‘Mars Hill’ which is the Roman name for the Hill of Ares - the warning of the apostle Paul, who at this hill personally confronted Greek thinkers (Acts 17:15-34) and then later to the Greeks in Colosse in Asia Minor, he wrote: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8).
Note this warning from Jesus, who himself warned of “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.” (Mark 7:13). And also “In vain they do worship me,” he lamented, “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:9).
Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Consider carefully: Man - formed of the dust of the ground, not out of spirit – “became” a living soul. A soul is what man is. It is not something a man has.
The Hebrew language further proves this point. The Hebrew word translated as ‘soul’ in Genesis 2:7 in the widely used Authorized Version of the Bible is nephesh. Nephesh designates temporary physical life. It means a living, breathing creature. This is the same word used frequently in the first chapter of Genesis and elsewhere in reference to animals.
Notice, for example, Genesis 1:24: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature [nephesh] after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” Here the word creature is the identical Hebrew word that is used in Genesis 2:7 and throughout the OT for ‘soul.’ In biblical usage, a brute beast is also a ‘soul’!
In Leviticus 21:11, Numbers 6:6, Haggai 2:13 and elsewhere, the word nephesh is even used with reference to a dead body.
Other Old Testament scriptures reveal clearly the mortality - not the immortality - of the soul. Ezekiel 18:4 and vs 20, for example, declares that a soul can die! “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
“For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” God told Adam (Genesis 3:19). Breath = ruach = wind/breath. Ecclesiastes 12:7 – “and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
What about the New Testament? ‘soul’ is a translation of the Greek word psyche. Psyche is the equivalent of the Hebrew word nephesh. Like nephesh, psyche is frequently rendered ‘life’ in addition to ‘soul.’
Psyche is twice used in the NT for the lower animals, exactly in the same way as the Hebrew nephesh can refer to the life of animals. In these two scriptures (Revelation 8:9 “and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died;” and Revelation 16:3 “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man and every living soul died in the sea.) Psyche here is rendered ‘life’ and ‘soul’ respectively, with reference to the life of sea creatures.
Jesus Christ, in fact, declared that God is able to destroy one’s soul (Greek psyche, or life) in Gehenna fire (Matthew 10:28).
The word immortal occurs only once in the entire Bible - in 1Timothy 1:17, where it refers specifically to Jesus Christ! “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
The word immortality is found only in the New Testament, where it occurs fewer than half a dozen times. One of those is 1Timothy 6:16 - where it clearly states that, of all, Jesus Christ is the one who “ONLY hath immortality”! Note also Paul’s words to the Romans in ch. 2 vs 7. Here Paul admonishes the Christians to “SEEK FOR … immortality.” You know, if we already had immortality, then Paul is wrong. If we already had it, we would NOT need to seek it!
Also in 1 Corinthians 15 the ‘resurrection chapter’ – Paul shows us, that a Christian ‘puts on’ immortality at a future resurrection of the dead (see verses 50-54 “Now … brethren … flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; … Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: … and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”)
As Jesus clearly stated: “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” (John 3:5-6). Man - born of the flesh - is flesh. We are not created with inherent immortality. We have only a temporary physical-chemical existence.
Where did we get tthe idea of an IMMORTAL SOUL - texts
LOGIN