Death, Hell and Immortality
What the Bible teaches on the subject of what happens to us at death
From the book "Life and Immortality" by Basil Atkinson, M.A.,
PhD. With some added comments by Keith Hunt.
INTRODUCTION
".......In the sections that follow I have sought to use
positive arguments drawn from Scripture only and to examine as
far as possible all relevant scriptural material.....We will ask
ourselves the following questions. If man's consciousness is
carried by an invisible part of him which survives, how is it
that unconsciousness can supervene from a physical accident such
as a blow on the head? Should we not reasonably have supposed it
to continue unaffected by sleep, accident, or any physical cause?
If the godly are in a conscious disembodied state of bliss after
death but before resurrection, how is it that there is no hint of
recollection of it by the half dozen or so persons whose
resurrection to life on earth is described for us in the Bible?
If the godly dead are now in a state of perfect satisfaction and
bliss, what is the object of their resurrection?
If the ungodly are in conscious misery for eternity and above all
if they continue in increasing sin for eternity, how can be
believe the apostle's supreme declaration in 1 Corinthians 15:28
that God will be all in all without narrowing its scope and
distorting its meaning?.....Finally I would ask all who are
interested and especially any who remain unconvinced by the
arguments of the sections that follow or feel doubts over them to
look up carefully the references given and earnestly and honestly
to search the Scriptures to see whether these things are
so......at the same time to remember that God speaks of Himself
as the One "who only hath immortality" (1 Tim.6:16), words
which language forbids us to interpret as the ONE Who only has
no beginning, but as the One Who alone has natural immortality
in Himself....."
THE NATURE OF MAN
"As we cannot understand what the Bible reveals about
immortality and a future life until we discover the nature of
death, so we cannot understand what it teaches about the meaning
of death until we first obtain a clear idea of the nature of
man.....We must go to the Scriptures and seek to read them
without the intrusion, as far as possible, of any preconceived
ideas, in the light of the Holy Spirit's guidance. If we are
given grace to do this we can be assured of finding the truth. No
one who believes that the Scriptures are God's Word written can
believe that they can be inconsistent with themselves. Thus
humble study and research must reveal a clear and consistent
teaching on any subject....into which we are led to search. It is
evident that the Scriptures must be clear and not confusing.
The Creation of Man
It seems clear that our starting point should be the account
of the creation of man at the beginning of the Bible....for this
enquiry the best starting point will be Genesis 2:7, where we
read, '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.' A frequent interpretation of this verse is that it
describes how man was made in the image of God by being given
an immortal soul in contradistinction from the animals......In a
moment we will examine the verse closely and show, we hope,
that taken by itself it cannot bear such a meaning. Meanwhile let us
look at the word translated 'soul' , the great Hebrew word
NEPHESH......We find it in Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, and 30. In all
four verses the word refers to animals.....These verses show us
that the fish and seas- monsters (v.20,21) are souls, as are the
cattle, reptiles and other beasts (v.24). In verse 30 the land
animals and birds are spoken of as each having within them a
living soul.....The same expressions are used of men.....Both men
and animals ARE souls. They are not bipartite creatures
consisting of a soul and a body which can be separate and go on
subsisting. Their soul is the whole of them and comprises their
body as well as their mental powers. They are spoken of as
HAVING a soul, that is, conscious being, to distinguish them from
inanimate objects that have no life. In the same way we can say
in english that a man or an animal IS a conscious being and
HAS conscious being.
Animals and Souls
In addition to the four passages that we have looked at in
genesis 1 there are NINETEEN passages in the OT (Old Testament)
and ONE in the NT (New Testament) which use the word
NEPHESH or its Greek equivalent in connexion with animals.....
Of these nineteen passages FOURTEEN describe animals as souls
(Heb. nephesh), and FIVE are of peculiar interest. Thus we have
in Lev.17:11, 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood.' 'Life' is the
translation of the Hebrew NEPHESH, so that the passage reads,
'the SOUL of the flesh is in the blood.' In the same chapter and the
fourteenth verse we read, 'For it (that is, the blood) is the life of all
flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof....for the life of all flesh
is the blood thereof.' In each case the word 'life' is the translation
of the Hebrew NEPHESH,so the passage reads, 'For the blood is the
SOUL of all flesh; the blood of it is the SOUL.....the SOUL of
all flesh is the blood.' The expression 'all flesh' leads us to
conclude that these references to blood comprise both man and
animals.....Soul and blood are identical.....Fifth and lastly we
find in Job 41:21, where Leviathan is being described.....the
words, 'His breath kindleth coals.' The word 'breath' is the
translation of the Hebrew NEPHESH......
