If it were the soul which He addressed, why did He call it from a place where it was not? Had He intended to intimate that the soul was separated from the body, He would have directed His eyes to the quarter from whence the soul of Lazarus might be expected to return, namely, from heaven; for to call from the grave what is not there, is like seeking the living among the dead, which the angel reprehended as ignorance in the disciples. Luke 24:5.’ James White: Review & Herald, August 12, 1862.