What Is Man?

Happy Sabbath, everybody! Good to see you. Only how many days till Christmas shopping is all over. And I'm sure all of you will be very thankful when that season ends and we're past it and beyond it. But it's one of those things that, of course, we go through every single year and have to sort of endure the Christmas greetings and sometimes the songs and all the rest. I looked into a story this past week. Something came online about a topic and my mind fixated on John Merritt. And I looked on the Internet and remembered that there was a film, a very moving film, that was done in 1980 that told the story of John Merritt, who lived in the 1800s, the late 1800s in London.

He, in fact, had to resort to begging when he was a young boy because of the way he looked. In the film, he's called John, but in his real life he was called Joseph. But the author of the book about him actually referred to him as John.

He was horribly disfigured from an early childhood congenital disorder that caused incredible disfiguration to him. He was called the Elephant Man. And in one poignant scene from the 1980 film about him, he was cornered with fear by a crowd of people who were shocked at his physical appearance.

And he said, I am not an elephant. I am not an animal. He said, I am a human being. I am a man. Now think about that, brethren. Here we're a human being who has to defend the fact that he's a human being and defend the fact that he is a man. King David was no doubt looking to the heavens and he asked the question, what is man that you are mindful of him? Some think the question of what man is, and it is, of course, a philosophical question, can be answered by the evolutionists because they believe that man is an animal descended from primitive primates.

There's a poem about that, talking about how some people believe that they're descended from monkeys. And the author of the poem actually talks about how you may be descended from a monkey, but I am not. They believe that man is merely a collection of his survival instincts through the millions of years like all other animals. The reason why you have these instincts, in other words, is because you needed to have that when you lived on the tundra, or you needed to have that when you were in the jungle, or wherever it is that you had to develop this instinct.

And interestingly, 99.85% of the earth and life sciences believe in the theory of evolution. However, have they found the answer to this vital question, what is man? What is man all about? So let's talk about that in this sermon here this morning. What is man? You know, the Bible does give us answers to this important question if we want to search it out. Most people don't want to look in the only book that really gives you the answer to that question, but the Word of God is a manual for human life. And it proves man is not merely a more developed primate species on the evolutionary tree.

God created man for an extraordinary transcendental purpose. And while evolutionists believe man is an animal, religionists hold another false idea and false belief. They think that man is an immortal soul, housed in a fleshly body. And man does have, of course, a spiritual component, but he is not an immortal soul.

So whether you're looking at evolutionists, or whether you're looking at religionists, they have false ideas about what man is. And both the theory of evolution and the belief and the immortality of the soul are false ideas, although many people hold these ideas. And more and more, it seems, are ostracized if they do not believe in evolution. And of course, if you go into the religious realm, if you don't believe in the immortality of the soul, then you're not considered a part of mainstream Christianity.

It's sort of like the Trinity. You've got to believe the Trinity, or you're not a Christian. Of course, this is one of the litmus tests that many people use in order to determine who is a cult, because the mainstream Christians believe in the Trinity, the mainstream Christians believe in the immortality of the soul. And of course, most people, if you were to ask them this question, and I challenge you to do it sometimes, if they're unfamiliar with the truth of God, is ask them, where does the doctrine of the immortality of the soul come from?

I would tell you that 99% of people who are ill-equipped, frankly, to answer that question will tell you it comes from the Bible. That that is where it comes from. However, the concept of the immortal soul arose not from the Scriptures of the Bible, but it actually came from ancient, pagan Egypt. Long before, in fact, Israel ever went into Egypt, they believed in the immortal soul concepts.

Egypt was teaching the immortal soul concept by 2300 BC. So if you can get some idea of how far ago that was, long ago, it was 4300 years ago, at least. This is what we know, because it was taught shortly after the Flood. And we believe the Flood was around 2369 BC. And so we find, again, that this was a concept that was believed very early on, probably prior to the Flood, by the way. Plato, by the way, a fifth-century BC philosopher, this is long before the advent of Christianity ever came along, adopted the idea that the immortal soul belief, along with other Greek philosophers, they adopted it, again, nearly 2000 years later.

And so after it was introduced into Egypt, it was believed by philosophers 2000 years later.

