Immortal Soul Fallacy

I wanted to talk to you about a topic that is held widely in the world. Many people believe. And there are forms, by the way, of this belief found in most religions, whether you're talking about Buddhism, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or Hindus, or even in Christianity. And most take it for granted that it's true. I would dare say that most of us, you know, grew up thinking that what I'm going to talk about today, this particular topic, is true. And that topic I'm going to talk about is that man has an immortal soul.

That man is immortal. I mean, how many people believe that in the world today? Probably if you added it up, we're talking about most of the population of the world believes that man has an immortal soul. Well, what is the soul anyway? What is the soul anyway? And if you have a soul, is it immortal? So what is a soul? And again, is our soul immortal? Many Christians have, in fact, an emotional attachment to the concept of the immortality of the soul.

And they think the soul is housed in a fleshly body that's released when you die. And it's interesting, isn't it, that people have this idea, usually when they talk about somebody who's deceased, well, they're not here. You know, that's a shell. And they're gone, you know. And oftentimes they say that.

I'm not sure they really know what they're saying about it. You know that, in fact, the belief that many people have, philosophy, defines it this way. That in other words, the soul is separate than the body. And at death, the soul departs. It leaves. You know, many people, of course, believe, and it's commonly believed among Christians, that when you die, you either go one place or another, the good place or the bad place. And have this concept, don't they? That that's what happens immediately when you die. I don't care if you're dealing with some of the most evil people upon the face of the earth.

Oftentimes they think, well, I'm good, basically. And when I die, I'm going to heaven. You know, usually that's what a lot of people tend to think. And of course, it's rarely does somebody believe, well, when I die, I'm going to hell. You know, how many people have you known that ever said that to you? You know, most people think when they die, they're going to go up to this place called heaven, where there are a lot of clouds, I guess.

And you're going to float on a cloud, and God's going to give you a harp, and you'll be playing that harp, I guess, forever. And you will look into the face of God forever and ever and ever. Now, when I hear people describe about how that, you know, heaven is a place where that happens, and hell is another place where people, you know, are basically terrorized forever and ever, you compare the two, and it sounds similar. Obviously, people think the other is not, though, going to heaven.

But, you know, many people just assume, like I say, that the Bible says that we have an immortal soul. They just assume the Bible says that. You know, if you were to ask the average person on the street, unless they have studied the Bible and really know what the Bible says, they would think that, well, you know, everybody knows the immortal soul is in the Bible. It's like a lot of other things. It's in the Bible. But the fact of the matter is, you can search the Bible from cover to cover, and you will not find the phrase, immortal soul.

It's just not there. It simply is not there. The prophets and the apostles never taught an immortal soul. They never did. None of them ever did. So where did this concept of the immortality of the soul come from, then? You know, the Jewish historian Josephus, he writes about two important characters in this story of the immortality of the soul concepts. All of us, of course, are familiar with the Bible. Remember Nimrod, who was called the mighty hunter, you know, before God. And many do not know that his mother, her name was Semiramis.

And they were very, of course, instrumental in ancient Babylon. And the older, in fact, cultures that were even prior to that leading up from the flood. But she claimed that after her son Nimrod's death, a full-grown fir tree grew up on a dead tree stump, and that Nimrod continued to live, you know, afterwards, that he was immortal, that he went on and on.

And in fact, the Bible, many people will be shocked to find out that the Bible in Jeremiah 10 says that we are not to learn the way of the pagans. And it condemns the pagan custom of erecting idols of fir trees and decking it with gold and silver. You know, kind of an allusion to the Christmas tree we have today. And in this ancient custom, by the way, of making this image of a fir tree, you know, this idol of a fir tree, it was the worship of Nimrod.

That's what it pictured. And of course, it was inculcated into the church later and Christianized. And that is, again, without question, history says it. Hislop, by the way, Alexander Hislop, in his famous book, The Two Babylons, writes that the Egyptian counterpart to Nimrod and Cimaramas were Osiris and Isis. In other words, in Egypt, Nimrod was called Osiris and Cimaramas was called Isis. And Isis claimed that Osiris, after he died, he lived on to their illegitimate son, Horus.

So the idea of the immortal soul, by the way, came from ancient Egypt. Now, I'm trying to explain to you how did it get into the church? How did people begin to believe this in the church? How did it spread to the world? Well, it was already in the world, but eventually it got in the church, the belief in the immortality of the soul. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, many of us have heard about Herodotus, he was in the fifth century BC. He says the Egyptians were the first to teach the soul is separate from the body.

They were the first to teach this concept. And they predate, by the way, all the major religions. Egypt predates all the major religions.

And the philosopher, by the way, Plato. Plato, of course, I'm sure many of you heard about Plato in studying history, but Plato lived around 428 to 348 BC. So we're talking about concepts, by the way, brethren, that have been around a long, long time.

