Satan's lie in Genesis 3:17..."You will not surely die", has been repeated so many times that most people just accept it as fact. They are being deceived because they want to believe the serpents lie that their soul, their immortal spiritual essence, will actually live forever after death. What does the Bible really say? Most Christians believe that when a good person dies, his or her immortal spiritual essence, immediately goes off to heaven for their eternal reward. By contrast when a sinner dies, he or she goes to the burning fires of hell for eternal punishing. This belief isn't unique to traditional Christianity. All religions believe that there is an aspect of the human person, a spirit within, that actually lives on after the physical life has ended. In general, every religion believes in some sort of immortal spiritual essence. Is this true? Does our spiritual essence, the REAL ME, really live forever somewhere as an immortal being? Considering how many theologians hang on to this "immortal" essence doctrine with such confidence, it's surprising that such an important assumption of our Christian beliefs is not actually spelled out specifically in the Bible. Should we believe a doctrine that is not found anywhere in God's Word?
In spite of widespread use of the word by virtually every Christian church for the past 1,800 years, the term immortal is never connected anywhere in Scripture with the soul. It is not really found anywhere in the entire Bible. Few people have ever stopped to ask where the belief came from. Most Christians simply assume it is found in the Bible and accept it without question. In fact, it's not a bible teaching at all and is not found anywhere in either the Old or New Testaments of the Bible. It was not taught by the apostles and the early church. The concept of an immortal spiritual essence, in us, was first espoused by Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato in the 5th and 6th centuries BC. Socrates and Plato believed that our ""BEING" live eternally. Plato believed it not only lived forever but that it existed before birth. Their teachings had a large impact on Christian religious ideas about it beginning around the 2nd century. Many of the theologians and scholars of the early Christian church, such as Tertullian and Augustine, were strongly influenced by Platonism. Over the centuries Christianity was even more influenced by these pagan Greek philosophies as this false belief really spread through the Greek and Roman world, being embraced initially by the Catholic church, and then by all Protestant churches, as actual Bible doctrine, but is it? Is our "Self", our "Being" that makes "us" actually "US", who we really are, really going to live forever with eternal life, never be able to die? Can it be destroyed? Can it be killed? Does it live forever in heaven or hell after we die? What DOES the Bible say?
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Paul makes a similar statement.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction, the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life". (Galatians 6:8. NIV)
Is God really saying something important to us? Is He just talking about our physical existance, or what really happens to us after we pass from this world? The contrast to eternal life is logically eternal death. The wages of sin for our spirit is actually eternal DEATH, not eternal life in hell. Death is the irreversible cessation of all life, not life in another form. Almost all dictionaries define death as the extinction or cessation of life or as ceasing to be. When your spirit dies, it ceases to be. It's the permanent extinction of its life!
Eternal life on the other hand is a true blessing and gift from God as a result of us accepting Jesus as our Savior and His forgiveness of our sins. Eternal Life is the opposite of death and the Scriptures say this is a gift from God. The Scripture is very clear in multiple places that our spitit can die. It is not granted the gift of eternal life in hell if we die in our sins. It REALLY DIES! When some teaching is VERY important God always repeats it more than once. He wants us to clearly understand the truth. This is what it plainly and repeatedly says!
Ezekiel 18:4,"The soul that sins shall DIE".
Eze 18:20, "The soul that sins it shall DIE".
Psalm 56:13, "For You have delivered my soul from DEATH".
Psalm 78:50, "He did not spare their soul from DEATH"
We have a choice. We can actually choose to live eternally and have an everlasting covenant with God, asking to live with Him as clearly stated in Isaiah and in Psalms.
Isaiah 55:3, "Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall LIVE; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you".
Psalm 119:175, "Let my soul LIVE, and it shall praise You".
Our spiritual self LIVING is the opposite of it DYING!
The Bible makes it clear that we can also CHOOSE permanent death, destroying our own spiritual self for eternity as stated in Job and in Proverbs.
Proverbs 6:32, "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul".
The inference of these scriptures is that our spirit can live, or it can die. It's really our choice by the way we live and whether we have a relationship with God, doing what He says so that He will spare us from destruction and eternal death in hell fire.
Jesus made this false doctrine very clear to everyone. He plainly stated that our spiritual essence can indeed be killed, destroyed forever in hell. It is not immortal! It does not live forever in hell, but be destroyed forever in the fires of hell. Destroy actually means to put an end to the existence of something. When your spiritual essence is destroyed, it is really gone forever! YOU, the REAL PERSON that you are is gone forever! Does that sound immortal to you? Does that sound like it can not die?
Mat 10:28 "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Jesus said our spiritual essence can be destroyed, that it's not immortal. Any reasonably intelligent person, (you), can see what the Word of God actually says about our spirit within us not living immortally and eternally. It can really die! It makes you wonder how this false Greek doctrine ever got into the Christian church and why it is universally embraced by all Catholics and Protestants everywhere today. It's so obvious that it is not what the Scriptures actually say, yet most Christians actually believe it as the absolute truth. How about you? Will you continue to believe the lie foisted on us by the devil in all our so-called Catholic and Christian churches through false pagan philosophy that infiltrated them, or will you believe what God actually says about your spiritual essence, your soul, in His inspired Word? The choice is yours!
Depending on which of the Gateway To Jesus Ministries sites you came from, you can return to the main menu using the appropriate link below. If you came to this page from any other outside source, you can find the Main Menu for many other studies at the top link here.
Return To - What Actually Does The Bible Really Say? Scripture Studies - Main Menu
Return To - How To Really Study The Bible To See What It Actually Says