THE DEAD SOUL

THE DEAD SOUL

One day, early in my years of being a Pastor, I started to study about the Soul of Man-- what it is, etc. I'm not sure I like what I found. Sometimes Truth can be disturbing.

First thing I found was that the soul of mankind came into being by God breathing into the body He had formed from the dust of the earth. The combination of the earthy body and the Breath of Life created a LIVING SOUL.

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.

Next, I discovered that the Lord promised DEATH on the day the man and his wife should eat of the forbidden tree.

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

THEY DID EAT-- choosing to trust their own judgment rather than the judgment and command of God. The serpent had told them the FIRST LIE "Thou shalt not die." Adam lived in his physical body for more than 900 years after eating from the "tree" which had been forbidden.

I discovered that the "DEATH" which God had warned them about was not primarily a PHYSICAL death, but a death of another type.

Further study revealed to me that the SOULS of all mankind who are not within the shelter of Jesus, the Christ of God, are called "dead" in scripture.

To illustrate what happened at Eden, Evangelist C.W. Phileo in 1945, gave us an object lesson. He had me go out to a peach tree during service, and cut off a twig. He then asked us if we would class the twig as being dead or alive. It was fresh. It was beautiful and green. But he brought home a powerful lesson on the only source of life was for the twig to remain attached to the parent tree.

The soul that is not attached to God through Jesus is DEAD. The SOULS of Adam and Eve were CUT OFF from God when they rebelled. Their souls were DEAD from that moment on, even though they were physically still alive, and lived for a long time after that.

Of course, there were many cataclysmic changes took place when the man and his wife disobeyed God's orders. Suddenly, there were creatures of prey, and their victim species were terrified at their presence. Mankind was robbed of its instinct, and given another one. The list could go on.

In the mid-forties, we had to rely on Robert Young's Analytical Concordance or Strong's Exhaustive for an in-depth study of any part of the Bible. I had a Young's, and nearly wore it out studying various subjects. Now, a touch of the finger brings up more than I could dig out in hours of searching back the then. Thank God for what computers can do.

But, in all my poring over the original texts and the translations, I could not, (nor can I now) find any reference to the soul of man being immortal, or "never-dieing", as it is often described by people who seem to know. Maybe some of you can help me find where it is described as being immortal.

What I did find, in history, was that the idea of the soul being immortal came originally from the people who taught and believed in "transmigration of the soul", or, as we know it today, "re-incarnation". It was popularized by the Greek philosopher Plato and others like him.

The medieval Church (the Papacy) incorporated it into the curriculum , because it served their purposes of fear and intimidation so very well. Fear of excommunication was paralyzing to people who were ignorant of the Word of God, and steeped in the traditions of unregenerate men. The Church did not, however, teach "transmigration of the soul" as others had done. Purgatory and Limbo served very well to give them power over even the dead people.

I found, also, that every living creature was considered a "soul" in scripture, and every creature was destined to die. Righteous men die, the same as the unrighteous. Jesus told the folks to not fear physical death, but rather to fear Him who was able to destroy (I studied that word also) both the body and the soul.

Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.