That predate Christianity, in fact. But Plato inherited this concept of the immortality of the soul from Egypt and was one of its greatest advocates. It is Plato, by the way. In his book, in fact, there was a series of books called the Republic, and this is from book number 10, which was one of the major works of history. He wrote this, and I'm quoting, The soul of man is immortal and imperishable. The soul of man is immortal and imperishable. Now, where did he get this idea that the soul is imperishable?

Well, he got it from philosophy. He got it from human reasoning. God didn't tell him that the soul was imperishable. Let me read to you what it says in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Under the caption, under the caption of the immortality of the soul, it says this, This is what the Jewish Encyclopedia says.

The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with the Greek thought, and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato. Because remember, after the time of Alexander the Great, he began to, in a great way, Hellenize the world, and the world began to take on Greek cultures, and so Plato's philosophy began to creep then to Judaism. Plato was its principal exponent who was led to it, this is how he came to the conclusion, through Orphic and Eleusian mysteries in Babylon, and Egyptian views, he said, were strangely blended. So they blended what came out of Babylon and what came out of Egypt.

And he came up with this immortality of the soul, and the soul is separate, and at death it separates from the body. Again, what does the Bible say about these things? We're going to talk about that. Well, how did it get into Christianity, though? How did the immortality of the soul even get into Christianity? Well, it came into Christianity through the Church Fathers. That's how it came in. Now, all of us know about the Anyanizing Fathers. These are the Fathers, by the way, who were the progenitors.

They were the, you know, I'd say the foundation from which, in fact, we have the modern Church of today. And by that I mean the Church of the world. I'm talking about the Roman Catholic Church and other churches. But it was Origen and Tertullian and Augustine, by the way. These three were very instrumental in bringing the immortality of the soul into the Church.

And who were they influenced by? Plato. Plato. Not the Bible. Plato. But, you know, here basically we need to understand the method of the Greeks. You know, when they wanted to know something spiritual, they would go to an oracle. And please understand that, you know, Satan can speak through oracles. You know, he can speak through such things as well.

But anyway, it was through Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine that it entered into the Church. And it eventually came on into the Roman Catholic Church that we have today. And it's kind of gone out through Christianity ever since. Let me quote to you what Tertullian said. And Tertullian, that's kind of hard to say. Who lived around 155 to 220 AD. So he was around, by the way, when you have people like Lycrates and Polycarp and these people after the death of the Apostles. And here's what he was saying.

He cites Playboy. Plato! Plato. He may have cited Plato, or Playboy as far as I know, but he cites Plato as authority. You know, you might as well cite it as an authority because it would be no better authority than Plato. But this is what Tertullian says, quote, For some things are known even by nature. You know, you're still by nature. I don't know about you, but I can't tell that by looking at somebody, whether they're mortal or not. That's a pretty big stretch, isn't it? And if people are mortal, well, they've been dying for a long time. Have you ever noticed this, that nobody wants to...

if they believe in immortality, and that after you die you go to heaven, nobody's fighting to get into a graveyard. Have you ever noticed that? Nobody wants to go into the graveyard. But he says, For some things are known even by nature. He said, The immortality of the soul, again, this is Tertullian, for instance, is held by many. He says, I may use therefore the opinion of...

guess whose opinion he's using? Plato. When he declares, every soul is immortal. And that's from the Antonizing Fathers, volume 3, by the way. You know, when Paul began to go among the Gentiles, and he began to preach and teach, one of the things about the Greeks is they loved to argue about philosophy and human reasoning.

Remember his little walk around Mars Hill. And they were very superstitious about things. And in fact, so superstitious that they wanted to cover all the bases, they had a place where they had a statue of some sort with a plaque dedicated to the unknown God. A lot of beliefs and many gods, of course. But Paul, in writing about the way of the Greeks, who loved to argue, by the way, he says, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.

And Plato, you know, was a philosopher. And he says, Be careful you don't get spoiled by it. After the tradition of it, after the rudiments of the world, after the elements of the world, in other words, and not after Christ. In other words, it had nothing to do with Christ, it has nothing to do with the Bible, it didn't have anything to do with God, it has to do with human reasoning, apart from the Bible.

Human reasoning, brethren, is a source, it's a source of so many false ideas that have entered Christianity. Not the inspiration of God. And in the Church of God, by the way, we rely on this book right here. No, all knowledge is not in here, but the foundation of knowledge is here, for sure. So we rely upon the Bible for the clear answers. So what does the Bible say? You know, like I said, the Bible does not use immortal soul, the phrase immortal soul. Now, you'll find the word soul in the Bible, you'll find the word immortal in the Bible, but never immortal soul.

