Our souls apart from our bodies

[St. SteVen]

Some people teach that the wicked are immortal just because.

I suppose that would go hand-in-hand with the forever burning hell doctrine.
(which I don't believe in)

 

[rwb]

actually, if you read the Genesis account, there was only one cause of death in Eden…..disobedience to God’s command. The “tree of life” was also in the garden, guaranteeing that obedient ones could partake of it and “live forever”….not as an immortal in heaven, but in mortal flesh here in paradise on earth. Our bodies, though mortal can die, but there was no natural cause of death mentioned to Adam……in fact those closer to the original perfection with which Adam was created, lived for hundreds of years…..Methuselah live to be 969! Adam live to be 930….so sin was the only cause of death…..
What did God say after Adam’s sin?
Gen 3:22-24….
”The Lord God then said: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad. Now in order that he may not put his hand out and take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live forever,—” 23 With that Jehovah God expelled him from the garden of Eʹden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 So he drove the man out, and he posted at the east of the garden of Eʹden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning continuously to guard the way to the tree of life.”

A&E could have lived forever, but as you've said through their disobedience, they brought mortality to life. Now all of humanity is born to physically die. Heaven is not nor ever intended to be a habitation for mortal beings. It is, always has been, and always shall be a place for spiritual/heavenly/celestial beings, as is the Lord and as are the angels of God. The distinction between having eternal and immortal lives for humankind, is that the spirit of man becomes an eternal spirit when endowed with the Holy Spirit from Christ. And man indwelt with the Holy Spirit from Christ shall be physically resurrected immortal & incorruptible when the last trump sounds.

What do you believe that being “born again” means? I find it hard to pin anyone down who can explain what exactly takes place when this occurs. How does the Bible explain it?

What you have stated here finds no support in the Bible. There is no such thing as “damnation”….that is an invention of the church like the fires of hell and eternal suffering, used to keep the ignorant masses under their control……there is only everlasting life or everlasting death in the Bible, not heaven or hell…..

To be born again means to be indwelt by the Spirit sent from God. Scripture tells us that flesh & blood begat flesh & blood, so the physical part of man is that which is external the outer body comprised of bones. Scripture also tells us that spirit begats Spirit, so that part within man that gives life to our physical body is our spirit that when inhabiting a body of flesh & bones without the Spirit of Christ in us, is a natural, earthly or worldly spirit without the ability to know the ways of God, therefore without having spiritual or heavenly, supernatural life through His Spirit therefore being spiritually "dead in trespasses and sins".

That is what must change in mankind if they are to know the ways of God, and the only way to have eternal life is through the Spirit of Christ. This change comes by grace through faith when we hear the Gospel proclaimed and believe and by the power of God we are supernaturally born again of His Spirit. It is only through having His Spirit that we are able to understand and have eternal spiritual life, that Christ promises us shall NEVER die.