This work is independent of any
existing religions denomination, church,
organisation or group.
A
voice from a wilderness, correcting
wrong Bible understandings, removing
false religious traditions, smoothing
the way.
Declaring the
date for Jesus second presence. God's
Kingdom plan is logical, pragmatic and
perfect.
These announcements are specifically
directed to members of the world's
Christian religions.
1.
Almost all religions in the world, including the Christian
denominations, teach and believe the concept of man having
a Soul that does not die at death but moves on in another
form. Many Christian religions teach that at death
those who are wicked go to Hell a fiery place of continual
pain and punishment or purgatory. This deals mainly
with the subject from the Christian view using the bible
as its authority.
2.
The New Encyclopedia Britannica (1988), Volume 11,
page 25 says.“Early Christian philosophers adopted the Greek
concept of the soul’s immortality and thought of the
soul as being created by God and infused into the body
at conception.”
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
3.
Regarding the creation
of the first human soul, “Jehovah (Yhwh) God
proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground
and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living
person” Genesis
2:7 (NWT). The Hebrew word nephesh,
here translated “soul,” means ‘a creature that
breathes'. When God created the first man, Adam, He
did not infuse into him an already living immortal
soul. He created a live physical body that required
maintaining by breathing. “Soul” used in the Bible,
refers to the entire living breathing being. If
oxygen is denied to the cells, the life force of the soul
or person dies.
"In the
sweat of your face you will eat bread until you
return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.
For dust you are and to dust you will return" Genesis 3:19 (NWT);
"The soul who sins is the one who will
die" Ezekiel
18:20 (NWT).
"Man has no superiority over animals, for everything
is futile. 20 All
are going to the same place. They all come
from the dust, and they all are returning to the
dust" Ecc 3:19-20 (NWT).
4.
Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New
Testament Words, defines nephesh as “the
essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath …
The problem with the English term ‘soul’ is that no
actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is
represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew
system of thought does not include the combination of
the ‘body’ and ‘soul’ which are really Greek and Latin
in origin” (1985, p. 237-238,).
5.
The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says on nephesh:
“The word ‘soul’ in English, .. ultimately coming from
philosophical Greek (Platonism) and from Orphism and
Gnosticism are absent in ‘nephesh'. In the
OT it never means the immortal
soul, but it is essentially the life principle, or the
living being,” (Vol. 4, 1962,
“Soul,” ). The Old Testament
describes the dead as going to sheol, translated
into English as “hell,” “pit” or “grave.” Ecclesiastes
9:5-6 describes sheol as a place of
unconsciousness:
“For the living know
that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they
have no more reward, for the memory of them is
forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy
have now perished …” (NWT).
6.
King David laments that death extinguishes a relationship
with God. “For in death
there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will
give You thanks?”
Psalms 6:5. The
immortal-soul concept is not part of the Old Testament, it
began to make inroads into Jewish thought, as Jews came
into contact with Greek culture. When the 'Church'
adopted the doctrine of the immortal soul (circa the
2nd/3rd century), it also developed and connected the
teaching of hellfire. The most common misbelief
regarding the afterlife in the Christian Church now, is
that people possess souls and at death, their
consciousness in the form of the soul, departs from the
body and goes to heaven, hell or purgatory
(halfway).