The Image of God
We have thus seen that the animals are spoken of in
Scripture as being SOULS and as HAVING a soul, but few will
suppose that this fact in the case of the animals carries with it
IMMORTALITY.....the psalmist tell us that, though man was in
a position of honour at the time of his creation, he has become
like the PERISHING beast (Ps.49: 12, 20). There is therefore an
natural deduction that the possession of a soul or conscious
being, by man, which resides in his blood, cannot carry
immortality with it either, unless we have some direct word to
the contrary. No such word is forthcoming in the Scripture. But
is not man made in the image of God? Indeed he is (Gen.1: 26, 27)
and in this respect differs supremely from the animals. But there
is NO MENTION of IMMORTALITY in connection with the
image.....There is nothing in the fact that man is made in the
image of God that should lead us to suppose that he is possessed
of a NATURAL immortality. On the contrary there is MUCH in
Scripture to DENY it, as we shall see.
Man a Living Soul
Man is described as a soul by the Hebrew word NEPHESH and
the corresponding Greek word about a HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO
times in the OT and about SIXTEEN times in the New. This and other
uses of the word have so confused our translators that it is translated
in FIFTY-FIVE DIFFERENT ways in the OT alone. It would be a waste
of space to give a list of all the passages where a person is referred
to by the word nephesh as they can be found in any Concordance which
gives the original words, but a few are as follows: Gen.17:14; four
times in Ex.12; Lev.7:27 (twice); Num.19:18 Deut.27:25 (where it is
important to notice that Moses speaks of 'slaying an innocent soul'
(Hebrew nephesh, translated 'person')). To continue the list we find
the same reference and meaning seven times in Joshua 10 (all translated
'souls'); in 1 Sam.22:22; 2 Kings 12:4; Isa.58:10 (the second occurrence
of the word 'soul'); Jer.38:16 (a pointed and meaningful use);
Ezek.22:27 (where shedding blood is the same thing as 'destroying
'souls' ); Prov.19:15; 1 Chron.5:21.
In connection with this use of the word nephesh the following
passages, all but one in the Pentateuch, are of great importance and
significance. About thirteen times a DEAD person is referred to as
a dead soul, translated 'dead' or 'dead body.'
We shall be treating these passages in our second section, but it
seems desirable to list them here. They are Lev.19:28; 21:1, 11;
22: 4; Num. 5:2; 6: 6, 11; 9: 6, 7, 10; 19: 11, 13; Haggai
2:3. Thus the Bible speaks of human death, which is so common
in the experience of us all, as the DEATH of the SOUL.
The Soul of Man
We have now found that the Scripture conclusively teaches
that a human being IS a soul in the same sense in which an
animal, a bird, or even a fish, is a soul.....At this point we
have to remember that we too in English may refer to a person
as a soul. If anyone arouses our pity we may say, 'Poor soul!'
We may talk of a person of beautiful character as a lovely
soul.....Now this use in English of the word 'soul' to mean a
person does not in any way interfere with the more normal and
what we might call the THEOLOGICAL USE of the word to mean
an immaterial part of a human being that can subsist apart from his
body, and the question may well have arisen in the minds of some
of our readers whether this cannot be true of the Hebrew word
nephesh also. There are other uses of nephesh which we will
proceed to examine, but nowhere in the Bible is there a passage
in which this word or its Greek equivalent is used in the
accepted theological sense of the word 'soul' today.....
Frequent Weak Sense of Nephesh
The next use of nephesh that we shall look at is the most
FREQUENT of all. It is what we might call the weak use. Thus
'my (thy,his) nephesh,' as the case may be, is equivalent to 'I,'
'thou,' or 'he.' It may be used with a proper name such as
'David's nephesh' meaning david or David himself. Examples are
very numerous. The word is used in this sense about TWO
HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-ONE times in the OT. Examples are
to be found in Gen.27: 19, 'sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul
may bless me' ; Ex.15: 9, 'my lust (Heb.nephesh, that is, I) shall
be satisfied upon them' ; Lev.16: 29, 'ye shall afflict your
souls (that is yourselves)' ; 'these sinners against their own
souls (that is, themselves)' (Num.16: 38); Deut.14:26, 'what
soever thy soul lusteth after' ; we notice here that what the
soul (that is, the person himself) desires is oxen, sheep, wine,
or strong drink; Josh.2: 13, 'deliver our lives (Heb.nephesh,
meaning us) from death' ; Judges 16: 16, 'his soul (that is, he)
was vexed unto death' .......
This usage of nephesh, 'my (thy) soul,' etc., for 'myself,'
etc., has so engrained itself into the Hebrew language that it is
used when speaking of the LORD GOD HIMSELF......Its use in
Isaiah 5: 14 is very striking and singular. The verse reads,
'Therefore hell (that is, sh'ol, the grave) has enlarged herself'
(Heb.naphesh, her soul). This instance is enough to prove how
UNEMPHATIC the word nephesh is in the phrase and that it is
simply equivalent to a pronoun......