So the belief and the immortality of the soul in churches today is something that has to be derived, again, from the time of Egypt, going all the way back, again, to the beginning of it, just after the Flood. The Jewish historian Josephus writes about a mighty hunter named Nimrod. In his mother-wife, Simramish, she claimed, after her death, a full-grown fir tree appeared on a dead tree stump. And that this was symbolic of Nimrod living on. So this was the concept of the immortality of Nimrod. And Jeremiah, of course, tended to condemn this vain pagan custom of setting up a fir tree with decorations. It was, in fact, a practice of worshipping Nimrod. So Christmas trees basically symbolize when people set them up in their houses. Now, they may not know this today, not think this way today, but it actually symbolizes Nimrod. And sure enough, he's being resurrected every single year, isn't he? In the homes of most Americans, or many Americans these days. But, of course, also, it was condemned by Jeremiah. And in Hislop's Two Babylums, he writes that the Egyptian counterpart to Nimrod and Simramish are Osiris and Isis. And so, from the time Babylon went down into Egypt, and they were called Osiris and Isis. And Isis, by the way, claimed that Osiris lived on through their son Horus. That, in fact, he was reincarnated through Horus. That, in fact, Horus, who was one of the pharaohs of Egypt, was her son Nimrod. And, of course, this is where the concepts and the idea of immortality of the soul is seen in Egypt, long before Christianity ever came along. So, it did not enter into Christianity until the so-called early church fathers. I really don't like the way they refer to the other early church fathers the way they do. They're not talking about, by the way, Peter. They're not talking about the apostles, because the apostles never believed in immortality of the soul. They, of course, never believed in Christmas, either. Never believed in any of these types of things. But, according to, again, the concepts, the early church fathers embraced it in the second century BC. So, it was in the second century – it was not in the first century of the church – but it was later in the second century when the early church fathers began to inculcate it into Christianity at that time. And, by the way, that particular church that the early church fathers were part of was the one which became the Catholic Church, as we know it. And, again, just stating the facts of what exactly happened. And, of course, the idea of the immortality of the soul was embraced long before the apostles, the original apostles, had passed on and had died. So, the concept of the immortality of the soul did not come from the Bible, but it came from Greek philosophers. In Plato's Republic – I'm sure all of you have heard of the Republic by Plato – one of his major works that he ever did, he wrote this. He said, the soul of man is immortal and imperishable. And, so, again, this is this concept of the immortality of the soul. Let me read to you what the Jewish Encyclopedia says about the topic of the immortality of the soul. The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is nowhere expressly taught in holy scriptures. So, this is what the Jewish Encyclopedia says. The belief in 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 Ellucian mysteries in Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended together. And, so, Plato clearly, the encyclopedia here, the Jewish Encyclopedia, says he got that from the Greeks, who got it from Babylon and from Egypt. So, like I say, this is something that has been around for at least 4,600 years. So, it's very old.

And then, going on here, in a book entitled The Anti-Nicene Fathers, finally it entered traditional Christianity through the so-called Church Fathers, who believed it themselves adopted it from pagan Greek philosophy and not in the Bible. Many of the early theologians like Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine were influenced by Plato's teachings and strong advocates of it in the Catholic Church. Tertullian wrote this. This is in AD 155-220. He wrote, For some things are known even by nature. The immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many. I may use therefore the opinion of a Plato when he declares, Every soul is immortal. And so, this is what, again, some of the early Church Fathers say, that in fact it came from Plato. The idea came into the Church at that time. And, of course, this was what became the Catholic Church. Now, I find it quite interesting in talking about this because you may recall that the problems we had some 15 years ago with this very same topic of the nature of God and the belief in the Trinity came from philosophy as a result of a particular individual who, by the way, was Greek, who taught the Trinity. And much of what he said, in fact, came from the Greek Orthodox Church. In fact, what he taught was taught in the Greek Orthodox Church. And so, these things, again, trace themselves back into paganism. However, what does the Bible say about this, Brother? Well, is there anything in the Bible about the immortal soul at all? Well, the Jewish Psychopedias says no. There's nothing in the Bible about the immortality of the soul. The word soul is in the Bible.

You might expect that because the New Testament is written in Greek, wouldn't you? I mean, you would expect that to be the case. And the word immortality is in the Bible, but not the phrase immortal soul or immortality of the soul.

Nowhere can you find in the Old or New Testament these two words ever together. In all cases where the word immortal or immortality are used, it refers always to something that God has or that man has to put on. You don't have it. You've got to put it on. It is not, again, something that He inherently has. All of us here. Now, of course, one of the motivations for believing in the concept of the immortality of the soul is that if you have an immortal soul, it doesn't matter what you do in this life. You know, you're going to live on, right? And so it is a concept that is, you know, easily embraced by people because that means you can live any way you want to because you have inherently in you this immortality that you can't kill me.

