What Happens After Death

Others think that the soul is absorbed into something they call a greater consciousness, and it loses its individual identity. Some teach that the death were reincarnated. And until we learn to love, and until we learn certain qualities and characteristics, we will be reincarnated over and over again. And when you do the right things, you're reincarnated to a higher life form. And then ultimately, when you get it, then you are absorbed into the greater consciousness. There are cultures in Earth that teach that. But where can we find the answers? What really happens when someone dies? Well, there is a majestic being of the universe that we know of as the Creator God, and he dogmatically claims to have the answers. He claims, rightly so, that he is the Creator of man, of the universe, and all that is within it. So I think it's only natural that we should go to his word to find out what occurs at death, why he even created the concept of death. And there's no better place than to find these answers than the literal word of God. So let's begin going there. Genesis 2 and verse 7. Genesis 2 and verse 7. And we will begin to take a look and a study today about what happens after death.

Genesis 2 and verse 7. A very simple statement about the creation of man. It says, In 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 being. Now that the word being is the Hebrew word nefesh. And as you study the Old Testament, you can see that nefesh means that basically you are a physical being. Mammals are also called nefesh. Cows are called nefesh. Ghosts are called nefesh. When you're animated and you're breathing, you are a living nefesh. When you cease to live, you are a dead nefesh. But it is just a very common Hebrew word. I'd like to read to you what it says from the Believer's Study Bible about this verse.

This verse describes the transformation of the lifeless clay into the living being by the breath of the Almighty himself. The Hebrew word nefesh is broad in meaning and no one word in English captures it fully. The more common translations are soul, life, and person. Also, it can be rendered desire, appetite, emotion, or passion. The same Hebrew word used is also used of other animate beings, meaning other mammals, cows, and goats, and other things that God created that were animals. Continuing, quote, the same Hebrew phrase is used of other animate beings.

Formed is used of the potter who makes a vessel. Hence, God is figuratively depicted as an artisan, meticulously shaping the man. The man received life through a distinct act of divine in-breathing. Breath of life is the source of animation of all living creatures. These living beings are distinguished from plants, which were not considered alive by the Hebrews.

The difference between man and animal is indicated by the way in which the man received his breath from the breath of the Lord. So all mammals, cows, goats, even pigs, anything that is alive as a physical life is called a nayfesh, including us, us human beings. But yet God did do something differently. It said that he breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life, and we'll expand upon that in a minute.

The first point I want to make is this. That man became a living being in nayfesh. We experienced death because that was part of God's plan. God chose to create us as physical, biological creatures. Now, before God created Adam, he had already created angels, so he could have made us out of spirit. He could have made Adam and Eve out of spirit that would never get tired, never grow old, never wear down.

But God chose not to create Adam and Eve and mankind out of spirit. He chose instead to give us physical processes that are by design intended to wear down, to grow tired, to grow old, and to cease. And what do we find in the world around us? Well, if you look outside in nature, you see annual cycles. Right now we have the springtime. Things are coming to life, and we'll have the summertime, and then those processes that are living will enter fall and will die in winter. And we see that continual process. The truth is that anything that's biological and physical eventually are roads and wears down.

Even the great mountains over a period of time, because of the weather patterns, will be worn down to just soil. Because everything decays the physical and biological. And again, God did that for a reason. That was part of His design. His plan was that it would take His literal intercession to stop that natural, physical, biological process. And for all of us, it's going to lead to death. We're told in the book of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to be born, and there's a time to die. So again, that cycle of life is part of the plan that God created from the very beginning.

Death is a natural part of the physical life cycle. You're born, you go through adolescence, you become an adult, you grow old, you die. That is part of a natural life cycle. And without the direct intervention of God, we will all follow that cycle. Let's go to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 24.

Genesis chapter 1 and verse 24. It is true, of course, that other mammals were nefesh. Human beings are nefesh. But God was breathing something very special in the atom. Verse 24 of Genesis 1. And then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, that's nefesh, according to its kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind, and it was so. And this word creature, again, is this Hebrew word nefesh. It's also used in chapter 2 and verse 7, regarding man.