Or the immortality of the soul, for that matter. But you know, it's like what happens with people when they're reading the Bible, they read it in. It's like if the word immortal is there, they read it in. They just sort of mentally, because they accept it, they take it for granted, they read the word soul in. But it's not there, and it never has been there in the Bible. So we don't want to get in the business of doing that, of reading things in. You know, who is the true originator of the concept of immortality of the soul?

Well, it wasn't Nimrod, it wasn't Semperamis, it wasn't Plato. And it wasn't any church that came up with this, because it's been around a long, long time. The true originator of the concept of the immortality of the soul was Satan, the devil. Let me tell you why. Because Satan is immortal.

He's immortal. And when Adam and Eve were in the garden, you remember he was that subtle creature there, that was very subtle in all the creatures that were in the garden, he palmed off on our first two parents, after Eve had eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the concept that they would never die.

Remember he told Eve, if you eat of this, if you take of this, you're not going to surely die? And she gave to Adam, and he went right ahead and ate. And so Satan, he's immortal, he's the one who began the concept. Interestingly, too, it is Satan who wants to go to heaven.

But you know what? Satan is not welcome in heaven. The only time that God wants Satan up there at his throne is when he summons him, as he did during the time of Job. But Satan has been thrown out of heaven, and his demons along with him. And Christ said, I beheld him fall as lightning from the sky. So he was here when God kicked him out of heaven, and he was placed here upon the earth, and in a place of restraint that is called the earth.

The word tardaroo, by the way, is what describes this earth, that is a place of restraint for Satan and his demons. But he deceived Adam and Eve into thinking they were immortal, and not only that, the great fallacy that you go to heaven when you die. You know, I know it's shocking for people to hear that if they've never heard it before, but it's the truth. And it's the truth that makes you free. It's the truth that opens not only a freedom to us that we can be free of the falsehoods of Satan, but it's a truth that opens a gateway to understand what God's purpose and plan is and what he's doing.

So let's now, if you have your paper, by the way, with the Hebrew and the Greek words, I wanted to give that to you so that, you know, if you heard a word mentioned, you'd be able to at least spell it and to have a bit of a definition of what it is. And it is very simple, you know, the handout, so it should help you at least with this, because I think all of us need to be able to explain this from the Bible.

Let's go over to Genesis 2, Genesis 2, and verse 7. You know, God is created, by the way, the physical attributes of the earth. He's created the sea creatures. He's created the land creatures. And then he created man on the sixth day. And after he had done it, he rested, the Bible says.

And then, of course, then he created the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, and why we meet here on the Sabbath today. But in verse 7, in Genesis 2 here, it says, So man was made from dirt. In fact, Adam means red clay. And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. So the fact that God formed the body did not make him alive, but the fact that God breathed into him made him alive.

And it made him a very special individual when he was created. And I'll talk about that a little bit later on. But the word here for being is nefesh, that first Hebrew word that is on there. And if you had a King James version, it would say, living soul. God made him a living soul. So it's translated in those two ways, in the King James and New King James, called a living being and New King James and a soul, living soul and the King James. Now again, Satan would like to cover up the fact of what happened here, what really occurred here. Now we've said very often that when God created Adam, he was not all there.

God was not finished creating him. He was not done with the process. And in fact, Adam and Eve did the wrong thing and he had to be driven from the Garden of Eden. And they could not take the tree of life, which symbolized the Holy Spirit, which he lacked. He didn't have that. So man, we're told here, became a living being.

He became a living soul. So what does that say? What does that say? What are we saying? In other words, man doesn't have a soul. What we're saying is man is a soul. Everyone here is a soul. We are souls. In other words, human beings, we have a physical, chemical makeup, and God formed Adam and Eve from dirt and he breathed into him a breath. And the Bible says he was a nafesh. And really, in reality, he wasn't really special. You couldn't find that out based on the Hebrew word, at least, nafesh.

He wasn't special in that sense than anything else that God had created. And I'm going to show you that. When God created, by the way, the creatures of the earth, let's notice over here in Genesis 1 and verse 20, He says, let the waters abound with abundance of living creatures.

The word for creatures here is nafesh. So, like I say, from the Hebrew word, there's no really delineation between a man and an animal. And it says, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament. And so God created great sea creatures. And again, nafesh. And every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded, but notice what he did here. According to their kind, and it says, and every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. So you see, God created certain species of animals, fish and birds, animals. And you know, often you can't even cross mate in the animal world.

You can't cross mate species. Now man, of course, the thing about it, he's going far beyond what God ever intended, and he started the gene splice. I'm not talking about that, but if you mate a giraffe with a rhinoceros somehow, if that was possible, you wouldn't have an offspring. It just doesn't happen.

So God made animals after the animal kind, cattle after the cattle kind, dogs after the dog kind, fish after the fish kind. But notice down here, verse 26, then God said, let us make man an hour image. According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea. Now, so this was a special creation. God didn't make, you know, man after the mankind.