You know, you're like a Rambo here on the earth and you know, you can do whatever you want and no matter what they do to you, you're going to live on. And of course, that's simply not the case. Let me give you a few scriptures, by the way, where these words are used, immortality and immortal. You can write them down. 1 Timothy 1, verse 7, and I'll quote it to you.

Now to the King eternal, it says, immortal, invisible to God, who alone is wise. So this is a reference to Jesus. Now, the King is a reference to the King. Now, the King is a reference to the King. So this is a reference to Jesus Christ, the reference that Jesus is immortal and we know He's ascended to the right hand of the Father. Romans 2, verse 7, verse 6, by the way, says this, Who will render to each according to his beads?

Then in verse 7, immediately it says, eternal life, those who by patient, continuous, and doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. So you see, it's not something we have, but God is going to render to us by the fact that we have done good deeds in this lifetime and that we have sought immortality.

That's what we want. That's what we desire. And we do so by patient continuance. Then 1 Corinthians 15, in verses 53 through 54. And I'll just quote parts of these two verses. It says, this mortal must put on immortality. So we're mortal. We're flesh and blood. You know, Mr. Armstrong always said, if you don't believe that you're mortal, do the pinch test. You know, you pinch yourself and if you don't hurt and it doesn't cause you any pain, bar the fact that you have no feelings, you know, based on the fact that you have no nerves, you know, if you're in that case, obviously you may not feel anything, but most of us are going to say, ouch!

So this mortal must put on immortality. In verse 54, so when the corruptible, this corruptible is put on in corruption and this mortal is put on immortality, then it talks about how death is going to be swallowed up in victory. You know, in other words, we will not die after we've been given the mortal life when we've passed from death to life, eternal in the kingdom of God.

In 1 Timothy 6 and verses 16, it speaks of God there, who alone has immortality. God, who alone has immortality. You know, the audacity of human beings to think that somehow that we are mortal. 2 Timothy 1 verse 10 speaks of Christ, and again, I'm filling in here to make it make sense from the standpoint of quoting part of the verse, but it says, quote, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality and light through the gospel.

In other words, through the good news of that Jesus Christ brought, we can have immortality. Not that we have it, but that we can have immortality. And so these scriptures do not indicate in any way, in the least, that man has an immortal quality that's resident within himself. It certainly shows us that there's an opportunity that Jesus Christ is revealed to mankind and from the scriptures that immortality is a reward for faithful obedience.

But it does not say that we have immortality within us already, you know, just as any Tom, Dick, or Harry walking the streets of America or any place in the world, that all of us, again, when we're born into this life, are born without that immortality given to us.

And of course, Jesus came to reveal how we might attain immortality. Now, let's take a look at words translated as soul in the Bible. We've just shown by those scriptures, so would I give you five scriptures there that can, I think, very important if you want to put that in the back of your Bible somewhere and write immortality to the soul, those are good to have in your Bible. But there are words that are used for the word soul. So let's talk about these basic things here.

What is the Old Testament word for soul in the Bible? Well, let's go back to Genesis 2 and verse 7, I should say. Genesis 2 and verse 7. You know, here, of course, the story of beginnings and here the beginning of man, what better place to go than if we want to know what man is, than to go when man was first brought on the scene.

But here in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7, notice it says, In the eternal God formed man of the dust of the ground. So you and I are made from dirt. You know, sometimes when people want to call us dirt, in a way, as a compliment, you're right. I am a bit earthy, aren't I?

But we are from the ground. It used to be that we were worth about $1.98. We got enough $1.98 worth of chemicals. It might be more now by inflation. It might be worth $4 or $5 now. You know, sometimes when somebody is a tycoon, they say, I could buy and sell you. Well, brethren, I could buy all of you at $5 a shot. Well, anyway. So man was formed in the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And man, here it is, became a living soul. A living soul. So man became a living being, as it says here in the King James. Man became a living soul. But if you have a King James that says, soul in the New King James, it reads, being. And that is basically what it means. It became a living being or a living soul. The Greek word, by the way, that is used here for soul or for living being is the word naphesh.

Now, that's the word that all of you should know. The word naphesh. I mean, we should know what our body is, shouldn't we? Somebody asked you what your body is, you should say, I'm a naphesh.

And so that's as simple as it can be. We are naphesh. We are souls in that way. In other words, we are a soul. We don't have a soul, but we are souls.

And that is, of course, what it means. The word naphesh usually means, according to Strong's, and this is the way Strong's puts it, quote, properly, a breathing creature, unquote. A breathing creature. And this is what Adam was when God breathed into him the breath of life.