It's translated into English as soul or creature. According to Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible, the word means a breathing creature. Young's analytical concordance of the Bible defines nefesh as an animal, soul. So when used in the Bible, the word nefesh means a living, breathing soul. This Hebrew word is used to refer to both humans and animals in the Old Testament, as I mentioned a minute ago.

But indeed, there is something special about us. There's something unique about us that separates us from camels and cows and donkeys. Well, maybe we're more similar to donkeys and we care to admit sometimes. But nonetheless, we are different than donkeys. In Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26, it says, Then God said, Let us make man an hour image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So when the Creator made humankind, we were created in God's image and God's likeness. Now, I've seen many people define in a limited way, I believe, the fact that, well, yes, we have, like God, we have eyes, we have two eyes. Excellent sermon, by the way, today. We have a nose, we have a head, we have digits in our hands, and that is what was meant here. Well, that's great, except for the fact that that apes also have two ears, two eyes, a nose, a head, and digits on their hands. So there's more to this scripture than just saying that we somehow resemble the physical or the attributes of God. There's more to it than that.

This likeness comes from the Hebrew word, a Hebrew word, teshlam, and it means a phantom. So God created us to be a phantom in His image. This means much more than simply being created in a physical image. It means we were created to have some of the very intellectual capacities of the Creator Himself. That, my friends, is what separates us from the other nafesh. That is what separates us and makes us unique.

That's why we study mathematics and science, and we've developed written languages, and we've built great civilizations, and we've developed modern technologies because God put a likeness that He has as a Creator into this being that He would call man or mankind. So when God treated Adam and his likeness, He gave Adam more than physical existence. He gave him the unequaled capacities of a human mind called a spirit. We'll see that a little later in Scripture. So one reason that we die is the natural result of being a physical, biological being who is exposed to the processes of human and physical biology.

Adam and Eve were physical. Do you know that even if they had not sinned in the garden, eventually they still would have died, unless God intervened, because they were created physical. It would have taken intervention by God for them to live forever. That's known as, by the way, the tree of life, which they rejected, I might add. They went to the other tree. They didn't go to that tree that offered them God's intervention and eternal life.

Even after they sinned, the lifespans of a number of generations were ten times greater than ours are today, and eventually they declined, particularly after the flood. So God could have intervened and prolonged the physical lives of Adam and Eve far beyond the normal ravages of physical life. However, God allowed, because they chose the wrong way, God allowed the natural processes of being physical, of having biology, being a biological system, take its course.

Let's go to Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. And one of the reasons they made the wrong choice is that they were told a lie. And sadly, I mean, we're all told lies. They believed the lie. That old saying, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. They were not only told a lie, but they believed the lie. And the lie was that you're not going to die. Contrary to what the Creator told you, contrary to what your father told you, you're not really going to die.

Somehow you have life inherent within yourself. And that was a lie, beginning in verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Now God didn't mean immediately, but he meant that if you touch this, if you do what I'm telling you you shouldn't do, I will not intervene. And the natural biological processes of the fact that I created you physical and human, eventually you will die and cease to exist.

And the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. God's holding out on you. Read my blog.

God's not telling you the whole story. You see, he doesn't want you to know what's really going on behind the scenes. He doesn't want you to know the real background and context of why these decisions are being made.

So you shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. You're going to be as smart as God is. Just hang around me for a while and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So Satan lied to them by telling Eve that you shall not surely die. And he deceived them into thinking that somehow they already had immortality. And that's a lie. They did not have immortality. They chose the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. In contrast to the choice they could have made, which would have been the tree of life. That would have offered them eternal life, but they made the wrong choice. So again, what happens to us? Why do we die? We die because it's part of God's plan.

Because that's the way God designed it on purpose from the beginning. Now, what is the purpose that God would do that? Well, the fact that we're all dying should prompt us to search for the meaning of life. I mean, it should make sense, even though frankly I don't think most people do this. It should make sense that you wake up every day and you realize that the clock is ticking.