He made man after the God kind. And we need to get that and to understand that. But when God created Adam, God only started the process with Adam. He didn't finish it. Or else, why did Jesus Christ have to come to wipe away the sins of the world? He didn't finish it. And so Adam was not all there. Neither was Eve, by the way, lest women get too proud about themselves.

None of us, you know, that have been in this world or part of this world were all there until something happened, until something occurred. So, nafesh is the same for Adam or Eve, and nafesh is the same for, you know, animals as well. And remember, when God made the animals to pass before Adam, He named them all. In other words, a nafesh named a nafesh. And so you have just a living creature naming another living creature.

Now, interestingly, when you start looking at this word soul and being and how the word nafesh is used, I won't go over some of these, but the word nafesh could be translated thing. And it is. It's translated thing in Leviticus 11, verse 10.

It obviously translated soul as well, as we've pointed out, with regard to how it's rendered at least in the King James. And elsewhere, it is actually the word nafesh is translated soul. We'll see that very clearly here very soon. Did you know that the word nafesh also can refer to something dead?

The Bible actually chooses that. Like I said, we go by the Bible. In what way, how could you say that a nafesh, if it's a breathing creature, how could you say a nafesh also can be translated a word dead? Let's do go over to Leviticus 21 over here. I'll just show you one verse over here. We don't have to spend a lot of time on this. But Leviticus 21 over here. Leviticus 21. In verse 1, So this is God commanding Moses. It says, So it can be translated dead. And we know it's talking about nafesh because let's look down here in verse 11. It says, So it's referring back again to verse 1. The word dead here, by the way, is not translated from nafesh. But the word body is translated nafesh. One place it's translated dead, and the other place it's translated body. I guess we could say nafesh, nafesh, but the word dead in the latter verse here is an adjective. And nafesh would be a noun. So it wouldn't be proper Hebrew, it wouldn't be proper English to do it that way. So what are we saying here, brother? The word nafesh can refer to the word soul, which we have already pointed out. It can refer to body, which we just mentioned here. It can refer to a living creature. It can refer to the dead as well. Let's notice this over in Ezekiel 18. The reason why I'm sort of laying this foundation for you is we see over here about a nafesh that far from being immortal and going on and on like the song goes, and if you saw the Titanic, that song that was the hallmark of that particular, it's like you go on and on and on. Not that way. I can't remember the guy who sang it. I was telling my wife that. I guess that shows you how important it is to me, in my mind, to remember who sang the song. I remember the song, but I can't remember who sang it. Let's go to Ezekiel 18. It says, It says, You know what he means by that particular saying? In other words, we have a saying, also, the nut does not fall too far from the tree. But here he's talking about that if fathers commit a sin, then God's going to condemn the children. And, you know, let's go on. And it says, But notice what he says.

The soul of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine. Let's read that last part of this verse.

You see? Here's the word, nafesh, translated soul here in the book of Ezekiel. The soul shall die. Nafesh. No different than the soul that was created when Adam was created, the living soul. The soul that sins, it shall die. So you see, the concept of immortality of the soul just is not there. It's not in the Scriptures. It's not there in the Bible.

You know, God spoke here, by the way, and he has the authority over life and death. In fact, verse 4 here has the words, nafesh, by the way, four times. The soul that sins, it shall die.

And the other thing I think is very reassuring here is if a son or a daughter, you know, live God's way of life, even if they're parents, I mean, we're the evilest person, the most evil people in the world. God doesn't hold the children responsible for that. Now, please understand that what a parent does impacts a child, but a child doesn't have to follow in the footsteps of what their mother or father have done. Or anybody, for that matter, they can be different. They can live a life that's maybe a cycle where they're breaking that cycle. They're beginning to live God's way of life and change the way they think, the way they live.

But the soul that sins, it shall die. You know, no wonder that the apostle Paul warned, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. A lot at stake right now in this life. If God has called you, opened your mind, a lot at stake. God's holding it as accountable. And God is not playing any games, you know. He's saying the soul that sins, it shall die. Again, not contrary to what many people think, no matter what they do, they're going to be going to heaven. Head off to heaven. Well, it'll be a root of wicked. He won't be. And, you know, the apostle Paul in the book of Romans says, all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The only way that we're going to have a chance to be in God's kingdom and to be around Jesus Christ in the future is if we repent and we change. And not because we embrace some philosophy that came from men. Well, let's talk about New Testament words, by the way.

What is the Greek word equivalent to nefesh if we were to look in the New Testament? We've been talking about the Old Testament. Let's go over here to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 over here. Paul, of course, like you say, was well-accredited with the vain philosophy of the Greeks and the Romans, for that matter, and the Jews. Because remember, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was very well-educated. He was a perfect man for the job that needed to be done. Because he was dealing with people who loved to argue.