Now, this word, by the way, can refer to a human or an animal. So we're not really proven that man is not just a more advanced animal here by this particular word. It's used as an animal in several scriptures in the book of Genesis. I'm not going to go through it, but in Genesis 1.24, you know, the word creature is from the original word, a Hebrew word, naphesh. Chapter 2 and verse 19 also has the word naphesh referring to an animal. And chapter 9 and verse 10, I'm not going to go to these verses, but if you go and look up those words for creatures, you'll find that the word is naphesh, and it refers to an animal in this particular case.

So naphesh can be used for an animal or a man, and it does not distinguish between the two. The word naphesh can sometimes even be used for the word corpse or dead body.

Now, personally, I wonder if the translators just took a little more leeway with that, but it is in the scripture, so I think we have to certainly say that it can be used that way, and it has been used that way. Let's go over to Leviticus 21, and we'll see this. Leviticus 21. I believe that one of the reasons why, but again, I'm not a linguist. I have not studied Hebrew as deeply as some have, but I believe that they probably refer to it as a naphesh because it was a living, breathing creature. The human being was a living, breathing creature or person.

Leviticus 21, verse 1, says, The dead here hears from the word naphesh.

Again, these would have been relatives who have passed on that had died. So formally, of course, they were alive. They were naphesh, but now they are dead. This particular verse brings that out. Verse 11, and it says, Nor shall he go near any dead body. Now here, the translators use the word naphesh and the word dead itself, which in fact was a different Hebrew word. We have two Hebrew words here. One is, again, a word that means die. The word dead, of course, here translated from the Hebrew word meaning die. And the body, the word is naphesh here. So that's why I say that perhaps in verse 1 here they're talking about that something was formerly a living human being that died. So we have to again show that sometimes, but not as commonly, this word naphesh is used for a corpse or a dead body.

But again, what does the Bible say about a naphesh? Well, let's go over to Ezekiel 18. These are two verses, by the way, that you should have. Also, in your memory, frankly, it'd be good to memorize these if you haven't, as to where they are in the Bible. Ezekiel 18, verse 4. You know, here God is saying because fathers had gone wrong, the children's teeth are set on edge here, there was a proverb that was used. Essentially, basically, the children sinned because of what their fathers did.

And God says you're not going to have that kind of a saying anymore, no more a proverb like that. In verse 4, notice what he says, Behold, all souls are mine, all naphesh are mine. The soul of the Father, as well as the soul of the Son, is mine. The soul who sins shall die. So the naphesh that sins shall die. And so the soul can die. Now, I won't read it, but down in verse 20 is a match-eight verse to verse 4 here. That again, clearly shows that the message is that the soul can die. And the word soul is naphesh. The word die is moot. M-O-O-T-H. And it's the same word, by the way, that is used in Leviticus 21 verse 11 that we read before this. 20 where it talks about a dead naphesh. Same word here. The soul that sins, it shall die. And this is also, by the way, a concept that's carried over into the New Testament. Now, the concept of the immortality of the soul, where did it come from, ultimately? Where did the Egyptians get it? Like you said, it probably was on the other side of the flood that this belief and immortality of the soul came from. Well, the concept of the immortality of the soul possibly came from Satan's deception of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

And the serpent, remember, told Eve there in Genesis chapter 3, what did she say? God said, don't take of the fruit, lest you die. What was, again, those famous words that the serpent said, you shall not surely die. You see? And so the concept may have come from that, the idea.

And we know that the concept was taught shortly after the flood by Semiramis to perpetuate this myth that her son was reincarnated as Horus. And so, very probably, this is where it began, right here in the Garden of Eden. You know, you have to, again, ponder, meditate as to why, again, man made the choice to go the way he did. Why Adam made the choice to go the way he did? Maybe Adam, maybe Adam in some way may have thought, well, maybe there's a possibility that I am immortal, like the serpent said. You know, it seems like the people, again, don't want to believe God even today. They won't believe anything else. You know, like I said before, Christ came and he said, think not. I've come to destroy the law and the prophets. What do people say today? They're all done away with. Don't have to worry about it. Man, again, doesn't want to believe God. They didn't want to believe Jesus Christ. So these are the words for soul in the Old Testament. Now, let's look in the New Testament. Now, some people think that, well, you know, you're over there in the Old Testament. You know, that's old. We don't believe in those old, you know, that's the old God. That's the Father, you know. We believe in the loving Son. Well, let's go to the New Testament here. Let's go to Matthew chapter 20, 10. Matthew 10, in verse 28.

