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34). To the Greeks in Colossae 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" (Col. 2:8).
Jesus Christ himself warned of
" making the word of God of none
effect through your
tradition"
(Mark 7: 13). " In vain they do wor–
ship me," he lamented, "teaching
for doctrines the commandments of
men" (Matt. 15:9) .
So what
does
the Bible really
say?
Consider fi rst the teaching of the
Old Testament. As we have seen,
the Jews living in the Hellenistic
world admit they took the immortal
soul doctrine from Plato. Why?
Because it is
nowhere found
in the
Hebrew Scriptures!
Notice Gcnesis 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 sou/."
Consider careful l y: Ma n–
formed
of the dust of the ground,
not out of spirit- "became" a liv–
ing 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 Gene–
sis 2:7 in the widely used King
James Version of the Bible is
nephesh. Nephesh
designates tem–
porary physical life.
lt
means a liv–
ing, breathing creature. This is the
same word
used frequently in the
first chapter of Genesis and else–
where in reference to
animals.
Notice, for example, Genesis
1:24: "And God said, Let the earth
bring forth the living creature
[ne–
phesh
1
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
Old Testament for "soul. " In bíbli–
ca) 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 ref–
erence to a
dead body!
Nephesh
clearly has
nothing
whatsoever
to do with any sort of
spirit essence. The soul is nota sepa-
30
rate entity from the body.
lt
is
the
body! Man
is
a
nephesh.
He
is
a
soul!
Many additional Old Testament
scriptures reveal clearly the
mortali–
ty-not
the immortality-of the
soul. Ezekiel 18:4, 20, for example,
declares that a soul can
die!
Read it
for yourself: "The soul that sinneth,
it shall
die."
If
the soul were immor–
tal , how could it die? lt's a direct
contradiction of terms!
No wonder Jewish scholars today
have to point to Plato as the origin of
the immortal soul doctrine!
The New Test ament Speaks
What about the New Testament?
Surely here we find biblical proof
for an immortal soul. Or do we?
In the New Testament, "soul" is
a translation of the Greek word
psuche. Psuche
is the equivalent of
the Hebrew word
nephesh.
Like
nephesh, psuche
is frequently ren–
dered "life" in addition to "soul."
Psuche
is twice used in the New
Testament for the lower animals,
exactly in the same way as the
Hebrew
nephesh
can refer to the
life of animals. In these two scrip–
tures (Rev. 8:9 and 16:3),
psuche
is
rendered "life" and "soul' respec–
tively, with reference to the life of
sea creatures.
The word
psuche
has no conno–
tation whatsoever of "spirit es–
sence" or "immortal soul "!
Jesus Christ, in fact, declared
that God is able to
destroy
one's
soul (Greek
psuche,
or life) in
gehenna fire (Matt. 10:28).
The words
immortal sou/
are .
found nowhere in the Bible- Old
Testament or New. The word
immortal
occurs
only once
in the
enti re Bible-in 1 Timothy 1:17,
where it refers specifically to
Jesus
Christ!
The word
immortality
is found
only in the New Testament , where it
occurs fewer than half a dozen times.
One of those places- I Timothy
6: 16-clearly states that , of all
humans, Jesus Christ
"ONL Y
hath
immortality"! Romans 2:7 admon–
ishes Christians to
"sEEK FOR ...
immortality."
If
man already had
immortality, he would not have to
seek
for it!
1 Corinthians 15-the "resur–
rection chapter" of the Bible–
shows that a Christian "puts on"
immortality ata future resurrection
of the dead (see verses 50-54).
As Jesus clearly stated: "That
which is boro of the flesh
is
flesh;
and that which is boro of the Spirit
is
spirit" (John 3:6). Man-boro of the
flesh- is flesh. He was not created
with inherent immortality. He has
only a temporary physiochemical
existence. " For dust thou
art,
and
unto dust
shalt thou returo," God
told Adam (Gen. 3:19).
Only when mortal man is " boro
again" in a future resurrection will
he finally put on immortality and
be
spi rit! Why would a resurrection of
the body be needed if the soul were
already in heaven? The soul does not
go to heaven! The mortal sou1-
man's physical life-dies and turos
to
dust!
(Wr ite for our free publica–
tions
Just What Do You Mean–
Born Again?
and
The Three Resur–
rections
for more about this much–
misunderstood subject.)
The New Testament , then,
teaches
the resurrection-a
r ising
from the dead-in direct opposi–
t ion to the pagan Greek idea of an
immortal soul. The resurrection is
our only hope of eteroal life! Jesus
Christ's resurrection was a type or
forerunner of the resurrection God
promises to all who obey him (John
5:28-29; 11 :25; Rom. 8:11; Phi l.
3:10-1 1).
Man has no hope of future life
inherent
within himself!
The "Sp l rlt in Man "
Now und ers tand an additional
basic truth. Few have ever grasped
it.
Since man's mater ial "soul"–
his body and its physical life pro–
cesses-are corruptible and perish
after death,
how
is it possible for
God to ultimately resurrect an indi–
vidual?
If
everything is physical
and turns to dust, what is there that
remains of a person to be "brought
back"?
How
are his personality, his
memory, and his character
pre–
served
by God until a day of resur–
rection?
The answer is simply that
not
everything
about a man is physical!
The Bible calls this nonphysical
component the "spirit [Hebrew
ruach ,
Greek
pneuma]
in man"
(Job 32:8; Zech. 12:1; ICor. 2:11).
It
is not
the
man. l t is
in
man.
(Continued on page 44)
The
PLAIN TRUTH