Randy Kluth
Well-Known Member
It should be easy for you to prove me wrong, just by going to Scripture and showing I'm wrong when I say:I doubt it and I disagree with your reasoning. It looks to me like you have eisegetically inserted a meaning of the words eternal life and immortality into scripture that does not exist.
1) Eternal Life is what we obtain when we accept our legal justification at the cross. It is not the completion of the process of our entire physical redemption, but it is the beginning of our eternal relationship with Christ.
2) Immortality is when we experience physical redemption, when we are raised from the dead and obtain brand new glorified immortal bodies.
If you doubt this, or if you disagree with this, fine. Just prove I'm wrong from the Scriptures and I'll go your way. This isn't a matter of winning an argument, but rather, a matter of my trying to be in agreement with God's Word, with His Scriptures.
If we're to discuss Scriptures we have to understand how Scriptures are using and defining words. "Immortality" and "glorification" for me mean basically the same thing--our physical resurrection and receiving new glorified bodies. Please prove me wrong?
Actually, just stating something and understanding it are two separate things. When God created and encased a human spirit, putting it into a human body, that spirit became a human soul. The soul, therefore, is a spiritual entity designed to be encased in a physical body. It may survive without the body, but it is intended by God to live forever in a body.God created man as body, soul and spirit. Eternal life and immortality, Biblically, is the opposite of the death that came to Adam and his descendants through sin. No more or less than that, despite any added "Christian" theology.
Death is the separation of the physical body from the human soul. It was a punishment for sin, to stop physical acts of sin from being committed. New bodies have to be created to prevent this manifestation of sin in bodies originally given freedom to do good or evil.
"Immortality" generally speaks not of all of these new bodies, but only of the glorified bodies of the saints. They will not suffer the "2nd Death," which is a kind of exile of the new bodies of the Rebels.
They are not viewed as "immortal" strictly because they lose connection with spiritual life and blessing in the presence of God. They don't die physically, but they die spiritually, in relationship to God.
I know some of this is speculative. But we're just showing our own individual perspective for purposes of interest, right?
Where did you get the part about God "breathing eternal life into Adam?" The Scriptures say God created Man by breathing a human spirit into his physical body. He created Man *by His Word.*Adam did not possess his own immortality. It was the breath of God breathed into him that caused him to become a living soul. God breathed eternal life into Adam.
It does not say, however, that this breath of life was "Eternal Life." You've added that part, and so I would question that. "Eternal Life" in the Scriptures refers to what God has given mortal man through the legal work of Christ on the cross. It is the promise and hope of a complete redemption, which begins with our initial faith in Christ.
To become "immortal" people must put on new immortal bodies. You are using a single Bible verse out of context to establish your notion that people cannot become "immortal." That verse is only saying that only God is the source of immortality for Man. You have misconstrued that to mean that God cannot give immortality to Man, which is the opposite of what Christian Salvation means!The creature does not and cannot possess either eternal life or immortality in himself. To say so is to imply that "you will not surely die".
Death is when the soul loses its physical body. The spirit does not die. "Spiritual Death," or the "2nd Death," is when the Lost souls receive their eternal bodies but are separated from God's blessed presence forever.Man is composed of body, soul and spirit and was not created to die and then go to heaven when he dies.
The saints do go to heaven to obtain their new glorified bodies. But the New Jerusalem will descend from heaven at some point and we will inherit the earth--not remain in heaven forever. The earth was made to be our eternal home.
But you can believe as you will. Our discussion will hopefully lead us both back not just to the Scriptures but also to the full understanding of what they mean?