And you look in the mirror and you see another gray hair. The clock is ticking. You look in the mirror, you see another crow's foot on the side of your eye. The clock is ticking. You wake up, you don't have the energy you had 20 years ago. The clock is ticking. And you would think that most people would say, you know, maybe I should contemplate that there hopefully is more to existence than where I'm inevitably going to end up. But you'd be surprised how many people it just never seems to connect to them at all. They just go through their routines day in and they never ask any questions. They never seem to be inspired or motivated to ask why. What is this life all about and is there something beyond this existence that I have? But it was God's hope that going through the aging process would encourage us to ask questions about Him. Would encourage us to think about is there something beyond this mere physical life that we live? That's what God really wanted through that process. Some people do that. I've certainly done it. But I know many people that they've lived their entire lives and never confronted the fact that they're growing old and that someday they're going to die. And you see that with a lot of people who die without wills. They didn't create wills because they were always putting it off. They were going to die sometime way in the future so they don't create a will. Way in the future. And they just want to deny the reality that eventually we're all going to die. And deny the reality that if you don't choose where your assets will go, the government will do it for you. And you may not like their choice. You may not care for their determination. But that's the way we are as human beings. Again, as I mentioned earlier in the sermon, we kind of deny the reality of death in our culture. As a matter of fact, the Sadducees who were around at the time of Jesus Christ did not believe in the resurrection because they couldn't explicitly find it mentioned in the Pentateuch or the writings of Moses. That's why, if you ever wondered why they didn't believe in the resurrection, it's because the only valid books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that was the only legitimate part of the Old Testament that they recognized and acknowledged. And they could not find an explicit mention of the resurrection in the first five books of the Bible. If you think about it, the entire Old Covenant, does it focus on eternal life, the Old Covenant? It was a covenant about blessings and curses. Wasn't it a covenant? It was built on, you do this and physically you'll live in a good land.

You'll go to a land, a promised land, that's just physical geography, a land of milk and honey, and your wife will have lots of kids, and you'll grow lots of crops, and all these wonderful things will happen. But you know what? That's all physical, isn't it? The Old Covenant was built on physical blessings or curses. It's different than the covenant that we're under, which thankfully is a spiritual covenant.

Let's go to Genesis 37 and verse 1. Indeed, it is not the purpose of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, to talk about the resurrection of the dead. It talks about death a lot, but it's not the purpose to talk about the resurrection. But I'm going to give you a scripture that shows that Jacob believed in the resurrection by something that he says. Genesis 37, beginning in verse 1. Perhaps this past the understanding of the Sadducees, or maybe they didn't care to hear it. Maybe it didn't fit with their agenda.

Genesis 37, verse 1, it says, Now Jacob dwelled in a land where his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. This is the history of Jacob. Joseph was 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers, and the lad was out with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

And Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. Now this was a polygamous family. I'm going to say something. I said this probably about 10 years ago and caused an uproar. I hope I don't upset anybody by my statement. But this was a highly dysfunctional family. When you are a father and you are having multiple relationships with multiple women, and the family is composed of step-sons and step-daughters, and pitting this favored son against this son, pitting this woman that you like better than the other women, that is all the ingredients for one highly dysfunctional, messed up family.

There was a lot of resentment, a lot of anger, a lot of problems in this family. And unfortunately Jacob contributed to it. Verse 3, Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors. He didn't make anyone else a tunic of many colors.

He didn't make me a tunic of many colors. He only made one for Joseph. Verse 4, But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, was it that obvious? Yes. They hated him, and they could not speak peaceably to him. So Joseph came from a troubled family due to polygamy, and his father should not have shown such obvious favoritism, because all it did was make all the siblings hate each other's guts, and constantly be in competition with one another.

Joseph, at this time, was a teenager, and he had not learned yet that not everything that comes up here should come out of here. And that's one of the great joys of being a teenager, is you have not yet learned that not everything that comes in your head should come out of your mouth.

That big sponge up there is supposed to be a filter, which means it stops. It should stop a lot of the things that we think. But, again, he was just 17 years old, and because of his actions, he gave the appearance to his brothers that he was superior, that he came across to them as conceited and arrogant. And again, this just created more anger and resentment in the family. But the point is this, of course, is it shows that God can work with people from very troubled families.

God can work with anyone who yields to him no matter what kind of family you came from, no matter what background you come from, no matter how dysfunctional, even if your father is having relations with multiple women at the same time, and you have half-brothers and sisters being popped out continually. Even if that happens, God can work with you if you have the right heart and the right mind and the right attitude.

