Soul

I would like to extend a warm welcome to you, to the Bible study. But who exactly am I welcoming here?

Who and what exactly are you?

Is there you, your mind, your body, and your soul? You can be confused sometimes by the way people speak about statements that are used in the Bible. So who are you anyway?

Am I speaking to you? Am I speaking to your soul? Am I speaking to your mind or your body? And what remains of you when you die? Nothing? Everything? Only parts? Anything? So who are you? Today I'd like to take a look at the concept of the term soul, a word that's used in the Bible. It's a word that's not commonly used in our everyday language. What is a soul? Who is a soul? Or is it an it? Or is there even such thing as a soul?

I'll give you a little bit of a history of what is called the immortal soul teaching. From the Jewish Encyclopedia, Immortality of the Soul, the belief that the soul continues in existence after the dissolution of the body is nowhere taught in the Bible. The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact through the Greeks, through and chiefly through the mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended.

Now those old concepts believed in partially and somewhat intertwined with the concept of Gnosticism. That humans have always existed as spirit beings, but they needed some time here on earth and they filtered down through various layers and various experiences. They spend their time here on earth and then they filter back up to the stars or to eternity in some form.

Early Christianity was influenced and corrupted by Greek philosophers as it spread through the Greek and the Roman world. And so what is called Christianity today picked up a lot of those mystical things from Babylon and Egypt. They were combined here and combined there. You can't just call Christianity Gnostic or you can't call it Hellenistic or Greek thought. It's a real combination of things. And then within that the 10,000 or so different Christian denominations have their own views on things. So it gets pretty muddy. The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes that a Rigian who was an earthly Catholic theologian was influenced by Greek thinkers. Speculation, it says, about the soul in the sub-apostolic church was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy.

Now this is from the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. This is seen in a Rigian's acceptance of Plato's doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul, the pre-existence of the soul, as pure mind, originally by reason of its fall from God or from heaven, that cooled down into a psyche, to a soul, when it lost its participation in the divine fire by looking earthward.

You see a lot of those concepts in Gnosticism. If a man has an immortal soul, here's the bottom line of the immortal soul doctrine. If a man has an immortal soul, he has existed for eternity and will exist for eternity. Now you see where that concept becomes important then to certain religious concepts of people who believe that one has lived forever. Another version of that is one didn't used to have an immortal soul or a previous life, but now has an immortal soul.

And therefore, what are we looking to God for? Nothing. You already possess eternal life. It's just a matter of where you're going to live it. Jesus Christ no longer is a life-giver. He's not a life-bringer. He's not the one we look to as life. He's merely one who might direct where that life would be. Well, the Bible, when we look strictly at the Bible, as was stated by the Jewish Encyclopedia, does not use the term immortal soul, does not talk about any immortality whatsoever of the soul. And yet we find, as we will see, there are some scriptures that once you have the concept of the soul and the immortal soul in mind seem to support it.

It doesn't teach it, but once you have the concept in mind and bump into those scriptures, you say, Oh, there is this soul thing, a soul and a body or a soul, and it can be somewhat confusing. And since all of us have been exposed to some degree, to humanistic concepts, then we can look in the Bible, and this word soul, which we don't use in our everyday language, except as it refers to shoes, can kind of be an obscure concept.

Let's go back to Genesis 2 and verse 7. Let's start right in with how the Bible deals with soul. In Genesis 2 and verse 7, here is creation. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

That's what the King James Version says, man became a living soul, or neifesh is the Hebrew word there. So, man becomes a living soul. It's important to understand that concept. We're going to be coming back to this over and over. Notice it doesn't say, and man then had a living soul. Man then got his living soul, or man was connected to his living soul. Man became a living soul. Now, what I'm going to tell you today is, you are a soul. You are a soul.

That's what you are. And any use of the term soul, if you're not applying it to shoes, that uses the term has, had, or have is improper. You cannot use the terms have a soul, had a soul, have a soul with the word soul. They don't go together because nobody has a soul. You can't have a soul. Notice right here in Genesis 2 verse 7, and man became a living soul.