Some could say the Jews loved to argue, too. And I think they do. But I think the Greeks, they loved to argue, too. But Paul was a great man to be able to do that, to deal with that kind of thinking. But let's go to 1 Corinthians 15 here, now down to verse 45. Now, let's see again the equivalent that we read in the Greek. This is in the Greek, by the way. But Paul is quoting from basically the Old Testament. You see, he's quoting from what was said in the Old Testament. Did we read that God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living being?

Well, again, let's notice here. And so it was written, The first man, Adam, became a living being. And it says, That's, of course, Jesus Christ, became a life-giving spirit. Now, what does he mean by that? It has really a lot, by the way, that one verse here. The word being, by the way, in the Greek is suke.

And you have it again on your paper. The word suke is pronounced that way. But it says that the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The word, by the way here, spirit, comes from pneuma. It's different than what happened with, in other words, Adam, you see. Quite different. What happened to Christ is not only, you know, was he a life-giving spirit, but he was, again, able to give life to others, others whomsoever he decided to.

By implication, it means that not everybody received it, especially in his time. The opportunity would be there for everyone, eventually. So he was called, Adam was a living being. In other words, he was a living soul. If you have a King James Version in the new King James, I read. And, you know, the word living, by the way, is from the Greek word zaou, zaou, and it means living.

And the word being is from sukei. So you have a rough equivalence between nephesh and sukei. Nephesh in the Old Testament and New Testament sukei here. Vines Expository Dictionary says that sukei is, quote, the natural life of the body. In other words, it's the physical-chemical existence you and I have here. And it's important to understand that, by the way. It's not the soul. Man is not a soul. Where he said that, or a man doesn't have a soul, I should say, he is a soul. He is a soul. He doesn't have a soul, as men think.

And it philosophizes. So this scripture says that Adam was a living being, a sukei. And Christ, though, was a life-giving spirit. And that word numa, by the way, means air, wind. Remember when he described the Holy Spirit? It's like the wind, he said. But he was a life-giving numa. In fact, the word pneumatic, you know, that we have, has to do with air. You have drills, you have pumps, and whatnot operated by what? Air. Or wind, if you want to put it that way. Now let's go to one of the verses that trip more people up than anybody. And I imagine, probably, you've been down the road of having somebody quote this to you, and you didn't know how really they respond to it.

And many people think in the New Testament, Jesus Christ was espousing the immortality of their soul. Well, let's go over to Matthew 10. Matthew chapter 10, over here. Matthew 10, in verse 28. In verse 28, it says, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. A lot of people shut their Bible and see, you know, man has an immortal soul. But did it say, immortal soul, there? It didn't, did it?

It said soul. But going on here, I lost my place. But rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Now, what's the hell he's talking about here? Is he talking about the grave? Because the word Hades in the Greek means grave. No, he's not talking about that. Is he talking about the place of restraint that the demons were cast into? No, he didn't use the word taru. He uses the word gehenna, by the way. The Gehenna Fire. You know where they got the term gehenna? Outside of Jerusalem, there was a place called the Valley of Hinnom. And there, it was like a garbage dump.

And there were fires that were burning all the time. And they would throw out the carcasses of animals and even criminals. They would burn them up. So the term gehenna was used in reference to being burned up. You put a human body on a fire, and it burns up. Well, you know, the wicked are going to be cast into a fire in the future. They'll be burned up. You know why we know that? Because the Bible says that the wicked are going to be ashes under the feet of the righteous. So, in other words, they're going to be burned up. But let's go on here, so to understand again a fuller understanding of hell.

But it says, do not fear him who killed the body. Now, the word for body here, if you look on your handout, is from the Greek word soma. And Strong says, and you can see a little more definition there, but basically the sound hole, like your body. Like your body. The chemical body that you have, the chemical makeup that you have. And the next word that is used here, you know where he says it cannot destroy your sukeh, is the word that is translated here soul, is the word sukeh.

And what does he mean here? Does he mean that the sukeh is immortal? By the way, the word sukeh is not an exact equivalent to nefesh, but Strong says that the sukeh is the breath. And I'm quoting from Strong's, Breath or by implication the spirit abstractly or concretely.

We're talking in terms of concrete here. What happened when God breathed into man the breath of life? Does this prove, by the way, that man is immortal? So that's the word sukeh is used here? No, Jesus Christ is not saying that man is immortal, but rather only God can take away your right to eternal life. You know, he was the one that gave it, and he's the only one that could take it away. You're right. And God has the power to resurrect anyone he chooses.

And God also has the right to destroy the sinner in gahanna fire. And forever, not where they sizzle and pop and fry all through eternity, but they burn up and be the ashes under the feet of the righteous. Now let me show you here what it says. First John, let's move over to 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3 over here. I want to show you again where, in fact, in verse 15, 1 John chapter 3 and verse 15, it says, whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

So if you hate your brother, not just that you go murder him, but you hate him, a Christian simply doesn't do that. And you know that no murderer has eternal life inviting in him. You see what it's saying here? That if you are a murderer, there's a lot of other things we can say the same thing about. You can look over to Revelation and see those problems that people have which will not allow them to have eternal life.