Verse 9. He dreamed a lot of dreams, and of course, being 17, he couldn't wait to tell everybody about all of his dreams. And he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers and said, look, I've dreamed another dream, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars bow down to me. So he told it to his father and his brothers, and his father rebuked him, because father knew, well, this isn't going to go over very well.

You know, again, you're coming across as superior to your brothers, and he said to him, what is this dream that you've dreamed? All right, and here's the analogy, the fact that he understood the resurrection. He says, shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come and bow down to the earth before you? And his brothers envy him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Notice how he says, shall I, shall your mother and I? That would be the moon, his mother, I, the sun, and eleven stars would represent his brothers. The reason that's important is that his mother had died years earlier, giving birth to Benjamin in chapter 35.

Okay, so when Jacob, when Israel says, shall not your mother and I, it shows that he looked forward to a time when Rachel would be resurrected from the dead. He thought this was a prophecy that this dream that his son was seeing was somehow tied into a future, and that's very encouraging.

So aside from what the Sadducees said, if you look closely at the Pentateuch, if you look closely at the Old Testament, you can certainly find glimpses of the kind of resurrections that are spoken of quite often in the New Testament.

Now there's a second reason that we die physically, and that's tied into the previous reason. The first reason is we're all physical, we're biological. There's a natural process that unless God intervenes, we shall die. But the second reason ties into the first. Romans chapter 6 and verse 23, if you'll turn with me there. Romans chapter 6 and verse 23.

Paul wrote, he said, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So Paul states here that the end result of sin is the sentence of death. We're biological. The process is going on, the clock is ticking, and what sin does is sin separates us from our God. God will not intervene when there is a separation, when that relationship is broken and what breaks that relationship, it is sin. So God created mankind as biological creatures who would naturally die without his intervention, and sin separates humankind from its God. And God will not intervene when sin is involved. That's why sin had to be atoned for through Jesus Christ. The result of sin, which began with Adam and Eve, is that God has chosen not to intervene in only the rarest of instances, like Jesus Christ being resurrected. Jesus Christ himself bringing Lazarus back to life, only in rare instances has God ever intervened. Because of sin that separates us from our Creator, that biological clock keeps ticking on and on and on. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. We just read from Romans 6 and verse 23 that Paul said that the gift of God is eternal life. So eternal life in Jesus Christ is a gift. If we already possess immortal souls that have consciousness after death, then it wouldn't be a gift. We'd already possess it. The fact that eternal life is a gift means that it's something that we don't naturally have.

1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20. Paul wrote, But now Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as an Adam will die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

So I want you to notice first of all Paul's analogy to describe death. He likens death to sleep. And he does it over and over again. Why? Because we do not have an immortal soul. When we die, we enter a period of rest. Many headstones, even in our Western culture, don't many of our headstones say, rest in peace? Right?

That's what many headstones say. And basically, we die, we cease consciousness. We do not have an immortal soul that separates from our body, and either is dancing someplace, or has the hotfoot in another place. That's not the case. We cease existence. We no longer have senses. We are no longer animated. We no longer live.

Our life, our soul, is like we're asleep. When you look at someone sleeping, they're unconscious, they are in a rest. They are waiting a time when they will be awake again. And that is the constant analogy that Paul uses regarding death.

So why didn't Paul believe that mankind has an immortal soul? Why doesn't he talk about the, quote, immortal soul in his writings? Why does he describe death as being asleep? Well, it's very simple. He was a Hebrew, and he was brought up learning at the feet of a famed rabbi known as Gamaliel.

He was a highly regarded Pharisee, and it's very probable that Paul had been trained to be a rabbi. Because he had a Hebrew background, we have to understand that the concept of the immortality of the soul would have been foreign to Paul.

Even though he grew up in a Gentile city and he knew the teachings of the immortal soul, being a Jew, it would have seemed foreign to him.

And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to read from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia under the article of death. This is volume 2, page 812 on the meaning of death. And here's what it says, quote, For we are influenced always more or less by the Greek platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. Let me read that again. This is from a highly respected conservative Bible encyclopedia. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man dies when in death the spirit or soul goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to the netherworld. Therefore, the Old Testament can speak of a death of one's soul.

So you see, Paul didn't grow up learning and absorbing the concepts of the Greek platonic idea of the immortality of the soul because he was of Hebrew lineage. So, brethren, there's something vastly different between our human minds and what other animals have on this planet.