It is true that we could take a MINORITY of cases of this
phrase in the PRESENT-DAY theological sense provided we
READ INTO the word nephesh a conception that we do not find
in it elsewhere in Scripture, but they can be taken AS WELL in the
sense of the MAJORITY of instances, in which it is quite plain that the
nephesh can only mean the PERSON as a WHOLE. This being so our
faith in the consistency of Scripture and the principle of interpreting
it by itself, oblige us to take them CONSISTENTLY in the sense
of the MAJORITY.
The Soul and the Emotions
There are about a HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX passages in
the OT in which the soul (Heb.nephesh) is especially connected with
the desires or emotions. This usage arises out of the weak use of
nephesh which we have just treated and many cases are on the
boarder-line. Except that they deal with desires or emotions they
could well be placed among the passages where nephesh means 'I'
etc., or 'myself' etc. In fact we can add about fifty-four
instances to that usage of the word, such as Genesis 34: 8;
1 Samuel 2: 16; 23: 20 and possibly 30: 6, four cases in Isaiah,
five in Jeremiah, six in Ezekiel, three in the Minor Prophets, eleven
in the Psalms, five in Proverbs, four in Job and six in the Song of
Solomon. These last six all consist of the expression 'My soul loveth.'
Among these instances are one which refers to an animal (Jer.2: 24)
and three which refer to God (Jer. 12: 7; 15: 1; Ezek. 23: 18)......
.....about twenty-two instances in which the word 'soul' is
added to the word 'heart' in such expressions as 'with all thy
heart and with all thy soul' (nephesh). In the combination of
HEART and SOUL we see we see the combination of
CONSCIENCE and WILL (heart) with conscience BEING
(soul - nephesh)......The people are called upon with all their heart
and soul to seek the Lord (Deut.6: 5; 13: 3; 30: 6), to serve Him
(Deut.10: 12; 11: 13; Josh.22: 5; 1 Chron.28: 9), to lay up His words
(Deut.11: 18).....All of these engage the conscience, but some also the
emotions, the memory and faculty of knowledge. There is NOTHING
in these examples to lead us to the idea of an IMMATERIAL PART of
a human being carrying his personality and consciousness and able to
SURVIVE his death.
We have seen that the nephesh DIES when the BODY (which is
part of it) dies......None of these....say a word about IMMORTALITY
or LIFE beyond death.....this concentration of the word nephesh on
the mind and emotions is a natural and intelligible use.
Mind and Feelings
We must now look carefully at the remaining examples of
nephesh which emphasises the MIND and the FEELINGS as opposed
to the whole man. They number about fifty and may be divided into
nine sections. (1) We find the nephesh to be the organ of resolve
or determination: 'If it be your mind that I should bury my dead'
(Gen.23: 8).....(2) The nephesh is spoken of as the seat of
feelings in general. Thus: 'for you know the heart of a stranger'
(Ex.23: 9).....(3) There are about fifteen examples the nephesh
as the seat of sorrow, the Hebrew often using the phrase
'bitter of soul'.....
Of course there are is an outer and an inner side of man,
but no word is said in Scripture here or elsewhere about the
IMMORTALITY of the latter. The soul is thought of as being
'within' man in contrast to his 'flesh' in the same way as is the
soul or nephesh of an animal. Those who keep, love and study
a dog or cat can of course see the flesh and by means of it
communicate with its little happy affectionate childlike mind,
but do they not often say, 'I wish I knew what was passing in his
little mind'? Because the dog has teeth and a stomach it can eat
its food, but it is because it has a nephesh that it can enjoy it
- and miss it when it does not get it.
(4) There are about eighteen cases in the OT in which the
nephesh is spoken of as the seat of desire. There are four in
Deuteronomy including the desire to eat grapes (Deut.23: 24)
and the desire for wages (Deut.24: 15).....(5) Another emotion
the seat of which is the nephesh is anger, of which there are four
examples to be found in Judges 18: 25; 2 Samuel 17: 8; Ezekiel
25: 15 and 36: 5.....(6) An interesting example is found in
1 Samuel 1: 15, where Hannah says, 'I....have poured out my soul
before the Lord.' She is referring to her fervent prayer, but the
words might equally well be an example of the weak use, 'my soul'
meaning 'myself.' The passage stands on the boarder line. (7) A
doubly interesting passage occurs in 1 Samuel 2: 35, where
nephesh (translated 'mind') is shown to be the cradle of PURPOSE,
the purpose being that of the Lord Himself: 'And I will raise me
up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in
mine heart and in my mind.' (8) There are two passages in which
the emotion which rises in the nephesh is joy. They are Ezekiel
25: 6 and Proverbs 16: 24. (9) Lastly we have a very interesting
example from Proverbs 27: 9, where the nephesh is seen to be the
origin of the counsel or advice. 'Hearty counsel' in that verse
is in Hebrew 'counsel from the soul.'
The Nephesh in Life and Death
There are about a HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE passages
in the OT in which the meaning of nephesh slides lightly into that
of LIFE and is sometimes best translated in English by the word 'life.'
