Why is it, whenever I show the right understanding to a verse, 9 out of 10 times they run to the Revelation to try and force a preconceived point? It's a highly symbolic chapter and this thread / OP isnt about the Historial significance of Rev 6 (while I'd like to show you I've got too much going on in the forum at the moment sorry).
If you think the alter is literal you would be wrong.
If you think this is talking about an immaterial immortal divine essense wafting around under altars you would be absolutely wrong
Ecclesiastes 12:6 "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern."
The "cistern" is the clay flesh body that our soul lives in. The cistern is built to hold the water or life that is within the flesh body, but once that bowl is broken the water or life leaks out of it, just as water leaks out of this flesh body. The "silver cord" is what holds your soul and the spirit together with the flesh body. We can call it the process of thought, which is the intellect of the mind, or soul. When one is brain dead, there is no electrical impulse within the brain, and mankind is considered dead, even though the physical body may still be pumping blood. Life support systems are generally discontinued in most cases.
When that silver cord parts, and the heavenly Father allows it to happen, and this flesh body becomes biologically dead, the very inner man departs for this physical body, and returns to the Father. This decaying body will never be used again, ever. For the soul has entered into its new incorruptible body.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it."
Then when? After the silver cord breaks, the mind is brain dead, and the body loses its life. Then shall the body "dust" return to the earth as it was, before it was formed into food, and entered your mouth as food to make your flesh body healthy.
The spirit is the intellect of the soul, that gives the soul its identity. This is not complicated. When the body dies, and goes to the grave, the physical body will never have a use again, for the soul has returned to the Father, to God who created it in the first place. Because this is a promise of God, it should be what all Christians look forward to all the days of their lives. That is the day that we will be with the Father and Jesus Christ is heaven, not at some distant time in the future.
