In this study I'm showing you a lot of information and I hope you don't think I'm being too repetitive. I hope you will realize that the bible is loaded with evidence to back my claims up and perhaps this will inspire within you an even greater love for studying scripture than you already have.
Please read Part 1 and Part 2 first if you haven't already. In those parts I asked that you pray for the Holy Spirit to be with you and to guide your understanding of the truth and I hope you'll do the same before reading this as well. As Christians we always want to be open to a better understanding of scripture. My prayer is that you find this study to be edifying.
After you finish this installment you can access Part 4 here.
Does the bible say people have souls? No actually it says people are souls. In Genesis it says God made Adam's physical body then breathed life into him. At that point he wasn't given a soul; it says he became a 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.
So a soul isn't a disembodied consciousness. Here is the formula for what a soul is:
A physical body + breath = a soul.
The word soul is used to describe living people dozens upon dozens of times in the Old Testament. Here are a couple of examples but there are many, many more to be found if you search:
Genesis 46:26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six;
Leviticus 7:27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
Did you know the original Greek word for soul from the New Testament is psyche. You can look it up in Strongs Concordance, listed as word G5590. In case you don't know, Strongs concordance is a listing of the English words in the bible telling you what the original Hebrew (from the Old Testament) or Greek (from the New Testament) words are. The Greek word psyche was translated as soul 58 times in the New Testament but was also translated as life 40 times. Nowadays we think of "psyche" as the mind or consciousness but that's not what it meant originally. Here are two examples of psyche translated as soul:
Acts 2:41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls [psyche].
...
Act 2:43 And fear came upon every soul [psyche] : and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
Now here are two examples where psyche is translated as life. Both of these examples are about Jesus living up His life for us.
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life [psyche] a ransom for many.
1 John 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life [psyche] for us: and we ought to lay down our lives [psyche] for the brethren.
Now think about it; if psyche in Greek meant your consciousness or mind, then Mark 10:35 would basically be saying Jesus only lost consciousness for us, yet we know He died. So again, just as Genesis 2:7 tells us, a soul is a living being. And once again the formula for that is a physical body + breath = a soul.
Now let's talk about the words spirit and ghost. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word Gava means to die. Gava is translated into English fourteen times as die, dead or perish. Nine times in the Old Testament the word gava was translated as the phrase "gave/give/yield up the ghost" and each time it meant someone died.
Now the word for spirit is a little bit tricky because the same word has slightly different meanings based on the context. The Hebrew word is ruwach and it means breath or wind but it's translated as spirit 232 times.
Here is the first time the word spirit is in the bible:
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit [ruwach] of God moved upon the face of the waters.
In this case the Spirit is an unseen force which moves or causes things to happen. God "breathes" then the Spirit moves. In Exodus at God's command the wind parted the Red Sea, so the wind was the breath or spirit of God:
Exodus 14:21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind [ruwach] all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
What the Hebrews did in scripture was use the word spirit to symbolically describe what motivates or drives things, or in other words the spirit is what sets things in motion. The spirit of anger is the unseen force which drives anger in a man. Likewise the spirit can be that internal desire which drives a man to seek the Lord. Here are examples of each of those things:
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit [ruwach] to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit [ruwach] within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
When Paul talks about being absent in body, but present in spirit with his brethren in both 1 Corinthians 5:3 and Colossians 2:5 he is simply saying though he isn't with them physically the same "unseen force" is moving them all closer unity with God.
As Christians we know Satan and his other fallen angels (better known as demons, or devils as the King James Version calls them) are also capable of moving people to commit evil deeds. They are supernatural, unseen forces therefore the Hebrews also symbolically referred to them as "spirits". Demons possess supernatural powers that we don't exhibit. They are invisible conscious entities in the sense we typically think of spirits but again they are supernatural and we aren't. If you recall, at the end of Part 2 of this study I posted several scriptures where we are told when people are dead they have no conscious thoughts at all. When a man dies no spirit lives on.
Finally sometimes spirit simply means breath and nothing else. It depends on the context. Here are some examples where ruwach is simply the breath in your lungs. This first one is in reference to the people and animals who were caught up in the great worldwide flood during the time of Noah:
Lamentations 4:20 The breath [ruwach] of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
Psalm 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath [ruwach] , they die, and return to their dust.
Did you notice in that last verse when people breathe their last breath, they die. A popular verse used to convince people that we have disembodied spirits which go strait to heaven is Ecclesiastes 12:7. Read it below, then compare it with Psalm 104:29.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit [ruwach] shall return unto God who gave it.
The "spirit" in this case is your breath. When you cease to breathe you die. As we've already established, the dead have no conscious thoughts so it is the breath of life that returns to God, not a disembodied consciousness. And here is a point to ponder; another word for breathe is respirate. Break down the word respirate and it means to be re-spirited or to re-breathe.