Clearly we cannot list the whole, but we will select some examples
at random.....Ex.21: 30, 'he shall give for the ransom of his life
whatsoever is laid upon him,' that is, for the ransom of his soul or
himself.....Deut.19: 6, 'Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer...
and slay him' (Heb.'slay him in soul').
Notice that the avenger kills the soul.....1 Samuel 28: 9,
'wherefore then lay you a snare for my life, to cause me to die?'
The Hebrew says, 'a snare for my soul (nephesh).' Notice the
woman expects the death of her soul.....Jonah 2: 5, 'The waters
compassed me about, even to the soul,' that is, my life was
almost gone and I was almost drowned. Jonah expected to loose his
soul, that is, himself, by drowning.....
Among those passages in which nephesh occurs with the
emphasis upon LIFE and DEATH, of which the above are examples,
there are half a dozen which need CAREFUL examination.
The FIRST is in 1 Kings 17: 21,22, part of the story of the
raising to life of the widow's sone at Zarephath by Elijah the
prophet. There we read: 'And he stretched himself upon the child
three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I
pray you, let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord
heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into
him again, and he revived.'
Now this may be the VERY TEXT for which some of our readers
will have been looking. If we were to take it in ISOLATION, we
could take it to mean that the soul leaves the body at death and
was in this instance recalled by Elijah's prayer....First,
neither here nor elsewhere in the Bible is anything said about
IMMORTALITY in connection with the soul. Secondly, of hundreds
of occurrences of the word nephesh this is the ONLY one that permits
us to think along such lines, lines that are in open CONTRADICTION
to the only conclusion that can be drawn from a great many other
occurrences of the word. Thirdly, if we look in the margin of our
Bibles we shall find that the Hebrew original= of the last words of
verse 21 reads, 'let this child's soul come into his INWARD part again.'
This puts a different construction on the passage. The soul does not here
return to the body. It returns to the child's inward parts, those parts which
are the seat of the emotions and thoughts, which we have already seen
to be associated with the nephesh. This is a perfectly intelligible way
of expressing the child's coming to life again. In any case we can see
that the writer did NOT think of the soul as being the REAL child
or carrying his personality......"
[MY COMMENT: If this passage proves the "immortality of the
soul" doctrine preached by some, then surely the child would have told
his mother and Elijah all about the after life he had experienced, be it in
heaven, or some other neutral place such as purgatory (while he waited
to see if he was going back to his body and to live as human again on
earth), and surely it would have been recorded for us so we could know
that the soul was immortal and we did "go somewhere" after the death of
the body, still thinking and reasoning and conscious of all that was going
on around the activities of our physical body. But not one word is said
that this was the fact of human life or that the child's mother and Elijah
knew and believed that this was the truth of the soul of men, that it was
immortal - Keith Hunt]
Continuing from the book by Atkinson:
" Our NEXT passage is in Isaiah 10: 18, 'it...shall consume
the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and
body.' .....The forest and the fruitful field are FIGURES for the
people and the land of the king of Assyria, about whom the
passage is speaking. The phrase 'both soul and body' is
explained in the margin as 'from the soul and even to the flesh.'
.....it refers to the death of men by fire with subsequent
burning of their corpses. This again need not be taken as a
literal prediction, but as a FIGURE OF SPEECH for the
destruction of a nation and empire taken from the burning
of a forest.
If we turn to Jonah 4: 3, we shall read Jonah's prayer,
'Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech you, my life from me.'
'Life' here is Hebrew nephesh. Jonah prays that his soul might
be taken from him. Notice that Jonah does not leave his body,
but Jonah's soul leaves HIM. The passage is similar to 1 Kings 17:
21, 22. It is quite rightly and properly translated, 'take....my
life from me.' This is exactly what it means.
There are two passages in Proverbs 28 which we ought to look
at. In verse 17 we read, 'A man that does violence to the blood
of any person (nephesh) shall flee to the pit.' Nephesh here has
its fundamental meaning of a man or person, but the phrasing is
interesting. In verse 25 we find the words, 'He that is of a
proud heart stirreth up strife.' The 'proud heart' is in Hebrew
an insatiable (or wide) soul (nephesh). This is an occurrence of
nephesh thought of as the seat of desire.
Lastly we turn to Job 33: 29, 30: 'Lo, all these things
works God oftentimes with men, to bring back his soul from the
pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.' In isolation this
text might refer to resurrection, but the preceding context, as well
as natural probability, makes it more likely that it refers to
PRESERVATION FROM DEATH. In either case we notice that
it is the soul (nephesh), the WHOLE man, that descends to the pit
of death.