But no murderer has immortality in them. They don't have eternal life in them. Do you get what he's saying here, brethren? So the word sukei does not have to do with immortality because we're talking about 99% of the people on this planet that don't have eternal life right now residing in them. Now everybody has the potential. And like I say, God created Adam for that great potential.

But everybody will not accept God's way of life. I think many will when they really hid their truth. But remember also, Paul said the wages of sin is death. It's not, again, eternal life, but it's death. Ezekiel said, the soul that sins, it shall die. But he said the gift of God is eternal life. So you see, eternal life is something that only God can give to us. And it's a gift that he gives, but it doesn't mean you don't have to live a certain way of life. When a sinner continues in his way and does not repent or her way, God's not going to give them immortality in the flames of Gehenna, but he's going to simply snuff their lives out.

And I think as in Obadiah it says, it will be as though they never were. Of course, we all pray that that not happened was, and it won't if, as long as we're striving. But you know, the immortal soul concept, rather than blind humanity, and you know what it does? It puts a veil over people's eyes, that they don't see what they're supposed to do in this life. And why we have to be careful what we do in our lives once God opens our minds, and then we need to put some more effort, redouble our efforts to live God's way of life.

When we learn the truth, brethren, it's like the veil is taken away, and you can see. Christ said the truth would make you free. What it does, brethren, it doesn't take away responsibility, it takes away, you know, your captivity to false ideas that are simply not true. And you know, there is none so blind as those that refuse to see when it's pointed out to them, and many have been down that road. But God reveals in His Word that Satan's goal from the very beginning, when he was in the Garden of Eden, was to hide the great purpose and plan that God had for Adam.

You see, God wanted man to be a part of his family. I gave a sermon some time ago where I talked about how God's desires always to dwell with men. And the time would come when we will do that. And God's goal for Adam and all human beings was for the transcendental purpose of one day that they enter into his family and they could be like God.

They would be like God. Now God is different, isn't he? God's immortal. You know, God is all-powerful. God is omniscient. So how's man going to be like God? Well, brethren, that's a process. We're being molded once we have been called and shown the truth. We're being molded in His likeness and His image. Christ is, in fact, that exact image of the Father we're supposed to be mimicking in our lives. So God's plan for us, brethren, is much more than we can even imagine.

Now let's try to understand another element of what people somehow think that it shows that man has an immortal soul. Like I said, when Adam and Eve were created, you know, they were different than the animals. They weren't like the animals who were created after the animal kind. They were created after the God's kind and they were very different. But you know, scientists, though, in comparative anatomy, they look at and examine the human brain and they compare it to animals.

They don't see any difference. They can't see the difference in a test tube or a laboratory. So why do men, you know, why does humanity possess far superior intellect? I don't know who measures these kinds of things, but you know that some have the idea that, well, it's important to have a big brain. You used to have a friend of mine who used to have a big head and he would say, you know, you got a big head, you got a big brain.

I'm not sure having a big head necessarily gives you more intellect. But if that were the case, the sperm whale would be the smartest creature on the planet because they have an 18-pound brain. The elephant has one that's a little smaller. It's 11 pounds, much bigger, by the way, than humans. And if we went by size, dolphins even would be more intelligent than we are. A dolphin has a, you know, a brain that weighs anywhere from 3.3 to 3.7 pounds. A man or woman has a brain that's 2.9 to 3.3, depending, again, on your body size.

I guess your head size as well. But scientists themselves have said that intellect doesn't seem to be influenced by the size of the brain. Again, if it were so, animals would be smarter than humans. But humans are vastly superior. Now, why is that? Well, you know, there is, and when Adam was created, there is a non-physical component that was given to man.

You see, Adam was created from the ground, the dirt, the red clay, as I said, Adam means red clay. But something special happened. You know, when Adam was created, let's go to Job 32, Job 32 over here. In Job 32, something special happened when Adam was created, and it's been happening in the last 6,000 years with every baby that draws breath that God gives life to.

But in Job 32, in verse 8, a striking statement here, but there is a spirit in man. Somebody usually said, well, yeah, that's that immortal soul, a spirit in man. Well, let's go on, read on, and see what he says about this spirit in man. What does it do? And it says, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. It gives him understanding. Now, do we grasp what that means, what it really means? By the way, this word spirit that is used here, you know what that word is? Ruach. R-U-A-C-H. And like the word numa, it means wind. It means breath. So the Ruach in man. That sounds Klingon, doesn't it? For you who are Trekkies.