What is that unique characteristic of the human mind when we compare it to animals? Let's go to Job 32 and verse 7. Job 32 and verse 7. Animals have a conscious physical brain capable of memory and instinct and limited comprehension. It does not have the intellectual capacity that we have. I have never seen a cow with an iPad.

It's obvious that the human mind, with its ability to reason and analyze and create and design and build, is far superior to the human brain. But you know what? What happens when science dissects the brain of a human being with that of a chimpanzee? There isn't that much of a difference.

They might look at parts of the human brain and there's a little bit more of this in a human and a little bit less of this in a cow or in a donkey or in a gorilla. But it doesn't explain why exponentially we're so far superior above those other forms of life on earth, those other mammals. They have physical brains, too. And some of them, their physical brains are very similar to ours. Well, Job helps us to understand this in chapter 32 and verse 7. After a long discourse of listening to his friend speak, he said, age should speak. He was younger, so he held back from speaking for a long time. He said, I said age should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom, but there is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. So there is an additional component, a spirit. That's small s, not Holy Spirit, small s. There is a spirit that we have given to us by God. It says, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. It is this spirit that takes us to that intellectual plane that no other created being on this world, in this physical world, is able to possess. I'm going to read this from the New Century version. He says, I thought older people should speak and those who have lived many years should teach wisdom, but it is the spirit and a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives understanding. So what we're being taught here is that there indeed is a spirit in man that gives us God-like intellect, yet it is not immortal. Perhaps one of our modern technologies can help us to understand this. I think many of us understand in our modern age the concept of a personal computer hardware and personal computer software.

What happens if they're separated each other? Have you ever taken a computer with no software and turned it on? Well, it boots up to a certain point, it hits bias, and then it just stops. It blinks. There's nothing there. How about if you just took a piece of software and you said, okay, animate, do something, separated from the hardware. You said, okay, give me word processor. Give me Excel spreadsheet. There's nothing there. It's in animates. Separated, neither hardware nor software can function independently. The hardware is similar to our physical bodies. The software is like our spirit, merging with our physical brains. Together there's animation. In a physical computer, there's animation. Something happens, something connects when you put that hardware and software together. When you separate them, then nothing happens. The animation is gone.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9.

Paul also talked about the spirit of man or spirit in a man. Paul writes here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. He says, But as it is written, I has not seen nor heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God, which God has prepared for those who love Him, but God revealed them to us through His Spirit, that's capital S. For the Spirit teaches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him. And again, that is what God gives us through His breath that makes us superior to other forms of physical created life in this world. It's what gives us intellect. It's what gives us the likeness of God. It says, Let us make man an hour image with the ability to create and design and analyze. That is when that occurs. He says, Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. So again, like sophisticated software program, if it's removed from the computer hardware, the Spirit in man ceases to function when it's separated from the physical soul upon death. Now, I'll draw you a very poor analogy here, but one hopefully that will help us understand how the Spirit in man works.

We're created as physical beings. We have physical bodies. We have physical brains just like other mammals. But God gave us something very special known as the Spirit in man. And the Spirit in man is something that is part of us and records our character, our personalities, our talents, all the things that we have learned through life that make us unique and make us special. And I'd like to draw an analogy to this thumb drive. This thumb drive can have recorded on it videos of people. And you see those videos of people moving and talking and animated, and you sense their personality and their vocabulary. If the video is long enough, you sense their character. And this is only animated when it is connected to hardware. And that hardware brings it up and it brings it to life. It animates it. But when you pull this out, it's no longer animated, but it is recorded. It is stored. And the Spirit in man that we have that records who and what and everything about us from an intellectual and spiritual perspective is recorded. And what happens to it when we die? Let's find out in Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7.

What happens to the spirit of man when one dies?

Ecclesiastes 12, verse 7.

It says, then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.

So that spirit, that collection upon a death of who and what we are that makes us unique, that makes us truly one of a kind, and has preserved our personalities, our character, our likes, our dislikes. Everything that we've learned through experience, our talents, our creativity, essentially who and what we are, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually, is recorded.

And it goes back and returns to the God who gave it. So when we die, that spirit in man, which gives again personality and character and individuality, loses its awareness and its consciousness, and it returns to God to be preserved.

