2006-10-31 04:58:17 · 16 answers · asked by Mark Fidrater 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Some believe that various scriptures support belief in an immortal soul. Let's consider some of these passages and understand what they really say.
Matthew 10:28
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).
Does Jesus teach in this verse that the soul is immortal? Not at all. If you look at this scripture closely you see that Jesus actually says that the soul can be destroyed.
Jesus is here warning about the judgment of God. He says not to fear those who can destroy only the physical human body (Greek soma), but fear Him (God) who is also able to destroy the soul (psuche).
Simply stated, Christ was showing that when one man kills another the resulting death is only temporary; God can raise anyone to life again either in this life (see Matthew 9:23-25; 27:52; John 11:43-44; Acts 9:40-41; 20:9-11) or the life to come. We must revere God, who alone can obliterate all possibility of any later resurrection to life. When God destroys one in "hell," that person's destruction is permanent.
What is the "hell" spoken of in this verse? The Greek word used here is gehenna, which comes from the combination of two Hebrew words, ge and hinnom, meaning "valley of Hinnom." The term originally referred to a valley on the south side of Jerusalem in which pagan deities were worshiped.
Because of its reputation as an abominable place, it later became a garbage dump where refuse was burned. Gehenna became synonymous with "a place of burning"—a site used to dispose of useless things.
Only God can utterly destroy human existence and eliminate any hope of a resurrection. The Scriptures teach that God will burn up the wicked, turning them to ashes (Malachi 4:3).
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Many are confused by an expression the apostle Paul uses in his letter to the Thessalonians: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
What does Paul mean by the phrase "spirit, soul, and body"?
By "spirit" (pneuma), Paul means the human mind, which gives us the ability to reason, create and analyze our existence. By "soul" (psuche), Paul means physical life and its consciousness. By "body" (soma), Paul means the flesh of a physical body. Paul wished for the whole person, including the mind, vitality of life and physical body, to be sanctified and blameless.
Revelation 6:9-11
"When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'" (Revelation 6:9-10).
To understand this scripture we must remember the context. John was witnessing a vision while he was "in the spirit" (Revelation 4:2). Under inspiration he was seeing future events in symbol. The fifth seal is figurative of the great tribulation, a time of world turmoil preceding Christ's return. In the vision John sees under the altar the martyred believers who sacrificed their lives for their faith in God. These souls symbolically cry out, "Avenge our blood!" This can be compared to Abel's blood symbolically "crying out" to God from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Though neither souls nor blood can literally speak, these phrases figuratively demonstrate that a God of justice will not forget the evil deeds of mankind perpetrated against His followers.
This verse does not describe living souls that have gone to heaven. The Bible confirms that "no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven" (John 3:13). Even righteous King David, a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22), was described by Peter as being "dead and buried" (Acts 2:29), not alive in heaven or some other state or location.
2006-10-31 05:06:30 · answer #1 · answered by lnd_whitaker 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Quite often in everyday language, men get it right about the SOUL, whereas Theologians miss the mark. Such expressions as....".the poor old soul"...or..."hundreds of souls perished", readily convey in the true sense that the reference is to people.
The International distress signal....S.O.S., meaning.. SAVE OUR SOULS, is another example. It is not a plea to rescue something which is invisible or intangible, but rather to rescue the whole being , that those concerned might hold on to life and be restored alive to loved
Therefore I am going to give you a medical / scientific answer.
There is no evidence for the existence of a soul. There is no firm definition of what a soul is - it is a vague non-scientific term used to describe "life force", "personality", "emotions" - what makes one the person that one is.
From a scientific point of view all these "personal" / personality qualities are functions of the brain mediated by interactions between neurons. When the body dies, the brain dies. The neurons die. The "soul" is an emergent property of the complex interacting system of neurons and therefore it dies too...