The Ruach in man. That gives him, in other words, understanding. In the Hebrew, the word understanding means to separate mentally and distinguish. You know, I've said before to you, you know, cows in South Africa don't know about the cows in America. You know, I don't know if you've ever seen old Larson's cartoons about cows. You know, they walk around, they talk to each other and drive cars. No, thankfully we don't have immigrant cows coming from South Africa. You know, they don't know how good the cows in California have. The happy cows are around here.

But the spirit in man, that Ruach is what gives understanding. Imparts the intellect that makes a man vastly different, you know, than an animal. Here's another thing. I'm not going to go to this one. You might want to write this one down and look at it later. In Zechariah 12.1, it says there, it says, God forms the spirit of man within him. He actually forms, you know, that spirit in man.

When Adam was created, as you see, not only was he created from the ground and God formed the physical aspects of Adam, but he formed the spirit of man or the spirit of man in him as well. Now don't ask me how God did that and does that. I don't know what he made it into, you know. We have no way of knowing what he made it into. But he molds it. The word forms means molds. He molds it in us, within us. Now let's just notice here what that spirit of man does. It's expressed over here in 1 Corinthians 2.

And every human being has ever been born and draws breath and has life rather than has the spirit of man. God has not made a difference between people when it comes to the spirit of man. It's what makes us men and women.

In 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 11, notice it says, For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? You get that? A man doesn't know the things of a man. You know, except by the spirit of the man which is in him. It's in him. You know, contrary to the cartoons, you know, cows don't talk to each other and say, Hey Fred, how you doing today? You know, I'm doing okay Matilda, but could be better. Had a rough night last night. You know, cows don't get into that conversation. Do cows know the things of cows? I don't think so. But men know the things of men. They have cows have instinct, birds have instinct. A lot of these things built into them. Pre-programmed is maybe a word we understand. But it says, Even so, no one knows the things of God except how? By the spirit of man? No. The spirit of God. So the spirit of man, by the way, imparts the intellect so we can know the things of a man. We can, you know, again see differences between things. We can distinguish. We can separate things mentally in our mind. We can think. We can reason. And so intellect is imparted by the spirit of man. Now the thing about it, Adam, when he was created, was not created spiritual. He was created physical. Now is the spirit of man we're talking about? Is that the immortal soul?

Again, a lot of times when somebody dies they think, well, you know, there's an ant. You know, when my sister-in-law died, they were talking about how she was up in heaven partying. Having a big old party up there, looking down from heaven, you know. I was really happy. My brother was, you know, he commented after the funeral himself. I didn't say anything about it, but another minister did the funeral service, and the minister actually preached her to heaven. And by the time the sermon was over, she was back in the casket. You know, and my brother was a little upset, you know, with the minister that he was playing both ends against the metal. He wouldn't commit on which way he believed. Well, is the spirit of man a mortal soul? Are we talking about a matter of semantics here? No, we're not. The spirit of man, by the way, is in the man. It's of the man, but it's not something that is a part of the man.

Let me give you an example. If I give you a marble, and I ask you to swallow it, you know, the marble's in you, but it really is not of your physical, chemical makeup. Well, this is the way the spirit of man is. When God breathed into Adam and Eve the breath of life, and they became living souls, you know, they had the spirit of man in them, but spirit doesn't attach to the physical. The fact that the spirit that God breathed into them gave them life, it allowed them to have intellect. And all men again have this spirit in man. Let me say also that the spirit of man can't see, and it cannot hear.

If that was so, then why do we have people that, when they're deaf, they cannot hear, or when they're blind, they cannot see? You see? So the spirit of man cannot see, it cannot hear. It has no consciousness of itself after we die. But it's like, you know, the spirit, it was a part of us, and the Bible actually tells us what happens when we die, and I'll refer to that in just a moment. But the Bible compares death, by the way, to sleep. It's like going to sleep and waking up. When Paul wrote over in Thessalonica to the people of Thessalonica, he said, I don't want you to be, you know, ignorant of those who have fallen asleep. He was talking about the saints that had died.

You know, that we not sorrow the way the world does, you know, and he talked about how at the shout of the archangel, when Christ returns the dead, he said the dead and Christ shall rise first. And then we which are alive are going to be caught up to be with them in the air.

So, you know, the spirit and man, given to all mankind, by the way, doesn't have a consciousness.

Let's go over to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Like I say, when people die, it's like asleep. Well, what happens to the spirit and the man then when somebody dies? If it's not a, you know, you might say ghost person rising above the dead body and sort of hovering there and then going to heaven after you die. What is it? What happens to the spirit and the man? Ecclesiastes over here, I can find it somewhere in this book. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 21 here.

Notice it says, Who knows, again here, it says, Who knows the spirit of the sons of Ben, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animals which goes down to the earth. So after an animal dies, the spirit goes just simply down to the earth. But when a man dies, the spirit of man goes back to God, who gave it.

