immortality of the soul

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

The teachings about the immortality of the soul have passed through a lot of criticism. An author wrote ‘the teaching of the immortal souls is ultimately drawn from the ancient Babylon’s stagnant pool of religious knowledge’. This book further state “man is a soul and not that he has a soul”. Is this what the bible teaches? No, Christ said ‘and fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul…’ (Matt. 10:28) and Job furthered by saying ‘thou has clothed me with skin and flesh and hast fenced me with bones and sinews’ (Job 10:11). These portions of the scripture clearly separate the body from the soul. If the ancient Babylon believes in this, it means they are close to the truth.

Some also claims that this teaching was manipulated to make it ‘easy for a priestly class to keep their flocks submissive and in fear of the hereafter…’ if the priestly class really did such manipulations, then they themselves were manipulated by the scriptures, for Christ said ‘…rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body…’ (See Matt. 10:28). It is because of the harm that can be done to my soul and not even my body that is what has kept me in check. For if I have no immortal soul, God will have little or no control over me seeing that harming my body ends it all in death i.e. if man is just a soul

Some sects criticizes the doctrine of immortal soul with this passage ‘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’ (Gen. 2:7). They say the combination of the body and the spirit or life-force as they defines it constitute ‘a living soul’. They also quotes (Gen 7:22). Let’s look at the phrase ‘living soul’. A living soul means a soul that can live on earth because it has a body. When God made man a living soul, it means he gave man’s soul a body. The meaning of the word living in this context is ‘adaptable’ for example Fishes lives (adapt) in water or you can say, I can’t live (adapt) in this house.

When God gave man a body, man became a living soul and when man losses that body he becomes a dead soul, dead in the sense that it can no longer live in our physical world because it has lost its physical body. Another example is ‘space-travel’, without the space suit, man can’t live in space; the space-jacket makes a man able to live or adapt in space. Our bodies isn’t us, it makes us an adaptable or living soul.

If man is just a soul, the bible would had used the word, ‘a man became a soul’ and not ‘a living soul’. The ability of a soul to reside in a body makes us able to live in this physical world.

Someone argues that souls is mortal by quoting Ezekiel 18:14 ‘...the soul that sinneth, it shall die’. What does this text mean, it means that it’s our soul that sins not our body because our body is just the cloth of our soul. And death in this context means separation from God. For example in Gen. 2:12 the bible says ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die’. God told Adam and Eve that they’ll die the very day they’ll eat of the fruit and did they die? Yes. We’ll understand what death means when we know what happened to them on that day they ate of the fruit, (Gen. 3:23…the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden…) where they enjoyed divine fellowship. Death means, being separated from God therefore a dead soul is that soul that has being eternally separated from God whether such soul still has a body or not.

A book argued that if that Lazarus’ soul was immortal, why didn’t he state where he went during the four days he was in the grave? (See John 11:38-44). The bible never recorded anything he said, not even ‘thanks’ to the one who resurrected him from the grave, if not, he would had given a strong testimony about the immortality of the soul.

OTHER EVIDENCES

1.    ‘And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise’ Luke 23:43. These were the words of Jesus on the cross of Calvary to one of the robbers on the cross, nailed together with Him. If his soul was mortal, why would Christ say ‘today thou shalt be with me in paradise’ if dying means the end of existence for him? It is because he has an immortal soul. Take note that many have tried to edit that scripture to suit their false teachings and others have proposed that God didn’t mean to use the word ‘today’ a 24 hours day but a thousand years day, but my question to those people is, when God said He’ll resurrect after 3 days, did He meant 3thousand years’ time or 3 literal days’ time? And I got no reply. God speaks to prophets in prophetic language and speaks to ordinary men in the language of the ordinary mean, He meant a 24 hour day.

2.    When Lazarus died, he was ‘carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom’ where he was comforted (Luke 16:22) can you comfort a dead body? No, but because though Lazarus’ body is dead yet he exists. Read 1samuel 28

3.    Have you heard about ‘soul travel’? An act practiced by spiritist and other devilish sects. Although is evil, but it’s a proof that the body is not a soul seeing that the soul moves away from the body while this act is being practiced and the body remains lifeless till the soul is returned to it.

4.    Occultist and witches etc. evokes the souls of the people in other to cause them harm, although the bible condemns this acts yet it’s a proof. If a man doesn’t have a body that’s separate from his soul, then how does witches harm people from distance, using voodoo, magic glass, attacks in the dreams etc.

5.    Christ on the day He died on the cross of Calvary went to preach to souls of the dead that didn’t heard the gospel and the souls who believed in Him during this period He was preaching to them resurrected with Him and ascended into heaven (see John 5:28,  Mt 27:53 and 1Pe 3:19)

Death is the separation of the soul from God and also the separation of a man from his body.

Now the question, where does a soul go to at death?

The soul of the righteous goes to Abraham’s bosom or paradise (Luke 23:43, 2Cor. 5:6 : 2Cor 12:4) while that of sinners go to hell (Luke 16:23). They remain there till the resurrection day (Daniel 12:2) then the resurrected bodies (the soul would put back their bodies) of the saint would go to heaven for 7 years and then return back on earth to stay a thousand years while the resurrected bodies of the sinners would be cast into the lake of fire where they’ll burn for ever and ever, and there would be no separation of the bodies and soul again.

Your soul can feel, taste, speak and hear (Luke 16:19-31). If you die today, where would your soul go to?