Our study of the meaning of NEPHESH, the soul of man, now
comes to an end....note (1) that never once in over SEVEN HUNDRED
AND FIFTY occurrences of the word is the idea of IMMORTALITY
connected with it and (2) that from only ONE passage, 1 Kings 17:
21, 22, and that taken in ISOLATION, could we reasonably infer
that Scripture speaks of the NEPHESH as a SEPARATE ENTITY that
LEAVES the body at death. Even so, we hope that in dealing with that
passage we have shown conclusively that this CANNOT be its meaning. "
TO BE CONTINUED
Death, Hell and Immortality
What the Bible teaches on the subject of what happens to us at death
Part 1b
THE NT CORRESPONDING WORD FOR NEPHESH
We here continue with the words and study of Basil Atkinson
from his book called "Life and Immortality."
" The Greek word used in the NT which corresponds to the
Hebrew nephesh and is found representing it in quotations from
the OT is PSYCHEE.
This was the appropriate word to represent nephesh, as it
had an ancient history in the Greek language with much the same
overtones as nephesh. It was common since the HOMERIC poems,
the great epics dating perhaps from the eighth or seventh century
B.C., which were taught in the Greek schools and on which all
educated Greeks were brought up. It had like nephesh the meaning
of the life, of the whole man and of the seat of the desires and
thoughts. Occasionally it was used in the weak sense with a
proper name as an expression for the man himself, but apparently
never with a personal pronoun.
In the Homeric poems the PSYCHEE was consistently
represented as SURVIVING AFTER DEATH as a GHOST in a
shadowy world and in the thought of the fifth and fourth centuries,
culminating in the great PLATO, we find the idea of the
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL elaborated.
This last idea, connected sometimes, but by no means
generally in Greek MYTHOLOGY and PHILOSOPHY with the
word PSYCHEE, is never found belonging to the Hebrew nephesh
as we have seen. The association of psychee with it in heathenism
however, provided an opportunity for its introduction by
semi-converted heathen into Christian thought, about the turn of
the second and third centuries A.D. and for read the idea BACK
INTO the word psychee as it occurred in the NT.
When dealing with important Greek words in the NT,
especially the great THEOLOGICAL TERMS, we need always to
bear in mind that the Greek words do not bear the particular meanings
which they may have had in HEATHENISM, but always those of their
ORIGINAL HEBREW equivalents in the OT, where the ideas
originated. The link between the Hebrew of the OT and the Greek
of the NT is the great SEPTUAGINT version of the OT made at
Alexandria in the third century B.C. The translation was made by
Jews, who of course understood the meaning of the Hebrew words
and intended the Greek that they used to answer to it. Thus the
Septuagint follows the Hebrew and the NT follows the Septuagint.
The Septuagint version was not inspired, but in the providence of
God it provided a valuable LINGUISTIC LINK between the Old
and New Testaments.
Psychee and Animals
The Greek word psychee as used in the Nt follows the Hebrew
nephesh in all FIVE of its senses. It has ONE additional sense
also, which occurs only TWICE and which we shall see to be of
great interest. There is ONE occurrence where psychee is used
(in the plural) of animals: fish, whales and sea-monsters in fact.
It will be found in Rev.8: 9, 'And the third part of the creatures
which were in the sea, and had life died.' The Greek says, 'and
had souls.' 'Life' is the proper English translation, but few will
suppose that the life or souls of the fish are IMMORTAL.
This is enough to show that the word psychee does NOT
essentially carry the conception of IMMORTALITY.
Psychee and Man
There are FOURTEEN occurrences in the NT of the word
psychee meaning a human being, exactly in the same sense as the
Hebrew nephesh, FOUR of which are in quotations from the OT.
The first TWO, which appear in the same verse, are the most
important and require special examination. In Matthew 10: 28 we
read, 'And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to
kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell.' In this text we find the contrast
between soul and body which sometimes occurs in the NT, though
very seldom in the Old under the form of soul and flesh. Our text
here, taken in ISOLATION is easily capable of implying the
SURVIVAL of the soul AFTER the death of the body. And our
friends who believe that the soul survives, normally take it in this
sense. If there were any word either Old or New Testament to
connect survival or IMMORTALITY with the soul, they would
undoubtedly be right. But a careful study of the meaning of the
word 'soul' in the original language of the OT, and also as we
shall see of the New, shows that it is always connected with a
human being who is alive on earth and that ir dies or is destroyed
when death comes to him in the way that is so familiar with our
experience.
When we bear this in mind, the meaning of the Lord's words
here becomes clear.
To kill the body here means to take the present on earth.
But this does NOT KILL the soul or PERSON HIMSELF. It only
PUT HIM TO SLEEP. He is finally destroyed in the SECOND
DEATH, when his person or self is killed for ever.
All will agree that destruction in hell is the SECOND
DEATH......Parallel to this verse is the Lord's declaration that
Jairus' daughter was not DEAD but ASLEEP (Mat.9: 24). She was
ACTUALLY dead ('kill the body'), but as she was going to wake
up (in a resurrection - K. Hunt) she could rightly be said to be
asleep. In the same way all the dead will rise on the day of
judgment, so that as they now lie in their graves their souls,
that is to say, they themselves, may rightly be said not to have
been FINALLY killed or destroyed. The death which we all know
is (as we have seen) the death of the soul, but it is NOT FINAL."
