The Bible doesn’t teach that people have immortal souls but many believe it. So how did this teaching enter Christian thinking, where did this corruption originate and how did it spread into the churh. As God made man in his own image, but did not make him immortal or of the same substance that he possesses. Our Creator is composed of spirit and is eternal, they are not in anyway immortal of their own self. Humans were made out of the dust basically theground or organic substance that constitutes the earth. Adam only became a living being, but not an immortal soul, when God breathed life into him
The first lie, in the Garden of Eden, the devil wanted Eve to believe revolves around the concept of an immortal soul. Eve stated she was instructed not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or else she would die.
Satan countered that God was lying and that she would not perish. We see that this lie has spread even into Christians today. God's justification for casting Adam and Eve out of the Garden was, "lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever".
If all humans automatically have a soul that is immortal then barring them from the Tree of Life would not make a difference since they would already possess something that would keep them alive into the future. If, however, Adam and Eve did not possess an immortal soul that allowed them to live forever, then God's concern about them acquiring this ability is justified.
Here is one of the
best explanation I have come across and every believer should carefully go through it and understand how this deception came into the church from what can only be called pagan Greek thought. 'Secular history reveals that the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions. But it's not a biblical teaching and is not found in either the Old or New Testaments....
"Despite widespread use of the phrase immortal soul, this terminology is found nowhere in the Bible. Where did the idea of an immortal soul originate?
The concept of the soul's supposed immortality was first taught in ancient Egypt and Babylon. "The belief that the soul continues in existence after the dissolution of the body is...speculation...nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture...The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended" (
Jewish Encyclopedia, 1941, Vol. 6, "Immortality of the Soul," pp. 564, 566).
Secular history reveals that the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions. But it's not a biblical teaching and is not found in either the Old or New Testaments.
Plato (428-348 B.C.), the Greek philosopher and student of Socrates, taught that the body and the "immortal soul" separate at death.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia comments on ancient Israel's view of the soul: "We are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament" (1960, Vol. 2, "Death," p. 812).
Early Christianity was influenced and corrupted by Greek philosophies as it spread through the Greek and Roman world. By A.D. 200 the doctrine of the immortality of the soul became a controversy among Christian believers.
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes that Origen, an early and influential Catholic theologian, was influenced by Greek thinkers: "Speculation about the soul in the subapostolic church was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. This is seen in Origen's acceptance of Plato's doctrine of the preexistence of the soul as pure mind (
nous) originally, which, by reason of its fall from God, cooled down to soul (
psyche) when it lost its participation in the divine fire by looking earthward" (1992, "Soul," p. 1037).
Secular history reveals that the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions. But it's not a biblical teaching and is not found in either the Old or New Testaments."
Only God has immortality, we wait for the gift of eternal life at the resurrection. The Bible teaches that the dead are dead, that the dead cannot communicate with the living, the soul that sins dies, and that immortality is a gift from God, who alone has immortality and gives the gift to the righteous at His second coming. But of their own self man does not have it..
"...the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
Ezekiel 18:4
"...the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality,"
1 Timothy 6:15-16
"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
1 Corinthians 15:51-54
. But this is my stand…
