What About the LIFE?
When God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, He started the process of the combining of oxygen with the blood, which then carried the oxygen to all parts of the body, thereby imparting physical, animal life. The life of a human being is in his bloodstream! A wounded soldier on the battlefield fights to stop the flow of blood from his wounds knowing that the loss of BLOOD means the LOSS OF LIFE! The same is true in every case of wounds causing bleeding. You already know, and have known most of your life that the loss of blood causes death — just as the Bible says. Then why have you blindly ASSUMED differently about the vague, hazy, nebulous ideas on the "immortality" of the soul?
God told Noah the life of any animal, or nephesh was in the BLOOD! "But flesh with the life [Heb. nephesh] thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat" (Gen. 9:4). Here, the word "life" comes from the same Hebrew word nephesh which is elsewhere rendered "soul," or "body." Read on, in verse 5, where the same word is used for our English word "life," this time in reference to NOAH and every man! The life of man and the life of animals is the same! MORTAL life!
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood . . . he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life [nephesh] of ALL flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of ALL flesh is the blood thereof." (See Lev. 17:11-14, where every word translated "life" comes from the Hebrew word nephesh, and is said to be the life [blood] of ALL flesh, including all animal life as well as humans)
Moses gave the Israelites God's warning about eating flesh with the blood still in it, "for the blood is the life [nephesh] and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh" (Deut. 12:23).
The soul of man, therefore, is kept alive by the coursing of the blood through his veins, taking life-giving oxygen to the body cells. There are many other Biblical references where the word "life" is directly connected with the blood, and is rendered from nephesh in each case! See Genesis 19:17, 19; 32:30; 44:30 with Exodus 4:19; 21:23 and 21:30.
Christ Shed His SOUL for Us!
Remember, you have already seen amply proved that the life or the soul of any animal or human consists in the life-giving blood in the body. For another amazing proof, turn to Isaiah the 53rd chapter. In this prophecy concerning the coming of the promised Messiah to die for the world, God shows it was the soul of Christ that was given for us. "Yet it pleased the Eternal to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul (nephesh) an offering for sin . . ." (Isaiah 53:10).
How did Christ die? Any extremely casual student of the Bible knows it was His shed BLOOD that caused His death, not the sentimental "idea" of humans that Jesus died of a broken heart! Isaiah 52:14 describes the horrible BEATING Christ took when He was scourged before being forced to drag His own cross to the place of the skull. (See Matt. 27:26 and I Peter 1:19) Jesus died because of the loss of His life BLOOD! It was His blood that was "shed" (Matt. 26:28), and "poured out," ". . . because he hath poured out his soul (nephesh) unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isa. 53:12).
Did you notice it?
Jesus Christ died because He BLED to death — yet your Bible expressly states it was His soul that was poured out! Of course! The "soul" is the physical, temporary LIFE of the human body, which can die (Ezek. 18:4, 20), be cut off (Exodus 31:14), and sent to the grave (Psalm 30:3)!
Nephesh is the word used for "soul" in your Old Testament; nephesh CANNOT mean, EVER, anything whatsoever to do with immortal life, or spiritual essence! Nephesh is always speaking of the temporary, physical, animal life, which is supplied by the oxidation of oxygen with the blood!
The Amazing Origin
Since the idea of the immortality of the soul didn't come from the Old Testament, which comprised the only inspired Scripture existing until long after the time of Christ, then where did the idea come from?
It came from the pagan GREEKS, and was introduced into an apostate, paganized "Christianity" nearly TWO CENTURIES after Christ!
The Greeks obtained it from the Egyptians, who taught it soon after the apostasy at the tower of Babel.
Herodotus, who was a famous Greek historian, living in the fifth century before Christ, wrote: "The Egyptians were also the FIRST that asserted that the soul of man is immortal. . . . This opinion some among the Greeks have at different periods of time adopted as their own" (Euterpe, chap. 123).