Now, if you want to use the right word with soul, it is are, were, will be, anything to do with one being a soul. And here we have the term are, will become, will be, man became. Now he is. You can use the term is. Is, am, or are, work with soul. I am a soul. I is a soul. I are a soul. All those work just fine, depending on where you're from.

No, I am a soul. She is a soul. They are souls. For instance, correctly used. The ship sailed out of the harbor with two hundred souls on board. Correct use. What are we saying? There's two hundred people there. Two hundred live thinking human beings were on board. That's just a term. The soul is on board.

So, here we see right from the beginning that a human, a human, a live thinking human being is a soul. You are a soul. You do not have a soul. The Bible will show you, do not have a soul. You either are one or you're not. And if you're not, hmm, bummer. Because, well, those who were, and you can say were, those who were living souls are in the graveyard today or somewhere else. They're not here with us. But for right now, you have this opportunity to be and to have become, as it says right here, a living soul or a living being, a living person, however you want to say it. In Genesis 9 and 12, we see these same two words that are translated, living soul, applied to someone else. Now, there are three souls that live in my house. Two of them are here today. One wishes she could be here today, but she's not. We'll read about her here in Genesis 9 and 12. It's talking about the rainbow, the sign, that there would not be another flood to annihilate the inhabitants of the earth. And he says in Hebrews 9 and 12, God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living soul that is with you. He was on the boat with a bunch of animals. The ark was full of animals, full of souls, living souls. Exactly the same words. So my dog at home also is a soul. She doesn't have a soul. She has pads on her little feet. No souls. But animals, what this is referring to is something that's alive has cognizant thought and some form. Now you and I have the form of God. We're created in His image, His likeness, and we are a living being. Animals are created in some other form, but they also have a body and they have some sort of intellect they can go about and do their business with. And here they are called living souls. Verse 10, a living creature, the birds, the cattle, every beast of the earth. So it's this term that kind of tricks us up at times. A soul is a whole living person. You get the whole thing. It's not a person who doesn't have a brain. You do a lobotomy and a person may not be able to think. That's not a soul. That's a body without a mind. A soul is when you have the breath of life breathed into a body and you're the whole deal. Ezekiel 18, verses 4 and 20 tells us plainly that the soul that sins it shall die. What is it saying? Well, you. If you sin, you will die. Guaranteed. Unless you have a savior who will save you from that death, somebody who will pay your penalty and your stead. Of course, that's what the Bible is all about.

In Romans 6, verse 23, it says the wages of sin is death. Death of what? Well, you see, some people like to say it's just death of the old carcass, but the soul lives on. Wait a minute. What is a soul? It's not something you have. It's not something you possess. A soul is just you. You're alive today. You're thinking you are a soul. And if you sin, you're going to die. All of you. You'll cease to be a living, breathing, thinking entity.

The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So those living people, or those souls who please God, receive a gift of eternal life. Unrepentant sinners don't get the gift. Now, we're all going to die. It's given unto man once a day. We're all going to die. Get used to that. If you do not please God, we're going to find out here, you're not going to get to live again. Not for very long, anyway. If you do please God, you're going to get to live again. Keep that concept in mind as we go forward. The fate of those who don't get that gift, of another soul, another opportunity to have a carcass, a brain, a spirit that goes with it, so you can have a mind, and life, and a chance to live. Those who never get that again, that's called eternal death. That's annihilation. Permanent death. There'd be no resurrection from that. We'll see that in just a minute in Revelation 20, verse 14. Now, some believe that the Scriptures support the concept of a mortal soul. Let's consider a few of those passages and see if they do or if they don't. One of them would be Matthew 10, verse 28. This one kind of jumps off the page at you, and you'd think, Wow, I guess there is a soul after all. I guess I have a soul. And maybe under certain circumstances, it can die or not.

Jesus says, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Ah, so, Mr. Eliot, come on, give me a break. We can see it so clearly right here. You've got a body, and you've got a soul, right? Well, if you go back to that Babylonian-Egyptian mindset, and you have that mindset, and you read this passage, then, oh, it's so clear. However, if you don't, we find out what Jesus is talking about here is something a little different than what it would seem on the surface. Let's go to his next phrase.

