Excerpts from Chapter Two The Mortality of the SoulExcerpt 1: CHAPTER 2 The Mortality of the Soul
She went on to claim, during the May 18th 2007 broadcast of Precepts for Life, that if we can’t believe this, it is because we have not read the book(the Bible) and that it is because we have not read the whole council of God, and not honored His precepts for life, and not esteemed His Word. Of course I beg to differ. I love and highly esteem the Bible, and yet I and many other non-traditionalists completely disagree with her premise that all people are already eternal beings. And on a personal level I’m offended that someone would claim that I don’t esteem God’s Word when I am actually taking it at face value and reading the “whole council” as it regards this subject and trusting in its clear language. But my personal feelings are irrelevant. What is important is to determine if her claims can be supported with Scripture. I listen to Kay Arthur occasionally, and she seems to be a fine Bible teacher, and I certainly do not mean to single her out. The first sentence in her statement above falls right in line with the common thinking and teaching within Christianity on the matter, and it really is at the core of the problem of teaching the eternal suffering of the lost. If unbelivers do in fact exist forever as traditionalists claim, then they must be somewhere, and since we know they will be cast into the lake of fire after judgment, it stands to reason that this must be their eternal home. But not only have we already seen much Scriptural evidence for the ultimate destruction of the lost, we will see in this chapter that the Bible never teaches that the souls of unbelievers are immortal or eternal. Arthur offered no direct support for her claim of human immortality, and this is the common practice, but some well-known traditionalists have, and we will analyze their arguments later in the chapter. But since she did mention “eternal punishment” in her quote, I will assume that a misunderstanding of the definitions of these words could at least be contributing to her conclusion that all souls will exist forever. The Bible does in fact promise an eternal punishment for the unbeliever. So on the surface, this phrase could be stretched by the imagination to mean some unknown form of conscious punishment which lasts forever. But as we’ve already seen in Chapter One, the Greek word being translated as eternal is aionios and almost always denotes permanence when context is considered. If we are to trust God’s Word, the punishment for sin not covered by faith in Christ is death. So the “eternal punishment” is in fact a permanent death – not all of the ongoing torments that our imaginations could conjure up. It is very simply death that the lost are ultimately headed for. But could it really just be a matter of where you will spend eternity as the traditionalists claim? From all of the research I’ve done, eternity is not ours to spend, but it is ours to gain or ours to forfeit.
Excerpt 2:
So, will all human souls, saved or unsaved, go on existing for all eternity? The first great evidence that the soul is not immortal from its conception, like so many Biblical truths, can be found early in the book of Genesis. One of the problems with traditionalism that I’ll discuss in greater detail later is that its views on hell and immortality are based on so few verses, many of them taken out of context, and almost all of them taken from the New Testament. So much foundational truth is laid out in Genesis, and something as critical as the condition of the soul and its potential fates is no exception. The story of Adam and Eve gives us our first insight. But quickly, before we get into this topic, let’s deal with the assumption by many skeptics and even some Christians that much of the early account of mankind is only figurative or representative language, such as the fruit Adam and Eve ate, the serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, and even Adam and Eve themselves. I personally believe that these are actual accounts of actual people, an actual serpent and actual trees and that they are not just figurative, although they can be representative of larger concepts, and can help us understand much other Biblical truth. If the skeptic or even the Christian finds the Garden of Eden story too simplistic and insists on believing that this early account of humanity was only an allegory, it is still possible for us to discuss the concepts presented “in allegory”. And the most interesting subject regarding the eternality of the soul is the tree of life. Let's go back to the original sin to get a foundation. God had told Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day he ate of it, he would “surely die.” Right away we have an issue that we need to address. There is speculation as to the meaning of the Hebrew phrase being translated as “surely die,” as well as God’s saying that it would happen “in the day you eat of it.” We cannot legitimately claim that their flesh or their souls died on the day of their first sin. They didn’t stop being living souls and they didn’t die physically, so we have to resolve a seeming contradiction and understand what is meant here before we delve into this topic. This is a verse that has caused much theological error because people have misunderstood it to mean that death would come immediately, because of the phrase “in the day you eat of it.” And this misunderstanding then causes people to force certain events, such as the expulsion from the garden, into the definition of “death” when in actuality, the expulsion from the garden has a much more meaningful significance as it relates to the gospel message and the entire theme of the Bible (I’ll explain what I’m referring to later). There are a few creative ways to support a theory of how they died “in that day”, but it is unnecessary if we understand the Hebrew. In the original language, the phrase that is normally translated as “You will surely die”, is simply two words, and it is actually the same word, “death,” repeated twice in two different tenses. Literally, it says, “Dying, Die.” It is called an infinitive absolute, and it indicates an emphatic statement; so what we have is an emphatic statement about death being a result of disobedience. It remains slightly open to some speculation as to its meaning, and I don’t think it is a stretch at all to assume that “you will surely die” could be more clearly expressed as “death will become certain”, especially since we have the hindsight of knowing for sure that this more clearly represents what actually happened, since they didn’t stop being living souls, nor did their bodies die on the day they ate of the forbidden tree. The traditional translation leaves the scenario open to the question: In what way did they die in the day they ate of it? And the typical answer is, “Their souls died a ‘spiritual’ death and they were separated from God”, but this answer will not hold up to scrutiny, as we will soon see very clearly. So with this grammatically equally acceptable, but alternative rendering, we have “In the day you eat of it, death will become an absolute