Sunday, July 3, 2016

Ezekiel 18

"...The soul who sins shall die...For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,' says the Lord God. 'Therefore turn and live!'” vv.4,32

Read chapter 18
Is the soul mortal or immortal?  Seems like some marvel movie about the character that can never die- the immortal soul.  As silly as it is in movies we know that it's appointed once for everyone to die (Heb. 9:27), in reality many believe that the soul is immortal.  They'd say this when someone dies that they go somewhere else, referring to the soul.  But this verse clearly shows that not just the body dies, but the soul dies too.  We are all sinners, so we will all die for "the soul who sins shall die." Notice it's "who" and not "that."  
Our body, which is a living soul, returns to dust from where we came when we die. Ecclesiastes 12:7 "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it."  (There is a difference between spirit and soul.)   

There is no detachable part of man that survives physical death. The Bible states nothing of the immortality of a detached and independent soul, or of our future state as one of disembodied blessedness. The idea that the soul is a detachable part or substance, capable of existing independently of the body, is an idea adopted from Greek philosophy and incorporated into Christian thought by the so-called church fathers. This started in the third century and was fully developed by the thirteenth century. The Reformation did nothing to clear this up; so today in Reformed Theology, we find a mixture of Greek and Biblical ideas, with the Greek ideas predominating.  Bible Teacher Otis Q. Sellers 
Only God is immortal.  1 Timothy 6:16 "who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen."
The Lord even says He has no pleasure in the death of the one who dies.  We see Jesus cry at the death of Lazarus (John 11), so why do we think God is happy when someone dies?  Is it because we believe something false to make us feel good?  Since the beginning when Adam and Eve sinned death was the punishment of their sin, and it still is today.  Death is not a reward.  Death will one day be done away with (Rev. 20:14).  It's a hard truth to accept this at first.  Study the scriptures on soul.  Can you find one verse that proves the immortality of the soul?

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