Here, Jesus is talking. So, this is in red if you have a red-letter Bible. In Matthew 10, in verse 28, this is what Jesus says. He says, This is where most people, of course, shut their Bible and say, There it is! Immortal soul, you can't kill it. You know. And it says, And gahina is what that word for hell here is in Greek.

And gahina, which is again, gahina fire. You know, that symbolized again the destruction of those who were sinners that the Bible talks about. Now, so Jesus Christ says here that the soul and the body can be destroyed. Okay, let's all close our books now. I mean, that says it, doesn't it? Right there! Doesn't it say it? You know, they closed their book, of course, on the first sentence, and we can close it on the second. Because Christ said that the soul can die. Let's look at this verse here a little bit. The word body, don't fear those who kill the body, is from the Greek word soma. And if you look in the Strongs, for this Greek word, it says this in Strongs, the body as a sound whole.

That's everything. That's the whole body. And the word soul that is used here is the word in the Greek, is suke. Suke. And it means breath or spirit. Breath or spirit. Now, remember, what did God do when He made Adam? Remember, God breathed into man the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul and a being.

So God breathed into him the breath of life that gave him life. This wasn't just, by the way, O2, that He breathed into the lungs of Adam, but He breathed into him something more than that that was given to him.

So Adam became a living soul. But we see that what Jesus is saying, only God can destroy all possibility of immortality. Man may be able to destroy the physical body and the fact that we don't draw physical breath, but man cannot take away from God his prerogative to resurrect the potential, in other words, for immortality. And so the soul can be destroyed. This soma, this body that we have, and the breath would cease. But man cannot, what Jesus Christ is saying, is take away again the potential for man to have immortality that only God can give him.

God can take both away. He can take every opportunity away from man. In the New Testament, there is no indication that immortality is inherent in a man. Let's go to 1 John, Chapter 3, just again to buoy up that understanding in the New Testament. We could show many other scriptures here, but for the sake of the time, we don't have. Today we have a Q&A session again, which, again, sometimes can be challenging to answer the questions, you know, in the link of time that we have.

But in 1 John, Chapter 3, in verse 15, notice it says, Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. Notice what he says here, John says, And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. And so, you know, what I'm saying is that God did not give man something that made him inherently immortal, even when he gave him the breath of life. And so, a man is not immortal.

If a sinner, obviously, is someone is a murderer, or they're a thief, or someone who is practicing sin, there is no eternal life dwelling in that person. You know, God, of course, is under no obligation to grant such a person immortality in the future, even. I won't go to this verse, but it's always good to remember this, in case some people somehow think that they are different than the rest of humanity.

In Romans 3, verse 23, what does it say over there? Some of you remember the old, the scripture, memory scriptures. It says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So, everybody. So, one thing I know about all of this congregation is that all of you have sinned. You know, and all of us have, including myself. We all fit in the same boat. And let's do go to Romans 6, in verse 23. Romans 6, in verse 23.

It's been a good long time since we've actually turned to this scripture. But in Romans 6, in verse 23, it says here, For the wages of sin is death. So, you know, Paul says in Romans 3, 23, what does he say? All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Here he says, For the wages of sin is death. So, we don't have an immortal soul.

And it says, But the gift of God, well, if you want the gift of God, if immortality or eternal life, that is from God. And so, the gift of God is eternal life and Christ Jesus, our Lord. And so, clearly again, sin results in death, not in, you know, immortality, not in eternal life. And just by these scriptures, brethren, we can see that immortality, the soul, is a myth which cannot be believed. You know, we should not put our faith or belief in it. It is not in the Bible. You have to twist this book, you know, in more ways than Houdini could twist himself and get out of, you know, one of many of his acts that he did in order to make it say that there is an immortality of the soul. And there's more that the Bible reveals, though, about man so that we can understand what man is. Again, we're trying to understand what is man. Well, we've answered the question, haven't we? That man is not an immortal soul. So we need to lose that kind of thinking from us, and I know many have since they've been in the church for a long time. And even if you've been in a little while, you know, we recognize that fact. And although we are mere mortal beings, living, breathing creatures, brethren, like animals, man is not like a monkey or a donkey or a chimpanzee or any other kind of animal. Man is much more than a mere animal. God did not put him here in the same way that he placed animals upon the earth. God had, as we see in the first chapter of Genesis, had a personal touch with putting man here upon the earth.

Let's go back to Genesis chapter 1 and we see what God did. In Genesis 1, God put man on earth for, as I said earlier, a great transcendental purpose. In Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26, notice what it says here. It talks about, again, the animals that God put upon the earth. In verse 25, God made the beast of the earth according to its kind. God placed animals upon the earth according to their kind. In other words, you don't have fish walking out and becoming Homer Simpson, if you've ever seen the evolutionary, trace evolutionary that had been given about Homer Simpson.