This is why I always say we should study scripture the way Isaiah 28:10 tells us to; "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." We must let the bible set the rules/precepts and we must read things in context. If the bible teaches that spirit can mean breath in some cases, so be it. And we must remember one verse or passage doesn't always reveal the whole truth. All these verses I'm showing you, they are bits (here a little) and pieces (and there a little) of truth found scattered throughout the bible.
The prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37 of his book spoke of the resurrection of the dead which John also prophesied of in Revelation chapter 20. Here's a excerpt:
Ezekiel 37:5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath [ruwach] to enter into you, and ye shall live:
Ezekiel 37:6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath [ruwach] in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Again it shows that without breath they are dead. Given breath they live and then they "shall know" God is the Lord. This is another illustration that the dead aren't alive as spirits in heaven, it's not until their physical bodies are restored that they can know who their God is because the bible assures us "the dead know not any thing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).
Ruwach was the Hebrew word for spirit. The Greek word is Pneuma (Strongs Concordance word G4151) which where we get the English word pheumo which refers to the lungs. It also translates as spirit and ghost. When it says Jesus gave up the ghost in Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46 it means He stopped breathing. In the 400 years since the translators of the King James Version chose to use that word, Satan has managed to convince the world that "ghost" means disembodied conscious spirit or soul. It's one of Satan's most successful deceptions.
In fact the belief that people have immortal souls is simply a continuation of the first lie ever recorded in the bible. Who spoke that lie? Satan did, in the form of a serpent. The first lie he ever told to a human is still believed by humans all over the world to this day. Eve said God warned Adam that if they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die (Genesis 2:17). And the first lie the serpent told Eve was this:
Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
And to this day people believe we never truly die. They think we are born with immortal souls that that live on for all eternity in heaven or hell as conscious spirits. But the bible tells us ONLY the saved will be given immortality, that they will never die once Jesus returns to claim His bride. Then and only then is death defeated (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). On the other hand scripture assures us that the unsaved will die in the lake of fire. How can that be if they if their souls are immortal from birth? Click here to see the biblical proof the wicked will die in those flames never to rise again. There's a reason Revelation calls it the second death.
So far I think of covered this subject quite thoroughly but there are still three major things I want to address before I'm finished.
I'll save those questions for Part 4, which will be the final part of this study.
I'm grateful to you for taking the time to read this. Hope you've found it interesting and informative so far. Until next time please continue to the let the word of Christ dwell richly within you in all wisdom.
God Bless.
Please read Part 1 and Part 2 first if you haven't already. In those parts I asked that you pray for the Holy Spirit to be with you and to guide your understanding of the truth and I hope you'll do the same before reading this as well. As Christians we always want to be open to a better understanding of scripture. My prayer is that you find this study to be edifying.
After you finish this installment you can access Part 4 here.
Does the bible say people have souls? No actually it says people are souls. In Genesis it says God made Adam's physical body then breathed life into him. At that point he wasn't given a soul; it says he became a 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.
So a soul isn't a disembodied consciousness. Here is the formula for what a soul is:
A physical body + breath = a soul.
The word soul is used to describe living people dozens upon dozens of times in the Old Testament. Here are a couple of examples but there are many, many more to be found if you search:
Genesis 46:26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six;
Leviticus 7:27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
Did you know the original Greek word for soul from the New Testament is psyche. You can look it up in Strongs Concordance, listed as word G5590. In case you don't know, Strongs concordance is a listing of the English words in the bible telling you what the original Hebrew (from the Old Testament) or Greek (from the New Testament) words are. The Greek word psyche was translated as soul 58 times in the New Testament but was also translated as life 40 times. Nowadays we think of "psyche" as the mind or consciousness but that's not what it meant originally. Here are two examples of psyche translated as soul:
Acts 2:41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls [psyche].
...
Act 2:43 And fear came upon every soul [psyche] : and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
Now here are two examples where psyche is translated as life. Both of these examples are about Jesus living up His life for us.
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life [psyche] a ransom for many.
1 John 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life [psyche] for us: and we ought to lay down our lives [psyche] for the brethren.
Now think about it; if psyche in Greek meant your consciousness or mind, then Mark 10:35 would basically be saying Jesus only lost consciousness for us, yet we know He died. So again, just as Genesis 2:7 tells us, a soul is a living being. And once again the formula for that is a physical body + breath = a soul.
Now let's talk about the words spirit and ghost. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word Gava means to die. Gava is translated into English fourteen times as die, dead or perish. Nine times in the Old Testament the word gava was translated as the phrase "gave/give/yield up the ghost" and each time it meant someone died.
Now the word for spirit is a little bit tricky because the same word has slightly different meanings based on the context. The Hebrew word is ruwach and it means breath or wind but it's translated as spirit 232 times.
Here is the first time the word spirit is in the bible:
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit [ruwach] of God moved upon the face of the waters.