[COMMENT: Jesus was talking to His disciples, then and for
those down through the centuries to follow. He was telling them
that being a Christian, having the Spirit of God and eternal life
within them, living and following His ways, would mean for some,
at times, that other humans would kill them, put them to death in the
flesh. Yet the Spirit of eternal life in them would mean they
themselves as Christian persons could not be harmed or put to
death or destroyed by any human being. They as persons would
live again, rise again, in a glorious resurrection that the whole
Bible spoke about, and that was a common theological believe
among all Jews in Jesus' day that took read their Bibles and
believed in the literal teachings that it contained. Jesus
pointed them to the one they really needed to have fearful
respect towards, the one who could raise to life and then finally
destroy the physical body and any hope of living for all
eternity, in the fires of hell, the second death spoken about in
the book of Revelation, chapter 20. You will notice Jesus said
that One could DESTROY (not keep it living) BOTH the body
and the soul. Whatever people may want to argue over as to any
natural immortality of either the body or the soul, it is clear here that
there is One who can DESTROY both the body and soul in hell.
Keith Hunt].
Continuing with Basil Atkinson's study:
"Further examples of psychee meaning 'person' are to be
found in Acts 2: 41, in Acts 3: 23 and 7: 14, both in quotations
from the OT, in 1 Peter 3: 20; 2 Peter 2: 14; Romans 2: 9; 13:
1; 1 Corinthians 15: 45 in a quotation from Genesis 2: 7;
Revelation 18: 3 in a quotation from Ezekiel 27: 13, and
Revelation 20:4.
The remaining case is Revelation 6: 9, which needs special
study.
The souls spoken of here are often thought of as DISEMBODIED
spirits of the martyrs. A difficulty lies in their STRANGE
POSITION UNDERNEATH the Altar......These verse are all symbolic,
in keeping with the whole of the Apocalypse. The key to their
meaning lies in Leviticus 17: 14, where the SOUL is identified
with the BLOOD. The passage is a PARALLEL with Genesis 4: 10,
'the voice of thy brother's BLOOD CRIES unto me from the GROUND.'
The souls are the DEAD PERSONS of the martyrs (see Numbers
5: 2 and other passages in Numbers). The souls in Revelation 20:
4 have also been occasionally taken to be DISEMBODIED spirits,
but the word emphasises the opposite. The souls of the martyrs
and the righteous are themselves restored in resurrection FROM
THE DUST OF DEATH...."
Yes, the verse in Genesis 4: 10 is a key to much of this
study. Figures of speech and personification is used extensively
throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. many times
material things are made to appear as if human. We find this in
the first chapters of the book of Proverbs and how "wisdom" is
personified as a human woman. In Ge.4: 10 the blood of Abel (as
it was spilt on the ground by his brother Cain when he slew him)
is made to appear to be human and having a voice that cries out
to God for revenge. Hence so the lives of the Christian martyrs
that had already been slain as a sacrifice to God (so the altar
is mentioned) for truth and righteousness, are made to appear as
if still alive and with one voice are crying out to the Lord for
justice and revenge to be poured out on their enemies, the
unrighteous who would kill the righteous children of God (Keith
Hunt).
Continuing with Atkinson:
Psychee meaning Self
"There are in the NT TWENTY-FOUR examples of the word
psychee used in the WEAK sense, seven of which are found in
quotations from the OT.
They are: Mat.11: 29; 12: 18; 26: 38; Mark 14: 34; Luke
1: 46; 2: 35; 12: 19 (twice); 14: 26; John 12: 27; Acts 2:
27; 31; ! Peter 1: 22; 2: 25; 4: 19; 2 Peter 2: 8; 3 John 2;
Romans 16: 4; 2 Cor. 1: 23; 1 Thes. 2: 8; Heb. 6: 19; 10: 38;
12: 4 and 13: 17.
In Mat. 12: 18 and Heb.10: 38, both quotations, the word
psychee (' my soul ') is used of God in the sense of 'I.' In 3
John 2 the health of the soul is often taken in the spiritual
sense as opposed to the health of the body, which is supposed to
be first spoken of in contrast. But we cannot force this alien
sense upon the word psychee. The verse is a prayer that the
prosperity and health which Gaius was enjoying at the moment
might continue.
Psychee as the Seat of Emotions
There are TWELVE occurrences of the use of psychee in this
sense in the NT. The first four are in the Gospels and are all
quotations from the OT, the soul being combined and contrasted
with the heart. They are: Mat.22: 37; Mark 12: 30, 33; Luke 10:
37. The remaining occurrences are as follows: Acts 4: 32; 14: 2,
22; 15: 24; Eph. 6: 6; Phil. 1: 27; Col. 3: 23; Rev. 18: 14.