To get an idea of what I mean by a property of a complex interacting system another vague concept you can think about is nature. Nature does not have any particular definition - it is the product of the complex interaction of all the biomass on the planet. If the planet ceased to exist nature too would cease to exist
2006-10-31 05:11:40 · answer #2 · answered by nana_viki 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Josh. 11:11: “They went striking every soul [Hebrew, ne′phesh] that was in it with the edge of the sword.” (The soul is here shown to be something that can be touched by the sword, so these souls could not have been spirits.) Josh. 11:11: “They went striking every soul [Hebrew, ne′phesh] that was in it with the edge of the sword.” (The soul is here shown to be something that can be touched by the sword, so these souls could not have been spirits.) Ezek. 18:4: “Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” We know man is sinful. Eccl. 3:19: “There is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit [Hebrew, ru′ach].” (Thus both mankind and beasts are shown to have the same ru′ach, or spirit. “The Christian concept of a spiritual soul created by God and infused into the body at conception to make man a living whole is the fruit of a long development in Christian philosophy. Only with Origen [died c. 254 C.E.] in the East and St. Augustine [died 430 C.E.] in the West was the soul established as a spiritual substance and a philosophical concept formed of its nature. . . . His [Augustine’s] doctrine . . . owed much (including some shortcomings) to Neoplatonism.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. XIII, pp. 452, 454. “The concept of immortality is a product of Greek thinking, whereas the hope of a resurrection belongs to Jewish thought. . . . Following Alexander’s conquests Judaism gradually absorbed Greek concepts.”—Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Bible (Valence, France; 1935), edited by Alexandre Westphal, Vol. 2, p. 557. “Immortality of the soul is a Greek notion formed in ancient mystery cults and elaborated by the philosopher Plato.”—Presbyterian Life, May 1, 1970, p. 35. “Do we believe that there is such a thing as death? . . . Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death? . . . And does the soul admit of death? No. Then the soul is immortal? Yes.”—Plato’s “Phaedo,” Secs. 64, 105, as published in Great Books of the Western World (1952), edited by R. M. Hutchins, Vol. 7, pp. 223, 245, 246. “The problem of immortality, we have seen, engaged the serious attention of the Babylonian theologians. . . . Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a passage to another kind of life.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), M. Jastrow, Jr., p. 556.
2016-05-22 17:52:50 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Let me see if I can make clear what I am getting at. I believe this suggests that when a believer in Jesus Christ dies, he at once experiences the coming of Christ for his church. He steps out of time into eternity, and since, as far as his spiritual readiness is concerned, the next event for him is the coming of the Lord, that is what he experiences. The moment he dies he must awaken with the consciousness, "I've made it! I thought there might still be some time between my death and the coming of the Lord, but isn't it an amazing coincidence? He came just as I died!" And, what is more amazing, in the experience of that believer, he does not leave anyone behind. All his loved ones, who know Christ, are there too. Even those who, in time, stand beside his grave and weep and go home to empty homes are, in his experience, with him in glory. Furthermore, since there is no time in eternity, he discovers that, to his amazement, just as he reaches heaven, so does Adam. He is raised all at once -- because they together experience this great event of the coming of the Lord for his own. Thus it is true, as Hebrewssays, "that apart from us they should not be made perfect."
Does that stimulate your thinking a bit? Does it turn the gears a bit? It ought to.
- Ray C. Stedman
LIFE BEYOND DEATH
http://www.raystedman.org/misc/0295.html
2006-10-31 05:13:27 · answer #4 · answered by Bruce 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The soul sleeps in the grave util Jesus comes back again. At that point, those who are dead in christ shall rise and the sea shall give up its dead and they shall be joined with Jesus for Judgement.The church shall be taken up next (the bride) and then after the tribulation or apocolypse is over, those who died during it will be judged in the 2nd judgement.
2006-10-31 05:01:14 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Bible states in 2nd Corinthians , chapter 5 and verse 8,
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
2006-10-31 07:09:28 · answer #6 · answered by pat p 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
That it rests until the coming of the Lord. Then all will rise from their rest to be judged. Those covered in the blood of the Lamb of God will enter in to the Kingdom of heaven and all others will be judged by the law, explained in the ten commandments.
2006-10-31 05:12:59 · answer #7 · answered by Nico Suave 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The dead are asleep in Christ until judgement day before the Great White Throne Judgement.
2006-10-31 05:00:31 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
when a person dies his or her soul will go to face jesus on judgement day. there he will decide whether you go into heaven or hell.
that why i repented and asked for the lords forgiveness.
2006-10-31 05:00:11 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Eze. 18:4
"For ALL have sinned and come short..." Rom. 3:23
BODY+BREATH= LIVING SOUL Gen 2:7
The dust shall return to earth, the SPIRIT (breath) will return
to God who gave it. Ecc 12:7
2006-10-31 05:07:21 · answer #10 · answered by bethybug 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