In this case the Spirit is an unseen force which moves or causes things to happen. God "breathes" then the Spirit moves. In Exodus at God's command the wind parted the Red Sea, so the wind was the breath or spirit of God:
Exodus 14:21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind [ruwach] all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
What the Hebrews did in scripture was use the word spirit to symbolically describe what motivates or drives things, or in other words the spirit is what sets things in motion. The spirit of anger is the unseen force which drives anger in a man. Likewise the spirit can be that internal desire which drives a man to seek the Lord. Here are examples of each of those things:
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit [ruwach] to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit [ruwach] within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
When Paul talks about being absent in body, but present in spirit with his brethren in both 1 Corinthians 5:3 and Colossians 2:5 he is simply saying though he isn't with them physically the same "unseen force" is moving them all closer unity with God.
As Christians we know Satan and his other fallen angels (better known as demons, or devils as the King James Version calls them) are also capable of moving people to commit evil deeds. They are supernatural, unseen forces therefore the Hebrews also symbolically referred to them as "spirits". Demons possess supernatural powers that we don't exhibit. They are invisible conscious entities in the sense we typically think of spirits but again they are supernatural and we aren't. If you recall, at the end of Part 2 of this study I posted several scriptures where we are told when people are dead they have no conscious thoughts at all. When a man dies no spirit lives on.
Finally sometimes spirit simply means breath and nothing else. It depends on the context. Here are some examples where ruwach is simply the breath in your lungs. This first one is in reference to the people and animals who were caught up in the great worldwide flood during the time of Noah:
Lamentations 4:20 The breath [ruwach] of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
Psalm 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath [ruwach] , they die, and return to their dust.
Did you notice in that last verse when people breathe their last breath, they die. A popular verse used to convince people that we have disembodied spirits which go strait to heaven is Ecclesiastes 12:7. Read it below, then compare it with Psalm 104:29.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit [ruwach] shall return unto God who gave it.
The "spirit" in this case is your breath. When you cease to breathe you die. As we've already established, the dead have no conscious thoughts so it is the breath of life that returns to God, not a disembodied consciousness. And here is a point to ponder; another word for breathe is respirate. Break down the word respirate and it means to be re-spirited or to re-breathe.
This is why I always say we should study scripture the way Isaiah 28:10 tells us to; "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." We must let the bible set the rules/precepts and we must read things in context. If the bible teaches that spirit can mean breath in some cases, so be it. And we must remember one verse or passage doesn't always reveal the whole truth. All these verses I'm showing you, they are bits (here a little) and pieces (and there a little) of truth found scattered throughout the bible.
The prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37 of his book spoke of the resurrection of the dead which John also prophesied of in Revelation chapter 20. Here's a excerpt:
Ezekiel 37:5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath [ruwach] to enter into you, and ye shall live:
Ezekiel 37:6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath [ruwach] in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Again it shows that without breath they are dead. Given breath they live and then they "shall know" God is the Lord. This is another illustration that the dead aren't alive as spirits in heaven, it's not until their physical bodies are restored that they can know who their God is because the bible assures us "the dead know not any thing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).
Ruwach was the Hebrew word for spirit. The Greek word is Pneuma (Strongs Concordance word G4151) which where we get the English word pheumo which refers to the lungs. It also translates as spirit and ghost. When it says Jesus gave up the ghost in Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46 it means He stopped breathing. In the 400 years since the translators of the King James Version chose to use that word, Satan has managed to convince the world that "ghost" means disembodied conscious spirit or soul. It's one of Satan's most successful deceptions.
In fact the belief that people have immortal souls is simply a continuation of the first lie ever recorded in the bible. Who spoke that lie? Satan did, in the form of a serpent. The first lie he ever told to a human is still believed by humans all over the world to this day. Eve said God warned Adam that if they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die (Genesis 2:17). And the first lie the serpent told Eve was this:
Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
And to this day people believe we never truly die. They think we are born with immortal souls that that live on for all eternity in heaven or hell as conscious spirits. But the bible tells us ONLY the saved will be given immortality, that they will never die once Jesus returns to claim His bride. Then and only then is death defeated (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). On the other hand scripture assures us that the unsaved will die in the lake of fire. How can that be if they if their souls are immortal from birth? Click here to see the biblical proof the wicked will die in those flames never to rise again. There's a reason Revelation calls it the second death.
So far I think of covered this subject quite thoroughly but there are still three major things I want to address before I'm finished.
- Paul said we will be raised with spiritual bodies because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. How can that be if we have physical bodies?
- What about the ghost or spirit of Samuel who spoke to King Saul after Samuel's death?
- What about people who claim to have near death experiences and say their "spirit" left their body and briefly went to heaven?
I'll save those questions for Part 4, which will be the final part of this study.
I'm grateful to you for taking the time to read this. Hope you've found it interesting and informative so far. Until next time please continue to the let the word of Christ dwell richly within you in all wisdom.
God Bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment