“You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4)
Clearly the concept of an immortal soul was in no way part of the Old Testament thought framework. In the time of the New Testament the important Jewish philosopher Philo, following Plato, made it clear that the soul would be freed at the time of death, and could either inherit eternal life or eternal doom. Take note – this is a secular view, and not the Jewish perspective.
In Greek the word soul is translated as psuchē. The latter is at times also translated as life (for instance in Matt. 10:39: “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”). To ensure that the Hebrew word nephesh corresponds with the Greek word psuchē, we can draw from Ps. 16:10. Here David uses the word nephesh to prophesy that the realm of the dead will have no power over the Messiah. In Acts 2:27 Paul quotes this specific prophecy, and then uses the Greek psuchē for the Hebrew nephesh. The two words thus correspond to one another.
Like nephesh, psuchē also refers to both human souls (Acts 2:41) and animal souls (Rev. 16:3). In addition, and this is of great importance for our argument thus far – Jesus clearly declares in Matt. 10:28 (YLT) that God is able to bring death to the soul: “And be not afraid of those killing the body, and are not able to kill the soul, but fear rather Him who is able both soul and body to destroy in gehenna.” [In the teachings of Day 735-736 we wrote extensively about the word gehenna, and pointed out that the terms hell or realm of the dead are unfortunately used in most translations instead of gehenna.]
Thus – the New Testament also does not speak about the concept of an eternal soul. Paul explicitly commands the Romans to seek “eternal life” (Rom. 2:7), in other words it is not something that everyone necessarily has. For the Corinthians he spells it out: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’” (1 Cor. 15:53-54). The soul is thus not, in its ontological nature, immortal and eternal. It is only God and his Son (and obviously the Holy Spirit, which is their spirit) – 1 Tim. 6:16 definitively points out – “who alone has immortality”. Thus Rom. 3:23 states the eternal life is a gift.
Closely examined, the lie about the immortal soul was the first and greatest lie sold to man at the beginning of time.
More on this in the next teaching, when we examine this issue in a larger context.
- Selah: Explain to someone what the New Testament says about the soul.
- Read: 76-78.
- Memorise: 78:2.
