Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
And yet there is no scripture that ever mentions an "immortal soul"...these two words do not exist, side by side in any passage of scripture...I believe our soul is immortal because it is the breath of eternal God.
That concept is missing from anything written by any Bible writer....and they were all Jewish. So this begs the question...what is the “soul” and what is the “spirit” from a Jewish understanding of those words? Some research will reveal that the propensity to blend these two words into one meaning is an error. These words do NOT mean the same thing at all.Our identity in flesh is shed when we die.
The “soul” is the entire living, breathing entity....
Genesis 2:7 (ASV)....
“And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Adam was not given a soul but “became” a “soul” when God started him breathing. It was his breath that animated his body and transformed his lifeless body into a “living soul”. The base meaning of the word “soul” in Hebrew is a “breather”. Therefor even animals are called “souls” in the Creation account.
Solomon lamented that humans had no advantage over the animals in death because the Jews did not believe in an immortal soul. They believed in resurrection, which is a return to life, not a continuation of it somewhere else.
He wrote...
“For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” (NASB)
When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died and Jesus waited 4 days before going to him, he performed a resurrection, calling Lazarus from his grave, completely restored to life in the flesh. (John 11:11-14)
He promised to do the same again for all the dead who are redeemed by his sacrifice. (John 5:28-29)
The Bible never taught about an immortal soul....so the Jews had no belief in such a thing....therefore Jesus did not teach it....though he spoke often about the resurrection, performing them to show what was to take place under the rulership of his Kingdom over this earth.
But first you have to understand what those Patriarchs believed about life and death.I believe it is vanity of patriarchs drafting an extra gospel doctrine that insists we shall be here again.
Pride insists God,the supreme source in and of all existence continues our being was beyond this life and upon this world that is his creation. As if his kingdom must be made manifest here with us.
As if we are that important.
It is a natural part of human expectation to go on living....we are not ‘programmed’ to die.....it is as foreign to our psyche today as it was in Eden. Death is the result of sin, which was never supposed to happen. No sin would have meant no death, as was indicated in God’s own words in Genesis 3:22-24...
“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life." (NASB)
God's Kingdom is actually God's rulership.....humankind lost that when they chose to obey the devil instead of their Creator. He allowed the devil a relatively free hand to test all of mankind as to whether they could be loyal to him or loyal to the rival "god" who had claimed the human race for himself.God's kingdom is all existence
The establishment of God's Kingdom, in the hands of his anointed Christ, will restore God's rulership over redeemed mankind, taking us back to his original purpose in Eden. The earth was supposed to be filled with the children of Adam and his wife who were to transform it into the most beautiful place to live, employing their God-given talents and creativity to make their surroundings look like Eden...it was the 'blueprint' for the rest of the world....but the devil abused his free will and derailed God's first purpose.....it did not destroy it however. God allowed the devil to do whatever he wished in order to prove that he was the better ruler and god of mankind....and here we are on the brink of extinction with powerful men bent on feeding corrupted egos, regardless of the cost to humanity....any wonder Jesus told us NOT to be any part of that. (John 18:36)
Actually, its not the "soul" that returns to God...it is the "spirit" or the "breath of life".Our soul,as he tells us, returns to him. Because it is of and from him. And our body returns to the dust that is also God's creation. As is everything that exists.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 "And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."
The spirit returns to God in that only God can return the dead to life by restoring their breath in the resurrection. The dead are not conscious (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) because there is no immortal soul that leaves the body to go anywhere....that is a pagan Platonic Greek notion adopted by both the later Jews and also Christendom.
It is a satanic lie designed to perpetuate the lie he told in Eden..."you surely will not die". But what did God tell Adam? (Genesis 3:19)
No mention of heaven or hell....just the cessation of life...period....with a hope of the resurrection. (Acts 24:15)
The word translated "creature" there is "neʹphesh" which according Strongs means...."soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion".....there is no mention of immortality there. The "soul" is the whole living, breathing creature.....both human and animals are "souls" in Genesis.Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
The life of humans returns to God in a symbolic way, and its flesh is buried in the dust from which it was made.
That is what I believe the scriptures teach.