Oh, now we've just entered a whole new dimension here. Heaven, hell, immortal soul, burning forever, etc., etc. Well, what is Jesus talking about? First of all, he's warning about the judgment of God, isn't he? He's saying, don't fear a person who comes into your house with a gun and can kill you, because I can resurrect you. Don't fear those who can kill your soul. Your soul is you. Don't fear those who can take what you have, which is life and thought and all that, because I can always give you a new one. He had people pop up out of the graves at Jesus's death, remember? The graves were open. He's brought people back from the life in the past. He's going to bring people back. That's not a big deal to God.

What he says, but you rather fear God, who is able to destroy all of your future opportunities to have any body and any active mind. So he's saying, don't fear those who can kill you today. Fear the one who can not only kill you today. He can take away any chance for you to have a soul. I'm sorry, for you to be a soul in the future. See, I made a mistake myself. I can't say have in combination with soul. Only be. He will take away that opportunity for some in what is called hell.

So God is able to destroy any future opportunity for anyone to have a soul. A suke is the Greek word. It just means to be a conscious life. A conscious life form. Jesus was showing that this temporary life is one thing, but fear God, who alone can give or take away any opportunities for future lives in a resurrection. Now it says here, destroy both soul, that's your life, and your body in hell. The word for hell is gehenna. It's indicating here that this destruction is permanent. Gehenna comes from a combination of gai and henom. Gai in Hebrew means valley. And the valley of Henom was a valley south of Jerusalem where in antiquity there were foreign gods and temples just out of the Jerusalem side on the south side where the valley starts to drop down. The Israelites had built some temples for foreign gods and it was a terrible thing to do. And so it was known as just a bad place, an abominable place. And later on, as time went on, they began just throwing trash down there and burning it. It just became a garbage dump. And so the Bible uses gehenna in synonym with a place of burning. It's not necessarily the location, but it's a despised, abominable place where refuse is thrown and it's known for its burning. A site used to dispose of useless things, in other words. Satan, the false prophet, the beast are, in a sense, thrown in the trash there. In the future, the refuse of humanity who refuses to go along with God will end up in a place called gehenna. It's not the location, it's actually just the burning up. A couple of examples of that. One is Malachi 4, verse 3. You shall trample the wicked. Notice it's the wicked. Just like trash, you'll trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.

A prophetic statement is to the day when there will be humans who just are burned and that's it. We know that's the third resurrection as seen in Revelation 20, verses 14 and 15. Where it says, death and the grave were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. It sort of totally bypasses any concept of immortal soul or something passing through.

It's a second death. Those individuals who had life, they were souls in that old kind of a concept, old kind of a term, or persons. They were people. They were complete whole people. At some point, some of them, as it says, were not found written in the book of life and they were cast into the lake of fire and burned up.

So here's what Jesus is then talking about in Matthew 10, 28. Don't fear those who can kill you today. Fear those who can take away your future opportunities to be a living being. And that's God the Father and Jesus Christ. Now let's go to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23. Do you have a spirit, a soul, and a body? 1 Thessalonians 5, 23. Again, if you have the old concept in mind and you read this verse, you think, whoa, I've got all three!

I'm not sure who I am. Or which one of me is doing the thinking? Is it my body? Is it my soul? Is it my mind? Is it my spirit? Who am I? 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23. Many of you have come confused by Paul's expression here. It says, now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely.

What's the topic? You being sanctified. You being approved, not discounted. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, hey, we've just been enlightened. We've got a spirit, a soul, and a body. Now, which one is doing the thinking right now? Let's remember that you can't have a soul. You can be a soul. Because a soul just means a living, thinking, cognitive person. It's an old term for you. All of you.

So what's Paul saying here? May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The thought is, sanctify you completely, that you may be preserved blameless. Ah, so you're going to have eternal life. That's the concept. But he uses these three statements. What is spirit? Let's take them one at a time. Spirit. A spirit is something that comes to a human brain to give you a mind. The Holy Spirit is added to that to give you God's holy type of thinking. Thinking according to a God-being's process, as opposed to us just being left to human nature, let's say.