And upon God's intervention and blessing, it returns to Him to be stored until the time of a resurrection.

When He creates new hardware, for those of us blessed to be part of that first resurrection, that new hardware, thankfully, is spiritual.

It's being an immortal person at that time. It's being given eternal life. It's new hardware.

And that spirit, combined with that new hardware, will make us fully part of the family of God. Now, for those who will be part of other resurrections that occur later on, they will be resurrected to physical bodies.

Once again, their hardware will once again be physical, and God will restore to them that spirit that they had previously, and they will live again as physical beings, with an opportunity for the first time, in many of their cases, to learn God's way of life.

The point for us to understand is that this spirited man is not conscious after death. It is not an immortal soul. It does not live on when the body has died.

It is God who gave man our rational comprehension, our thoughts, our abilities and strengths beyond animals.

And when we die, this attribute that God gave us returns to him.

So, where did this concept come from of having an immortal soul? Where did it enter the church?

Where did it enter Christian thought, the idea that somehow we all have immortal souls?

I'd like to read, first of all, from the Jewish Encyclopedia, their article Immortality of the Soul, Volume 6, pages 564-566.

Here's what it says, and I quote, The belief that the soul continues in existence after the dissolution of the body is speculation nowhere expressively taught in holy scriptures.

The belief of the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato.

Its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eulestian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended.

So here, the Jewish Encyclopedia tells us that the concept of being immortal is not found in scripture.

Now, when they say scripture, they mean the Old Testament, but it is not found in scripture. It's an ancient Egyptian and Babylonian concept that the soul is immortal.

Now, how did this enter the church? The so-called Christian church after the death of Jesus Christ. He certainly would have known. He was a Hebrew. He knew there was no immortality of the soul. Paul knew there was no immortality of the soul. So how did this enter the so-called Christian church? Again, I'm going to read one more time here. I have to give you a quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica under the article, Soul. And this is, quote, the early Hebrews apparently had a concept of the soul but did not separate it from the body, although later Jewish writers developed the idea of the soul further. We just read in a previous article how that happened. Continuing, quote, Old Testament references to the soul are related to the concept of breath and establish no distinction between the intangible soul and the corporeal body, Christian concepts of the body-soul dichotomy, that is, two contradictory parts, originated with the ancient Greeks and were introduced in the Christian theology at an early date by St. Gregory of Nyssa and by St. Augustine. Now, it says early history. When was that? Well, if you look in history, you will see that Gregory of Nyssa lived around 375 AD. So 100 AD, it wasn't a prominent teaching in the church. 200 AD, it wasn't a prominent teaching in the church. But as generation was born, generation after generation of these areas of the world in which were Gentiles and the Gentiles became the religious leaders, the truth that had been taught by the original Hebrew founders, known as the apostles, that truth began to die out and it was replaced by the natural cultural beliefs of those who were part of the Greco-Roman world. Augustine lived about 390 AD. So in New Testament history, the early church was influenced by Greek philosophies. And those philosophies occurred in the Gentile world. By 400 AD, the doctrine or the immortality of the soul became accepted as part of the established church. But it wasn't there from the beginning.

It wasn't there during Paul's lifetime. It wasn't there during the lifetime of the early founders of the church. But what happened? Well, if you've ever studied history, you will see a group of people known after the death of the apostles, known as the early church fathers. But you know one thing that they almost all have in common, 99% of them, none of them are Hebrews.