But God created species. And he talks about cattle after their kind and everything that creaks on the earth according to its kind. So God made the creepy things after the creepy things. And God saw that it was good. And then God said, let us make man in our image. I don't think you can get, you can miss what God is saying here. He made the cattle after the cattle kind. He made the things that creep after the creeping kind, if I can put it that way. And then God made man, and He said, let us make man after our kind. After our kind. It says, after our image. According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And so God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. And so here we see that the message that is profound here is that God, again, created the different species after their kind. That man was created in the image of God, of course, without God's immortality, but after the God kind. The purpose of becoming, as we understand in other places it so clearly brings out, that we have the potential to be a part of the God family. Man was given God's general appearance. We are in the image of God.

Sometimes when we refer to a child as born, say a son is born or a daughter is born, she is the spit and image of her mother, or spit and image of her father. And so we are, again, in the image of our father who is in heaven.

And the other thing that we see here that what God did is that man was given dominion over all the earth, all the animals that are upon the earth, on land and sea. Now God did not do so with any other creature of His creation. There is no second contender that is here. No one is brought forth and God didn't say, okay, this monkey is going to take your place if you fail. So I guess play of the apes wouldn't work with it. But there is no second contender, brethren. God did give man one important component, which was a spiritual one, which imparted to men and women the power of intellect. So He was different. When Adam was raised up from that red clay, Adam means red clay, basically. He was made there. He was made with something different. He was given also, and we don't know when this comes to babies or to us, but probably with Adam it happened with the breath as well, that God gave him that spiritual component that imparted intellect to him called the Spirit in man, the Spirit in man. It is what gives man the power to think and to reason. It gives him the ability to have an awareness of his own existence. And it gives incredible intelligence to the man that the animal kingdom, that none in the animal kingdom have. The Spirit in man, when coupled with the human brain, produces what we call our minds, the mind of man. And with it, God gave man also free moral agency to choose and the power to develop character. And so God gave these things to man. And the Spirit in man, by the way, was not understood in the church until the 1960s. We weren't aware. We thought prior to the 60s, in fact, when I was coming to the college, the concept was beginning to be understood more. It was understood before I went to college, but it was being understood more and more. It was talked about a great deal. It was a great truth that came to be understood in the church. But it's not a new truth in that sense because it's an old truth. Let's go back to the oldest book in the Bible. It's not the book of Genesis, by the way. It's Job, the book of Job. Job is the oldest book in the Bible. And old Job understood about the Spirit in man. Let's go to Job 32 and down in verse 8. So here, Elihu is saying this. Elihu is aware of this. But it says in verse 8, And there is a Spirit in man. So here in the book of Job, it's talking about a Spirit in man. And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. And so here, in the book of Job, we see that the Spirit in man is talked about here. Job was aware of the Spirit in man, which imparts understanding, as it says here. Very clearly. You can look that word up. It gives us the ability to think and to reason. And it makes us different than, again, simply as being animals. We're not a higher species of animals. We're different altogether than the animal world and the animal kingdom. I'm not going to go to this verse, but in Zechariah 12, verse 1, is another verse that says this. God forms the Spirit of man within him. And so within man is formed the Spirit of man. And so God gave much more to man, as I said earlier, than the oxygen.

There was much more that was given to him than the oxygen, the breathe. He was given the Spirit of man or the Spirit in man. Now again, those that don't believe in the Old Testament will say, well, you know, why don't you get out of that old Bible there, you know? Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 2. It was something Paul understood and grasped in his day.

In 1 Corinthians 2 and down in verse 11, here Paul makes this statement.

He says, So here he's talking about the Spirit of man that is within him, that allows us to have an understanding, an awareness of, you know, our environment.

You know, as I mentioned before, you know, a cow doesn't stand out in the field and in California and say, I wonder what those, you know, South African babes look like down there, you know, how the cows are, you know, that you've seen on the advertisements. Well, they don't have an awareness, do they?

You know, they were chewed their cut right into the slaughter yards because they don't know any better, do they?

So there is a Spirit in man that causes the understanding of things of man, which it says is in him. It says, And so here old Paul understood this. And Paul is reflecting on what Job said about the Spirit in man that we just read, how it imparts understanding, it imparts intellect to us.

Now, the question that is bound to be rattling around in some minds, well, is the Spirit in man, I've been asked this question, the same as the immortal soul? Just, are we talking semantics here? Is that what we're talking about? Well, the answer to that, brethren, absolutely not.