Spirit, then, is joined to the physical brain to form a human mind. We have the spirit in man, in us. If you want to know what it's like not to have the spirit in man, go over to Daniel and read when Nebuchadnezzar had the spirit taken from him. He became like an animal for seven years. Then it says, the spirit returned him and my reason returned. That's what it would be like if we didn't have that component.

Having a spirit, the spirit that God gives you, added to your brain, gives you a mind. That is part of being a soul. I think we could say that Nebuchadnezzar wasn't much of a soul on a human form, but he would be like a soul of an animal because he was like an ox and ate grass for seven years. A soul doesn't necessarily mean anything special. It's just that that species has a chance at a normal life.

The spirit is not something that's separate in that sense. The spirit can't be separate from a mind. It is what gives a brain a mind, and you as a person have a mind. That's part of who you are. A soul is just the next thing he says, your spirit, soul, and body. May your whole spirit, that spirit, your soul, that's you, your whole self, all of you, everything incorporated, and body. What's your body? Well, it's your body. It's what you are if you don't, I guess, look at the thinking part of the brain. What Paul is saying here, he is wishing for the whole person, including the mind, the body, everything, the vitality of conscious life, you, all of you, from the top of your head to the sole of your feet, to be sanctified and blameless before God.

And he uses those terms, just kind of say, you, all of you, every aspect of you that you would be found blameless. In Revelation 6, verses 9-10, there's a statement there about souls under the throne of God crying out.

And again, if we go back to the Greek and Babylonian mythology, we would think, oh, well, that fits, doesn't it? When you die, your soul goes to heaven and it sits under the throne of God, and there you sit there just anxious and waiting for a new body. Well, let's go look at this. Revelation 6, verse 9, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain. Let's just take the word souls and say what it would mean in the modern vernacular.

And the people who had been slain for the Word of God were under the altar. That's exactly what's being spoken of. It's the people. You can call them the souls. It's just what Paul said. Their minds, their bodies, their whole alive self were under the altar. Now, they were slain for the Word of God for the testimony which they held. Now, this is interesting because here are dead people.

Just said they've been slain. Here's alive people which are souls, the whole alive person that's been slain. You see, there's already a little disparity here in the concept that's being spoken. And they cried with a loud voice. So these dead people are now crying out with a loud voice, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Can't you just see them alive in heaven right now? Just kind of stewing around.

But to understand the Scripture, we need to remember the context. And in chapter 4 and verse 2, this whole book is written while John is in a vision. This is not reality. What he saw was not reality. All the descriptions were not reality. He is describing types in various visions to get across a point.

The fifth seal is figurative of the Great Tribulation. There's no real seal on a real book. It's a figurative book that has been sealed. And the fifth seal is talking about a time in the future that's the Great Tribulation. And John is seeing in a vision a figurative series of events that would help the reader who can understand and decipher these symbols, give them an idea about what's going to happen in the future.

So, in this vision, he sees under the altar the martyred believers who sacrificed their lives for their faith in God. And they cry out, essentially, you know, avenge our blood. How long till you avenge our blood? You might remember in Genesis 4 and verse 10 that Abel also, figuratively, symbolically, cried out from the ground.

You know, his blood, metaphorically, cried to God because he was a righteous person who was killed. Now, was Abel down there in the grave crying out to God? No. Was his blood? Does blood talk? No. But figuratively, God, the righteous judge, remembers those deeds that were done against those righteous people who follow and serve him. And so it's on his mind to avenge them. It's on his mind to do something for them. And these phrases all show how God will repay evil deeds that are perpetrated against his righteous followers.

Remember that Jesus said, no one has ascended into heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. John 3, 13. And all of the people on earth, basically, that say they worship Jesus Christ do not believe Jesus Christ. Many of the things he said, they simply discard, discount, and say are not true. And that is one of them. So let's put it all together and see an example of the body, the soul, the life from the lips of Jesus himself.