The last instance is interesting. It refers to Babylon the
Great under the figure of a woman.
Just as with nephesh in the OT, though psychee in these
instances does not represent the WHOLE man but the INNER part of
him, there is no hint ANYWHERE that the psychee ALONE carries the
PERSONALITY and CONSCIOUSNESS, or that it SURVIVES the
body, or that it is IMMORTAL. It is inseparably connected with the
BLOOD (Lev.17: 14). If man possed a psychee that is IMMORTAL,
the fact is of such tremendous importance that it is INCONCEIVABLE
that we should not find it stated DIRECTLY either in the description of
the creation of man or from time to time during references to death.
Psychee in the Sense of Life
This is the most frequent sense of the word in the NT, there
being about FORTY-SIX occurrences. It will be necessary to look
at most of them, but to save space we will not quote the words of
the text, but ask the reader to turn to their Bibles. In these
references the word psychee is sometimes translated 'life' and
sometimes 'soul,' the basic meaning in each case being the person
or the self. The list of references follows:
1. Mat. 2: 20. This is quite straightforward. We notice
that, as in the OT, the soul (psychee) is put to death when the
body dies.
2 and 3. Mat. 6: 25. Here we see that the soul (psychee)
is associated with food and drink, as with the blood (Lev.17:
14), shows that it does not survive the body.
4 and 5. Mat.10: 39. Here we understand the meaning of the
word psychee (life) best if we translate it ' self .' The
contrast is between the man who lives for the pleasures of this
life and the man who lives for Christ and eternity.
Incidentally, this verse tells us that in spite of the total
change of nature at the resurrection a man still remains a PERSON
or psychee in the glory to come.
6 to 9. Mat. 16: 25, 26. The same applies here as in
numbers 4 and 5.
10. Mat. 20: 28. The same applies here.
11. Mark 3: 4. 'Life' is here quite a correct English
translation. By altering it to 'person' we shall see the
underlying meaning.
12 to 15. Mark 8: 35-37. The same applies as in numbers 4
and 5.
16. Mark 10: 45. The same applies here.
17. Luke 6: 9. The same applies here as in numbers 11.
18 and 19. Luke 9: 24. The same applies here as in numbers
4 and 5. In the following verse we find the actual substitution
both in Greek and English of 'himself' for 'his soul' or 'his
life.'
20. Luke 9: 56. Here 'men's lives' can be simply rendered
'men.'
21. Luke 12: 20. 'Life' is the correct translation. We
notice again that at death the man does not leave his body, but
his soul (psychee) leaves the man.
22 and 23. Luke 12: 22 and 23. This is identical with
numbers 2 and 3.
24. Luke 17: 33. The same applies here as in number 4.
25. Luke 21: 19. The meaning of this verse is, 'By your
endurance you will acquire possession of your souls' (psychee),
that is, of your lives or of yourselves. The verse is parallel
with Mat.24: 13.
26. John 10: 11. To lay down one's life is the same as to
give yourself.
27. John 10: 15. The same applies here.
28. John 10:17. The same applies here.
29 and 30. John 12: 25. The same applies here as in
numbers 4 and 5.
31 and 32. John 13: 37 and 38. this is parallel with
numbers 26 to 28.
33. John 15: 13. The same applies here.
34. Acts 15: 26. This is the same as numbers 26 to 28.
35. Acts 20: 10. This is exactly parallel with the use of
nephesh in 1 Kings 17: 21, 22.
36. Acts 20: 24. Here psychee is properly translated
'life.' The underlying meaning is 'self.'
37. Acts 27: 10. The same applies here.
38. Acts 27: 22. The meaning of psychee here is 'person.'
Notice that 'loss of life' in the ordinary sense means the loss
of the soul.
39. James 1: 21. 'Your soul's' mean 'you.' We may well
conclude that the salvation here spoken of is eternal salvation
from the second death.
40. James 5: 20. 'A soul' here means 'a person.' Again
the salvation is clearly eternal salvation from the second death.
41. 1 Peter 1: 9. Exactly the same applies here.
42. 1 Peter 2: 11. The soul here means the life or the
person.
43. Romans 11: 3. In this quotation from 1 Kings 19: 10,
where psychee represents nephesh, to seek my life means to seek
to kill me.
44. Philippians 2: 30. 'Life' here means 'self.'
45. Hebrews 10: 39. The same applies here. The issue here
is eternal salvation.
46. Revelation 12: 11. 'Their lives' again means
'themselves.'
Soul and Spirit
There are two important NT passages in which the word
psychee bears a SIXTH shade of meaning which does not appear in
the case of nephesh in the OT.
