The Immortal Soul

Given 2 Jun 2018 by Benny Butler

This is a review of one of our basic doctrines; and I want to look into the concept of the immortal soul.

Do you and I have an immortal soul?

Most of mainstream Christianity would say, “of course. The soul when you die goes to one of two places: heaven or hell.” And that belief is what most of mainstream Christian churches are base, isn’t it?  It drives great missionary works, gigantic soul-saving crusades just to get you to go to one place or otherwise you’re going to go to the other place when you die.

I’m not putting them all down; many of them are very zealous and very sincere people, but is this doctrine true? Mainstream Christianity will say that man has an immortal soul and when one dies, their soul departs from the body and those who have received Christ go to heaven, and those who haven’t, go directly to eternal torment in hell.

It’s not only Christianity though, every major religion as far as I know, has this concept of an immortal soul in one form or another as one of their basic doctrines or basic beliefs.

So, let’s talk about this.  First of all, let’s determine from the Bible What is a Soul? If we say we have an immortal soul or we don’t have an immortal soul, what is it? Is it separate from the physical body? Does it live on after death and what does the Bible say about it?

The Hebrew word most often translated into English as soul is nephesh.  Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the bible succinctly defines the word as a breathing creature. Not an entity that goes off to heaven or hell when you die, it is a literally a breathing creature. That’s literally what it is. When used in the Bible, it means a living, breathing creature.  Occasionally, it conveys a related meaning, such as breath, a life.

Nephesh is breath, life, the breath and life of a living being, a living creature. Notice though, that nephesh refers to humans and animals.  Turn to Genesis 1, verse 21.

Genesis 1:21 (KJV) And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

The Hebrew word translated creature, here in this verse, is nephesh. And in the Biblical account, these souls, these creatures of the sea regarding to mankind, they were created and made before the first humans were formed.

Let’s look and see how this word is used to refer to mankind in the Scripture.  The first place we find this word nephesh refer to mankind is in the second chapter of Genesis.  Genesis 2, and verse 7.

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (a living being.) Same word, nephesh. Notice that this verse doesn’t say Adam HAD an immortal soul; rather it says that God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he BECAME a living soul, nephesh.

The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible very honestly makes this comment on nephesh. “The word soul in English, though it has to some extent naturalized the Hebrew idiom frequently carries with it overtones ultimately coming from the philosophical Greek (Platonism) and from Orphism and Gnosticism which are absent in nephesh.  In the Old Testament, it never means the immortal soul, but it is essentially the life principle or the living being or the self as the subject of appetite and emotion, occasionally volition.”

So the soul, nephesh, is not immortal, because the Scriptures clearly say that the soul dies. I’ll just quote to you that Scripture. Ezekiel 18, verses 4 and 20.

Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the fther, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Again, the soul, or nephesh, as translated in the Hebrew is mortal and it dies.

What does the New Testament say?

The New Testament uses a word similar in meaning to nephesh to characterize the life or physical existence and it’s the Greek word that is the companion word for nephesh in the Old Testament; the Greek word Psuche.  (Su-kay).  And according to Strong’s, once again, this word means breath. It is a very similar word to nephesh.

1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit.

 The Greek substituted for nephesh is Psuche. Both nephesh and Psuche, which are often translated soul convey the concept that man is a living, breathing creature subject to death. Notice Christ’s use of the word psuche in Matthew 16 verses 25 and 26.

Matthew 16:25-26 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.  (26) For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul (life)? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Christ uses the same word, Psuche, four times in this passage. It’s translated both as life and as soul. He’s simply saying that following him is much more important than life itself and it could be lost forever for something of much less value.

So the concept of the immortal soul is nowhere found in the Bible.  The term, immortal soul does not even appear in the Bible. So where did this unbiblical term come from? 

I’m borrowing here, from an article that I read years ago and what was in the Good News Magazine. This is from Gary Petty. He wrote this and it appeared in the July-August 1999 issue of the Good News Magazine.   Concerning the concept of the immortal soul, he says the following:  

                “Most religions teach some form of life after death. The ancient Egyptians, for example, practiced elaborate ceremonies to prepare the Pharaohs for their next life. They constructed massive pyramids and other elaborate tombs filled with the luxuries the deceased were assumed to need in the hereafter.  In some civilizations when a ruler died, others who had accompanied and served him in this life were put to death so they could immediately serve him in the afterlife. Wives and other relatives, servants, sometimes even household pets joined him in death in a supposed entrance to a new life on the other side.  Belief in the immortality of the soul was an important aspect of ancient thought espoused by the Greek philosopher Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Plato, in Thyado, presents Socrates explanation of death. ‘Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is completion of this. When the soul exists in herself and is released from the body, and the body is released from the soul. What is this but death?’

                “Socrates explained to the best of his own understanding what he had learned, that the immortal soul or that he had assumed, the immortal soul once freed from the body is rewarded according to good deeds or punished for evil.”

Sounds a lot like modern Christianity, doesn’t it?

                “Socrates lived from 470 to 399 B.C., so his view of the soul predated Christianity.  Where did Christianity come up with this idea of the immortal soul?  Well, we’ll see now.

                “Plato, Circa 428 to 348 B. C., saw mans existence as divided into the material and spiritual, or ideal (Ideal) realms. Plato reasoned that the soul being eternal must have a pre-existence in the ideal world where it learned about the eternal ideals. In Plato’s reasoning, man is meant to attain goodness and return to the ideal through the experiences of transmigration of the soul. Thus secular philosophies sanction the idea of the immortal soul even though the Bible does not.”

That’s the end of the quote from Mr. Petty’s article.

Now all this is rather boring reading, but it’s a tiny sampling of the reams of writings of one of the more bizarre concepts of these philosophers.  The immortality of the soul being chief among them.

Secular history reveals the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions, but it’s not a Biblical teaching. But these people, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, they weren’t the originators of this lie, were they? They picked it up from somewhere else.

Over in Genesis 3 we’ll read where they picked up this idea of an immortal soul.

Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more subtle (cunning) than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea (indeed,) hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  (2)  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: (3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  (4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.

The beginning of the concept of the immortal soul.  You will not die.

(5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods

(you will be like God, you will have eternal life; you will live on forever, you will have an immortal soul ), knowing good and evil.

Satan slyly introduced this concept into Eve’s consciousness. And this lie, brethren, has been a major part of human thought ever since that time.  Notice verse 5 again, where the serpent said:

Verse 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,

Not only is Satan lying to Eve, he’s also accusing God of being a liar Himself. He says, your eyes will be opened because God is holding things back from you that He doesn’t want you to know.

In John 8:44, talking, I guess, to the Pharisees here, He said:

John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts (desires) of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not (does not stand) in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own (from his own resources): for he is a liar, and the father of it.

He has instituted this lie back in the Garden and it’s still running rampant today, isn’t it? The really egregious part of this lie is that Satan is trying to convey God’s character is being like his own. For instance, what kind of mind could conceive and sanction the concept of eternal torment in hell? Would God do that?  Would He be pleased with knowing any being would suffer permanently, forever in eternal torment?

I submit to you brethren, that it isn’t part of God’s nature or God’s mind to sanction punishment like that. Though we know that the punishment will be going into the lake of fire and you’ll be burned up, whoever has to go there and will lose consciousness and will never be conscious or thought of or feel anything or know anything; it will be like they never existed.

It isn’t part of God’s nature or God’s mind to sanction that kind of evil, cruel punishment. I was listening to a radio talk show one day, and I don’t remember all of those they were talking about, but people were calling in to tell the host what they, given the chance, would like to do as punishment to child rapists and murderers and child molesters and terrorists and who else, Hitler and Stalin, maybe.

And now, no matter how evil these people are, God’s way of dealing with them, or anyone who chooses to outright reject God is to just burn them up, once and for all. Not to do cruel things to them like we would do, or some people would do.  Just simply remove them from existence.  And that’s what will happen, isn’t it? That’s what will happen.

But Satan’s mind is one of cruelty and perversion. This concept of the immortal soul and eternal torment of souls in hell is absolutely Satanic.

If you and I do not have an immortal soul like most of the world believes, what happens when we die? Let’s review a little of that as well. Let’s review a few Scriptures that deal with the state of the dead.  All very familiar Scriptures that we could read to review.

Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 For that which befalleth (happens to) the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above (advantage over) a beast: for all is vanity.

They have no advantage over animals as far as the first death. They (animals) don’t have, I don’t think, the ability to live in God’s Kingdom later on.

(20) All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Daniel refers to the state of death. Daniel 12 verse 2.  We read this quite a bit as well.

Daniel 12:2 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.

In explaining the condition of the dead here, Daniel compares death to sleep. The Bible often refers to death as sleep. So how could people who have died, be asleep in their graves and unconscious, and yet be residing in heaven looking down on the earth, on you and me? Or in hell, looking up, as the case may be?

Solomon noted that the dead have no awareness when he said, “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.” 

 Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

So the person who has died is unconscious and aware of nothing, including the passage of time, where it’s one day or whether it’s a thousand years that has passed.

So we’ve seen then that a man does not have an immortal soul, but God does show us that there is such a thing as a spirit in man. Let’s turn to one reference to that. 1 Corinthians 2:11, another familiar Scripture.

2 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save (except) the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

So there’s a spirit essence in man that gives him the capacity for thought. This spirit essence coupled with the human spirit.

2 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save (except) the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

We know, from teachings of the past that human beings do have a spirit of man that dwells within them. This separates us from the animal kingdom; it gives us intellect, it gives us the ability to create, gives us the ability to think on a higher plane and be able to understand these concepts of God.

Animals have their own thing, they have instinct.  How do they do that? It’s incredible how animals have this instinct that they can—birds can start from a thousand away and wind up exactly where they need to be. They don’t have navigational equipment, they have instinct. They know how to get there.

 2 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save (except) the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

There’s a spirit of essence in man that gives him the capacity for thought. This spirit essence coupled with human brain allows the man to think, reason and be aware of himself. It’s what makes the human mind so vastly superior to the animal brain. You could give a group of chimpanzees millions of years and they would never be able to compose a piece of music like the ones we enjoyed in the opening song service. They would never be able to write a novel, or design or build great structures such as the Eifel Tower or the Empire State Building. They would never be able to build the internal combustion engine that powers automobiles or build jet engines or airplanes or the space shuttle. 

It is the spirit in man that gives humans the ability to reason, to plan, and to design and to create. And it’s this spirit in man that separates us from the animal life. Where did this spirit in man come from?

Zechariah 12:1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
 

He’s the One, God is the One who formed this spirit in man. What happens to this spirit at the time of death?  Didn’t we read Ecclesiastes 12, verse 7 a little while ago? This spirit in man is where man’s personality, character, thoughts and memory are stored. Apparently upon death God keeps this spirit with Him and stores it away in the appropriate place, for the appropriate time and the appropriate resurrection when He returns it.

God’s plan is for this human spirit at His appointed time to be joined with His Holy Spirit.  At that time, the opportunity opens up for man to build Godly character, walking in the spirit, being led by God and growing in Godly character, ultimately to be changed into a glorious spirit body that will take place at the resurrection. 

Although man does not have an immortal soul, it is God’s desire and His design for man to live foreveras a part of His family in the Kingdom of God.

Satan does not want mankind to understand what his real potential is, that’s the reason he has confused all of these things, confused these doctrines that are so widely accepted today, such as the immortal soul.

God wants us and His people to understand what our real potential is and what our future holds and that is to be a member of the God family in His Godly Kingdom for eternity. So brethren, what God offers in His wonderful plan is so far beyond the feeble thoughts and imaginings of ancient philosophers, so far beyond what any of the world’s theologians could conceive that there’s no comparison. Let’s appreciate the gift that God has given us by learning, living and loving His Truth.