Over in chapter 12, chapter 12 is of Ecclesiastes, and down in verse 7, it says, Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, that's the soma, the body, and the spirit will return to God, who gave it. So the spirit and man returns to God, who gave it. Now what is the spirit of man about, then? Well, the spirit and man is, you might say, we used to say, by the way, that the spirit of man was like a tape of who you are. Today we'd say it's a disc.

I guess the disc eventually is going to be about that big around, or whatever it would be. From the physical standpoint of our lives, we will think about it. But let's say it was a disc. Again, the disc does not have any consciousness. It doesn't see, it doesn't hear, it doesn't do anything. That's why Solomon said what he said, the dead know not anything. But that disc goes back to God, who gave it. And at an appointed time, whatever that's going to be, whether it's at the return of Christ, or whether a person is going to be resurrected in the second resurrection, after the millennium is over, God will use that recording of who we are, has everything about you and me.

Got your hair color, got the number of hairs on your head, got your eye color, got everything about it, got your personality. But God is able to store all the experiences you had. We hope some of them God will allow us to forget. But the good ones to remember. But God will use that spirit of the man to resurrect us. To bring us up.

But those who are brought up in the time of the second resurrection are going to be like Jesus Christ. Because in 1 John 3, when John was talking, he said, he says, it does not yet appear what we shall be when Christ returns. But we know this. John says, we shall be like him. Why? Because we will see him as he is.

We won't be physical, but we'll be spiritual. We will be immortal. God's family is immortal. God's family is all-powerful. Not that we're going to have the power of God, the Father of Jesus Christ, but we will have powers that will be given to those who will be a part of God's family. And, you know, when God, in fact, created Adam, he created him again for this second spirit, though, the Holy Spirit, symbolized by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember that before Adam and Eve could take the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were put out of the Garden of Eden.

And they were kept from that spirit. And God only gave his spirit to a few people leading up to the beginning of the New Testament Church. And now God calls upon mankind to repent, believe the Gospel, and to receive God's spirit after repentance and baptism. And that spirit, by the way, attaches in some way to the spirit of man, so that not only now do we have intellect to understand the things of man, but we have, you might say, spiritual intellect. And that we come, in fact, to grow spiritually so that we come into the image of Jesus Christ.

Because when we see him, as I mentioned, in 1 John 3, verses 1 and 2, we'll be like him because we will see him as he is. We're going to be like Jesus Christ. We won't be this flesh, of course, that we have, but we're going to have an opportunity to have eternal bodies that will never wear out.

We'll be a part of God's family. Let's go over here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 over here.

It says, For we know that if our earthly house, now remember, he's talking to God's people here. If our earthly house, this tent, this old broken-down tent, and to one degree or another, you and I have been patching this old tent up. It depends on how old you are, but eventually, let's face it, the old tent is not going to go on much longer. But it says, We have a building from God. Aside from that, and that's what we're working on, a house not made with hands, made by God's hands, with the Spirit working in us, eternal in the heavens. We have this body. I don't have this body yet. Do you have this body?

But it's in heaven. God has this body for us. I don't know how He does it. Apparently, there's a body for those who are called in this age and endure to the end, are converted, that develop God's character, and live it, God's way of life.

But it's in heaven right now. We're not going to go to heaven, but God's going to bring it to us when Jesus Christ returns. For in this we groan in earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven. It's not that we're going to go to heaven to get it, but it's from heaven. Christ says He's going to reward us according to what our works will be. If indeed, having been clothed, we have to be living God's way of life, clothed with righteousness, in other words, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened not because we want to be clothed, but further clothed, that immortality may be swallowed up by life.

Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God. This is God's plan. This is His purpose. Who also has given us the Spirit? It says, as a guarantee. The Spirit is a down payment on that complete reward of eternal life in the kingdom of God, in other words. So immortality, brethren, is not something that you and I have. We have a down payment for it by the Spirit of God that is in us. I'm talking about the Holy Spirit given at baptism. But it's something we put on at another time, at a point in time when, hopefully, when Christ returns. We have that earnest payment of the Spirit of God that allows us, though, in the future, to be clothed from heaven when Jesus Christ comes back. Often, brethren, the great mysteries of the Bible are shrouded in this world that we live in. God has revealed those things that are mysteries that the Bible says are hid from the foundation of the world. And it's hid because of the false ideas that people embrace. And today, on this planet, a majority of people believe that they have immortal souls when they do not. Man does not have an immortal soul, but if he has the truth of God, he has the truth about God's plan eventually to give man immortality. That man can inherit immortality and be given this free gift from God. So God has purpose to make humankind his image and is like this. And we are to be like Jesus Christ when he returns. And the Bible says we will. Because it says, when we see him, we're going to be like him. And so, brethren, the idea and concept of the immortal soul is a fallacy. But it reveals, when we see the truth, a great truth that God has in his great purpose and plan he has for mankind.