It appears in ! Thessalonians 5: 23 and Hebrews 4: 12 in
contrast to pneuma, spirit. In the former of these verses we
read, 'I pray God your whole spirit and soul (psychee) and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
.....The key to this verse lies in the fact that it was addressed
to believing Christians, who, while they are still in the flesh
in this world, possess two natures, the original Adamic nature
with which they were born and the new spiritual nature created
in them by regeneration. The former of these is called 'soul' and
stands for all that the nephesh stands for in the OT and for all
that psychee stands for in the NT. The body is of course the
outward visible 'flesh,' as the Hebrew of the OT would express
it."
[COMMENT: I do not find that Mr.Atkinson's explanation here
to be very helpful nor clearly expressed. The Christian certainly has
a physical body like all other physical humans. That physical body
can be misused in relation to the ways, laws, and commandments of
the Eternal God. A good example of that would be Paul's
instructions to the Corinthians regarding the use of their
physical bodies in wrong sexual practices, such as being joined
in sexual union with a prostitute or harlot (1 Cor. 6: 15-20) as
well as incest (1 Cor. 5: 1-6). The Christian is to keep himself
sanctified from such suns in his body. The soul or life of the
Christian is also to be sanctified. soul being understood as we
have seen, meaning 'life' - the life, how a Christian lives as a
way of life, actions, deeds, practices, and all that people think
about when using the expression "his/her life style." The
Christian is to have a life style that is sanctified or set apart
for the living by every word of God as Jesus taught (Mat. 4: 4).
Then the Christian has a part of themselves that the none
Christian does not have. They have the Spirit of God within and
united to their minds (Romans 8), thus a regenerated heart and
mind, that thinks and reasons in a different way than those
without the Spirit of God.
The Christian has a "spiritual mind and aspect" within them
that truly does make them a three dimension person. A whole
person if you will, of a Holy Spirit mind-set, a life (soul) and
way of living according to every word of God, and a physical
body that is the Temple of God to avoid sins with that body.
All three aspects of the Christian are to be wholly sanctified or
set apart for the glory of God, to be under the grace of God, and
hence to be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This would be a very natural thing for Paul to desire in
every Christian. We shall study the words in Hebrew and Greek
for "spirit" in part two of this subject, especially with regards
to "the spirit in man" that is unique and different from any other
creature that the Lord God created, and which some knowing
that it is not the soul of man that is immortal, claim it is the
"spirit of man" that goes on living in a walking, talking,
thinking, consciousness manner after he dies - Keith Hunt]
Back to Atkinson:
"The second text in which the same contrast is found is
Hebrews 4: 12, 'The word of God is quick and powerful and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit.'......"
[COMMENT: Again, I do not think Mr. Atkinson really explains
the basic truth of this verse as he proceeds to try to explain it. I will
leave what he says out and address it fully myself.
It is clear from the very context that Paul is using the
human body as his example "joints and marrow" and "thoughts
and intents of the heart." We must therefore I believe find the
truth of the phrase "soul and spirit" from the same context of
the human body. And indeed we so can.
Paul is saying that the word of God is so powerful and so
sharp it can cut asunder things that we as human would find in
some cases, very impossible. How do we as humans discern the
very thoughts and intents of another person's mind? So what in
the human body is the "soul and spirit"? We have seen that the
soul is the "life" of mankind, which is in the BLOOD of every
human. We shall later, in part two of this study, see that the
Hebrew and Greek words for "spirit" can also mean (and are often
translated) the "breath" of man, the "air" of man that is also a
part of him for him to be a living creation of the Lord. Without
air, wind, breath, coming into out bodies we would also die, just
as without blood circulating through our bodies we also would
die. The TWO go hand in hand. You must have BOTH! One without
the other is not good enough. BOTH air and blood are needed for
human being to live. The two MIX together so we have LIFE!
How do we as ordinary humans (without some pretty fancy
scientific equipment) see the difference or separate the two -
that is separate the "air" (breath) or "spirit" from the "blood"
or "soul" (life)?
Paul uses this probable impossibility on the human level of
doing these things with the physical body to draw his example
from. That God's living word, in fact He Himself, can divide such
matters. Those things that seem impossible to us are VERY
POSSIBLE to God, so he goes on to say in verse 13, "Neither is
there any creature that is NOT manifest in His sight: but ALL
THINGS are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom
we have to do."
The phrase here for "soul and spirit" is better understood
and translated as "life and breath" - life in the blood and the
breath of air mixed with it - Keith Hunt]
And in the words of Basil Atkinson, "Thus we reach the end
of our study of the words NEPHESH and PSYCHEE with their
contribution to our understanding of human nature......."
TO BE CONTINUED
Compiled and written May 2000
NOTE: If we will BELIEVE JESUS [as Christians should] we can
answer this question very simply----- John 3: 13; 5: 37; also John 1: 18;
1 John 4: 12. NO MAN [PERSON] HAS EVER GONE "TO HEAVEN"
to see God the Father.
But we shall continue so we can cover all aspects.
No comments:
Post a Comment