For these reasons, let me give you four reasons why that the Spirit in man is not the immortality of the soul or the immortal soul. Number one, the Spirit in man is not to impart immortality, but sentience and intellect.

It causes, you know, you and me to learn how to talk, to learn how to react with each other and interact with one another. But it does not give immortality. Number two, number two, the Spirit in man is not life itself. Because life for the man is the air he breathes and the blood that circulates that breath through the body. So it's not life itself.

Number three, the Spirit in man doesn't of itself see or hear.

Now, I think we could easily prove that.

The blind cannot see that they have the Spirit in man.

Anyone, again, with an impairment like that, has it, and certainly they are human beings, and they have the Spirit in man.

John Merrick had the Spirit in man. He said, I am not an animal. I am a man. I'm a human being. And number four, at death, the Spirit in man has no consciousness of itself, and it sleeps. It sleeps.

Now, let me give you some scriptures to show you that, what I said about how the Spirit in man sleeps. Because here in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 30, again, just write these verses down for the sake of time. But in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 30, it says, So here Paul talked about saints who were sleeping. And what he meant is that they were dead all over like Rover.

Chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, in verse 51, So again, for being dead, there's sleep, it says. In 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 14, We know that what's going to happen when Christ returns, the resurrection's going to occur, the dead in Christ is going to rise first, and then we which are alive and are in Christ will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

And so, again, when we die, when we perish, the Spirit in man has no consciousness of itself, it sleeps.

And when that time comes, you know, God will again resurrect that person.

Even so, the Spirit in man imparts our human qualities of mind, and it is what we have referred to before as a record of our characteristics of us in our life, who we are.

You know, we would liken it today, I think, to a storage disk. You know, it's like if you take, say, a thumb drive or a disk, and you save information on that disk, that's what the Spirit in man is for man. It records everything about the man.

You know, again, I can't tell you all the specifics about what it records. I don't know, you know, does it have all the warts? You know, all the, you know, hair follicles?

Does it tell God all of these things? I don't know what it does, ultimately, but it's a disk that, in fact, is about us.

Now, let's notice in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, go back to chapter 2 and verse 9.

Corinthians 2 and verse 9.

Here, Paul says the incredible thing that is before us. He says, "'I have not seen nor ear heard, nor is entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'" You know, what that means, again, and just plain English vernacular, colloquial vernacular is that big things are coming for us, that we just can't even fathom.

And it says, "'But God has revealed them to us through His Holy Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, just the deep things of God.'" There are some things of it we can understand, but as Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 13, we see through a glass darkly.

But the Spirit enables us to see things that, frankly, most people cannot see when we're giving that Spirit.

And, you know, going on it says, "'But God has revealed them to us.'" Verse 11, "'For what man knows the things of a man, except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so,' again, so he delineates here, "'Even so, no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.'" And it says, "'We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.'" The Spirit that's in the world, brethren, is what Spirit? The Spirit of man. Everybody's got the Spirit of man, don't they?

But if you don't have this other Spirit, you can't understand and comprehend the deep things of God.

Let's go to Ecclesiastes 12.

Now, when we die, that storage disk, by the way, returns back to God who gave it, and it remains with Him until we live again.

And when we receive the Holy Spirit upon repentance and baptism, we can then comprehend the spiritual things that God reveals to us.

It's like when someone finally gets tired of beating their head against the wall, as oftentimes we do, when we're first studying the Scriptures.

You know, when we sometimes are not able to see into them deeply, and we can pull our hair out and say, Why can't I get this? Why can't I understand that? Well, if you are not baptized and you don't have God's Spirit, that's why.

And I'll tell you, you'll keep pulling your hair out, and you will keep beating your head against the wall until you come to realize that you need another Spirit.

You need the Spirit of God resident in you. It's worked with you to show you things, but now that Spirit needs to be within you, the Spirit of God.

But here in Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7, notice here, Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.

And so here talking about the physical body of ours, it's talking about how we are created again from the dirt of the ground, from the earth.

And so when we die, we lay in the grave and we disintegrate into dust again.

But the Spirit in man that God gave to all mankind returns to God who gave it to begin with.

And so God has given this component to all humans automatically.

And when we die, our body just simply disintegrates, and the Spirit in man returns back to God until the time when we're going to be resurrected and brought to life again.

When man was created, God created them needing, though, this other spirit.

So when Adam and Eve were created, the why they didn't do so well is because they needed another spirit.

They had the Spirit in man, but they needed again that second module, if you will, to be put on there.

