DEATH - HELL - IMMORTALITY #1 TECHNICAL STUDY

 

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......" 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