When the original disciples died, they were replaced by younger church leaders who, in many cases, had mentored and tutored under them. But yet, were from a Greco-Roman background, who attended schools as young people learning about Greek ideas, Greek thought. And so when they began to take control of the church, they began to change the doctrine. Someone said to me recently, Oh, do you really think that happened? I said, I beg your pardon. You know, I live in a republic that had a constitution created about 225 years ago, and I don't even recognize that constitution anymore. It's changed so much. In 225 years, with a freedom of a modern press reporting every move and change in alteration every day, I don't even recognize that document anymore. There are people who sit in courts and people who legislate, who think that that document was a breathing living document, meaning that they can just change it any day to what it meant to what they want it to mean now. It has no meaning to them. The words have no meaning. I read through it, and I keep saying to myself, well, that's supposed to be reserved for the states. How come the federal government took that over? How come the federal government took that over? How come this has happened? How come this was changed? And that's just in 225 years, with a press recording and reporting and everything that's happened. So you're trying to tell me that from 0 AD to 400 AD, 400 year period of time, when there was a transition of cultures between Hebrews and Gentiles taking over the Greco-Roman churches, and no press to report on anything that was said or done, that it is unlikely or impossible that major changes occurred? Come on! Of course they occurred! It's not a stretch of your imagination to realize how easy it was to be done, and for that to be changed. Well, brethren, I'd just like to read to you a couple of scriptures from the New Testament that some folks consider to be difficult scriptures. Some folks consider there are many of them, but for the sake of time, I'm just going to cover a few here. Let's go to Matthew 10 and verse 24. We'll read the very words of Jesus, just a couple more scriptures, and we will conclude our sermon today. Matthew 10 and verse 24, scripture that many say that Jesus said that the soul is immortal, as if Jesus himself, being a good Hebrew, would not have known what the teachings of scripture were. Matthew 10 and verse 24, he says, He says, So Jesus is warning them. He says, Look, they attacked me. They said that I'm part of the household of Satan. They criticize everything that I do. They judge me. He says, You're my servants. They're going to do the same thing to you throughout history. He says, And some folks use that scripture and say, See, Jesus says that the soul is immortal. Well, the truth is that Jesus is saying the soul is not immortal. He says it can be destroyed. The latter part of verse 28, he says, He's saying that it can be destroyed, that there's nothing immortal about it. The Greek word for body here is soma, and it means a physical body. And the Greek word for soul is suge, and it means one's physical being with our consciousness. And what Jesus is saying is that his followers should not fear anyone in this world who can kill your physical body. Don't fear them. He says, Because why? Because God will create you a new body, and you'll live again.

He says, What we really should fear is God's ability to destroy both in hell. And of course, the word hell is from the Greek word gehenna, and that was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem, where useless things were burned up until there was nothing left of them. They were burned up until they were totally gone. So he says, Don't fear men who can just destroy your physical body.

He says, Who we should fear is God who could destroy everything, every part of us in gehenna, in a hellfire. Let's take a look at one more scripture, a comment that Paul makes, Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21, and then we'll conclude the sermon. Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21, again a scripture that some people say shows that Paul believed that he would soon be in heaven with Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1 verse 21, he says, For to me to live as Christ and to die is gain, but if I live on in the flesh this will mean fruit from my labor, yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. Verse 23, For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. So some say by this scripture that Paul was looking forward to going to heaven immediately after death. This phrase, having a desire to depart and be with the Lord. First of all, it doesn't say when or where Paul would be with Jesus when he died. The word heaven is nowhere found in these verses. Nowhere at all. In context, Paul is old and he's weary at this point in his life. For many years of travel, many years of persecution, he was torn between two desires. One was to continue to live as an old man and serve the church. And by now, as I say, he was weary. He had been imprisoned and beaten and traveled much of his adult life. He was worn out, he was tired. One option was to live and serve the church. The second was to die and to rest from his struggles and to sleep in unconsciousness. And those were the two choices that he's talking about here. I might also add that Paul, as this entire generation believed, that the return of Christ was any second now. First of all, when they were younger, they all absolutely, positively believed it would be in their lifetimes. But if it wasn't in their lifetimes, they believed it would be any second now. That is how excited and zealous and how imminent they thought the return of Christ would be. That it would be very shortly, any day. So if he died, he did not expect his resurrection to be very far off. He expected it to be very quickly. He did not anticipate that thousands and thousands of years would go by after his writing before Jesus Christ would literally return. So, brethren, we understand, of course, that God has created us to be physical human beings. But we have something very special within us that separates us from the rest of God's creation. That spirit in man that makes us unique gives us God-like qualities and abilities to create, to analyze, to design. And the things that we love about being human, we got those from our God. And those are preserved, those are recorded. And upon our physical death, though our physical body die, that yet is continuous, returns to the Creator who gave it. It is unconscious. And it remains stored until a time when, once again, it will be connected to the resurrection. And we, once again, will be alive and animated and be who and what God intended us to be. Have a wonderful Sabbath day, and we hope to see all of you after services.