Let's go to Luke 12, verse 19-23. Luke 12, and we'll begin in verse 19. Now, here's the individual that has had a good life. He's gotten a lot of crops in, and his crops are coming in bigger. And he says, I'm going to tear down all my buildings and build bigger ones that I can really take my ease for retirement for the rest of my life. And so we break in here in verse 19 of Luke 12. And this individual says, and I always love to read this because it's kind of funny today to read somebody saying this. And I will say to my soul, soul? And now wait, oh, it's almost like, oh, I have a soul. Maybe I should talk to my soul.

Another translation might render this. And I will say to myself, self? It's funny, no matter how you read it. I will say to me, hey you. But that's what the guys really say. And where it says here in the New King James, I will say to my soul, the Greek word suke, it's me. It just means you. You're alive, you know, mentally conscious self. And I say to myself, self? Speaking to my alive, mentally conscious self. You have many good laid up for many years. Take your ease. Eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, fool. This night your soul, your suke, your you. Guess why? It's all of you. It's your living, breathing body with a mind that's conscious. You will have that required of you. You're going to have that taken from you. You're no longer going to be a soul. Your soul is going to die. And dead souls aren't souls. They're not living, breathing, conscious beings. You're not going to be alive and conscious anymore, you could say. Your soul will be required of you. He's saying, you will not be alive and conscious entity anymore. Then who will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. Then, he said to his disciples, Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life. Guess what the word life is? Greek, suke, soul. But now we understand it, don't we? Don't worry about your life. Being alive, your alive conscious state, what you will eat, nor about the body. Just, you know, this is what you hang clothes off of. You know, you go to the store and you see how they hang. I don't know, this one doesn't hang very well. Let's try another one. See how it hangs. So you're just thinking about the body by itself and covering the body, what you will put on. Next, the last sentence here. Life, life, being alive, Greek word, suke, soul, you're having an alive conscious body and state, is more than food and just the body is more important than clothing. So in conclusion, God made you a living soul. You are a soul. You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You can rejoice. I am a soul. When you die, you will cease to be a soul. And the spirit that He put in you will return to Him along with the Holy Spirit. I'm reminded of the parable of the talents where Christ gave individuals certain amounts of money and said, go use this. He has given you life in a physical form. He has made you a soul. And He's put His Holy Spirit in that soul as well. What you do with that, He is watching. He's monitoring. He's seeing what you're going to do with that. And then He will return and you'll give an account on what you did with your soul, coupled with His Holy Spirit. And if you die and before that, that spirit, not the soul, just the Spirit, will return to Him along with an indelible record of your character. And someday in the future, He will create a new soul out of you. And you will be living again, somehow, either in a physical form, the third resurrection, ready to be burned up and thrown in the trash, as it were, or a spiritual form that will never die. It will also have His mind.

When Jesus Christ and the deacon Stephen were dying, they both said, Father, receive my Spirit.

It's just the Spirit that would return to God, not anything else.

The alive, conscious body is then terminated. Now God can restore it for you, or to you, or not restore it to you. It's His pleasure. And therefore, as the Bible says, fear God, because He's the one that has the ability to give life or take it away. Let's see one more soul that is offered to the faithful. You are a soul now.

What will you be in the future? The faithful in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 47 through 49, are promised to be souls again. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 49.

We see in verse 43 that the body is sown in dishonor, but it can be raised in glory. If we go down to verse 47 now, the first man was of the earth made of dust. Remember? Adam was made a living soul, but he was made of dust, made of things that are physical and decay.

The second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of the dust, so are those who are made of dust. That is our state today. And we all know that this body and mind and everything is one day going to cease to be a living entity. But as is the heavenly man, so are those who are heavenly. There is an opportunity to be made of something else other than dust. Verse 49.

So it's very important for us to be busy in pleasing the one who has life available as a gift. And to be going about doing those things that please the one who can kill not just your life now, but any chance for your life in the future. Be glad you are a soul alive with a conscious mind. Your goal, then, is to be given a perfect spirit body with a godly mind that will live forever.