Socrates, the pervert, who was also a famous Greek philosopher, travelled into Egypt and consulted the Egyptians on this very teaching. After his return, he taught the pagan error to Plato, his most famous student. Compare the present-day teachings of the churches with what Plato wrote in his book, the Phaedo: "The soul whose inseparable attribute is life will never admit of life's opposite, death. Thus the soul is shown to be immortal, and since immortal, indestructible. . . . Do we believe there is such a thing as death? To be sure. And is this anything but the separation, of the soul and body? And being dead is the attainment of this separation, when the soul exists in herself and separate from the body, and the body is parted from the soul. That is death. . . . Death is merely the separation of soul and body." Plato, the student and intimate acquaintance of Socrates, the sex pervert, did not believe death was really death! Rather, he conceived it as a separation of the "soul" from the body.
Did you assume the doctrines of most of our modern churches have all come straight from the Bible? Did you believe the doctrines most of us have been reared to believe were the true doctrines of God's Own Revelation?
No! THEY ARE NOT!
Instead of following the revelation of Jesus Christ, the early apostate churches followed the teachings of the pagans.
Early Catholics Taught That the Soul Is Mortal
The introduction of the pagan superstitions into a modern "Christianity" was gradual, however. For TWO CENTURIES the apostatizing churches continued to teach and believe the soul to be MORTAL, just as Christ had said it was!
Such early Catholics as Justin Martyr, who died about 166 A.D. wrote: "But our Jesus Christ, being crucified, and DEAD, and having ascended to heaven, reigned; and by those things which were published in His name among all nations by the apostles, there is joy offered to those who expect the IMMORTALITY PROMISED BY HIM" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 176).
The early Catholics knew that when Jesus died, as the Bible says He did, He was DEAD, not in some abode of spirits. They also knew that He promised future immortality to overcomers, not that man already had an immortal soul.
Catholic Doctrine Changed
Toward the close of the second century, a school of professing Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, adopted Platonism plus the Bible as their creed. One of their chief teachers, Origen, wrote: "Souls are immortal." He continues to speak of "The Platonist, who believes in the immortality of the soul" (Vol. IV, pp. 314, 402).
Notice, this teaching came from Plato, NOT the Bible!
Tertullian, another important teacher at the close of the second century, wrote: "For some things are known, even by nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many . . . I may use, therefore, THE OPINION OF A PLATO, when he declares: 'Every soul is immortal' " (Vol. III, p. 547).
However, even as late as the FOURTH century, some Catholic writers and teachers, such as Arnobias, said of those who were "carried away with an extravagant opinion of themselves that souls are immortal. . . . Will you lay aside your habitual ignorance, O men, who claim God as your Father, and maintain that you are immortal just as He is?" (Vol. IV, p. 440)
The truth was gradually submerged under the flood-tide of paganism, however, until by 1513 A.D. the Catholic Church even issued a decree against the faithful few who "dared to assert concerning the nature of the reasonable soul that it is mortal" and said that they must be "punished as heretics."
During the Reformation, instead of returning to the "faith once delivered," the churches continued in the same pagan errors that had been perpetuated by the ideas of men.
What Did Christ Actually Teach?
Many are firmly convinced Jesus MUST have taught the immortality of the soul, because they have heard that He actually taught this doctrine!
But did He?
Let's find out what the Bible says! When Jesus sent out His disciples on a training mission during His ministry, He gave them instructions for their journey. He knew they would come in contact with men who hated the truth, who would even try to KILL some of them. Because of this, He said, "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 Gehenna" (Matt. 10:28). The word "hell" is improperly rendered in the English, from the Greek word Gehenna, which meant the "lake of fire" God will use to destroy the wicked! Christ said very plainly the "soul" (Greek — psuche) can be DESTROYED by a fire!
When a young man came to Jesus and asked what good thing he should do to OBTAIN eternal life, Christ didn't inform him that he already possessed it, in the form of an "immortal" soul. Rather, He said, ". . . but if you will enter into life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS!" (Matt. 19:17)
The "golden text" of the Bible is another proof, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not PERISH, but [on the other hand] have everlasting life." Even this most-often-quoted scripture of the Bible shows that Jesus Christ came that humans would not PERISH, and that they might, on the other hand, enter into everlasting life.
Christ told the Jews, when they told Him of the dead Galileans, "I tell you, Nay: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise PERISH" (Luke 13:3-5).