The sermon I'm showing you used to explain, by the way, the Spirit in man and the Spirit of God, how the Spirit in man is in the man. It's not a part of the man, but it's in the man.

And what happens is that the Holy Spirit is attached to the Spirit in man, because Spirit cannot attach to flesh.

And so when we're given that Spirit of God, it attaches to the Spirit in man, and that imparts to our intellect an understanding of spiritual things.

And again, if we die, that goes back to God until the time of the resurrection.

And one cannot, though, however, receive that Spirit of God unless they repent, unless they're willing to repent and willing to change.

And of course, what Peter tell us, he said to those people back then, he said, repent and be baptized if you might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And so that Spirit comes as a result of repentance in no other way. It cannot be given any other way.

And when we have the Holy Spirit in us, in addition to that Spirit of man, then is when we have within us, brethren, eternal life that's resident within us.

Let's go to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1.

But, you know, God, again, promises that we can have eternal life as long as we have that right attitude and that submitted attitude to Him and His way of life.

And it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who according to His abundant mercy have begotten us again, I like the way Peter says this, to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

And we've been begotten again, brethren, as a result of the Holy Spirit.

It's like when we are, we've repented and we're baptized, we're begotten. We begin a new life in Jesus Christ.

A new man is born, as Paul put it. The old man is dead, and we're to put away and mortify the deeds of the old man, the deeds of the flesh, as the Bible says. So here Peter says, we're begotten again.

Born in the flesh, but now born, spiritually speaking, to utilize God's Spirit and to develop the holy righteous character that the human mind makes man capable of being able to do.

Let's go to Romans chapter 8. And you know, when you receive God's Spirit, and you really have God's Spirit within you, that transforming Spirit, you know you have something within you that's different than you had before.

In Romans 8 and verse 16, Romans 8 and verse 16, here Paul puts it this way, the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, itself bears witness with our Spirit, that is the Spirit of man, that gives us the ability to reason, to thank, that intellect.

It says that we are the children of God. And so we are aware, again, the Spirit of God is working in us that we have changed, we're overcoming, we're building that character, and that we have this other Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, that allows us to understand spiritual concepts.

And then 2 Corinthians 5.

What a wonderful truth, brethren, these things present to us. In 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 1, here Paul says, for we know that if our earthly house, this tent, here he calls this body a tent, you know, it's like you break down a tent, and, you know, it's perhaps in a box somewhere, the human body, obviously, sometimes it's going to be broken down, but he says this house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens. And so we know that God is going to give us the opportunity for eternal life, and he has that within his grasp, in his hands. That Spirit does return to God so that he can resurrect us again. And for in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven. In other words, the spiritual body. We like to get rid of the old body that we have that is, tends toward physical corruption, physical disintegration, eventually we do die. And it says, so that we be not found naked, for we who are in this tent groan, being burdened not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. See, this physical mortal can be swallowed up by life. Now he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So that Spirit that God has given to each one of us is a guarantee, an earnest as it will. God says, I'm going to give you eternal life. And of course, it means that we must be obedient until the end. Christ said, he who endures the end, the same is going to be saved. And so the Scriptures tells us that we must again endure. So the Spirit and man, brethren, and certainly the Spirit of God, make man and his potential higher than that of animals. And the Holy Spirit gives man what was missing from Adam and Eve at the very beginning. And as the Spirit and man imparts, brethren, the ability to grasp physical knowledge, the Holy Spirit gives us, brethren, the potential to look into the deep things, the spiritual things that God gives us. You know, evolutionists may believe again that we are descended from animals. Religious may believe that we have an immortal soul, which is again not so. We are not immortal souls. We are souls. We aren't immortal. But with God's Spirit, with God's Spirit, we have the potential of becoming immortal and having immortality. This is what a man is. This is what a man is and what God intends us to be to use in our lives, to use the Holy Spirit to grow in character and to grow to be like Jesus Christ, who is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Like John Merritt said, he said, I am not an animal. Brethren, we are not mere animals. We are human beings with a high purpose, and we do not have immortal souls. We do have the great promise, the fantastic promise of eternal life in us if we have the Holy Spirit resident within us. But we need to remember, we can forfeit that if we turn away from God. God is not going to allow another Satan the Devil. He's not going to allow another Lucifer. But brethren, he wants someone like Jesus Christ, who will be a part of his family and the family of God.

We are not descended from primates, but created in the image of God, in the likeness of God, with the opportunity of having eternal life if God's Spirit is resident within us and we endure to the end. Well, brethren, let's remember that. That's what a human being is. That's what a man is. We are not animals. We are human beings with great purpose.