certainty for you.” Remember, prior to sin, Adam and Eve still had the capability of eating of the tree of life, which the Bible says will make them go on living forever(Gen. 3:22), i.e. eternal life, eternality, immortality, at least for the soul; and likely the dusty body would have been transformed at that point as well, thereby even avoiding a death of the physical body. So while God always knew from eternity past that they would not eat from the tree of life before eating from the forbidden tree, because sin had not yet occurred in course of time, there was still the potential for death not to take hold of Adam and Eve as long as they had access to the tree of life. I don’t think we need to try to support the idea that their own death in some way occurred on that very day that they sinned, even though this idea has a couple of interesting defenses. It is unnecessary. Death became a sure reality in the very day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but no part of them died yet, nor did any part of them have to for God’s warning to come true. In fact, in the day they ate of it, they brought the reality into effect that they would ultimately, surely, and unavoidably die. Scripture confirms this when, after Adam’s sin, God tells him that he is dust, and now because he has sinned, to dust he will return. But the Lord didn’t kill him on the spot. He was confirming to them that, just as He had said, they had now, on that day, brought death into reality. The general line of thinking from traditionalists is that Adam and Eve’s banishment from the garden and the tree of life figuratively represents eternal conscious separation of the soul from God, or what traditionalists commonly call “spiritual death.” There are multiple flaws in this theory that will be exposed as we work through this topic of mortality and immortality in this chapter and the next. But the answer to the “in the day” question is much simpler. We only need to understand that Adam and Eve were created mortal and could only become immortal by eating of the tree of life, a fact for which we will see much evidence from Scripture, (the most obvious being that otherwise, eating of the tree of life would offer them nothing they didn’t already possess). Remember, they had not yet disobeyed God and were therefore at a crossroads, mortal, having not yet eaten from the tree of life, but still with the potential to do so, and therefore having the theoretical potential to avoid death, body and soul. It seems to explain itself very sufficiently if we will not deny the obvious, that Adam and Eve were created mortal, with mortal souls. So there was the tree of life in the garden, but it was never eaten from. Remember that God had told them they could eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But again, the English translations do not seem to be giving the most accurate rendering of the Hebrew when they read something like, “you may freely eat from every tree.” In the Hebrew, it seems likely that this is more of an emphatic command to make sure to eat from all of the other trees more than simply an allowance that they could if they so chose, not that there was any time limit imposed in which to do this, but it seems most likely that there was a command to make sure and get this done. We have another infinitive absolute here with the word “eat”: “eating, eat”, creating an emphatic statement about eating from “every” tree, and the common interpretation that there was simply a free allowance to eat from “any” of the trees may likely not fully represent the meaning. Also, the word “command” is used in the same statement in Genesis 2:16 which adds some weight to the argument. It doesn’t make sense to understand that someone was “commanded” that they “may” do something. So we have the word “every,” not “any,” and we have the word “command,” and we have the Hebrew infinitive absolute creating an emphatic statement about eating. Yet, it is only translated as “may eat.” This just does not seem to add up. Also, if there were not a command to eat from all the trees, since we do not see God telling Adam or Eve about the tree of life in Scripture, it could be claimed that the Lord never told them to eat of the tree of life – only that they could if they so chose. This seems highly unlikely that the Lord would take such a dispassionate position on whether or not they ate of the tree of life and gained immortality. But it does make sense that He would veil the specific command to eat of the tree which would give eternal life inside of the greater command to eat from all of the trees, and we will see why in chapter three. So as we already noted, the Tree of Life was there for the taking yet remained untouched, and I think this is highly significant in the discussion of whether souls are created eternal or not. Even more significant is the fact that God drove them out of the garden after they sinned for the sole purpose of making sure they did not reach out their hand and eat of the Tree of Life. Genesis 3:22-24 states,
This seems very clear. Now, due to the banishment, we see that there is no way that he can “go on living forever”, at least not by his own effort, and it just so happens that this matter of whose effort is behind the gaining of or granting of eternal life is at the core of understanding the banishment. We’ll come back to this idea shortly, but for now, staying with the foundational statements about Adam’s mortality, let's look back again. Genesis 2:7 says that God breathed into man, who we know was only earthly dust, and he became a "living soul." I don't think any of us would deny that we are living souls. But our disagreement, if we have one, is over whether or not just being a living soul constitutes immortality, without God granting it by some condition. It seems very reasonable to assume that in the same way that our flesh is living and dying simultaneously, so the soul without redemption is also(not that body and soul must die together, but that they are both on a course that leads to death). Not only does it seem that the Lord has provided us this perishing body as an object lesson indicating the fate of our soul without redemption, here is my primary question to the traditionalist: If Adam had immortality prior to eating from the tree of life, what then is the significance of the tree of which the Bible says that eating from it would make them go on living forever? There was no promise that eating of it would make Adam live in God’s paradise forever (as so many imply is meant by “eternal life”), only that eating of it would make Him “go on living for ever” generally, as the Bible clearly states. There is nothing about “going on living forever” that binds God into allowing them to stay in the Garden. In fact, God does not say, “Since man has an eternal soul and will go on living forever, we certainly can’t allow him to live here in the garden since he has sinned.” Unfortunately this is how the banishment is generally taught, but it is an obvious distortion of Scripture. This is going to upset people, but the fact is: Yes, Adam was already prone to death even before he sinned. As I phrased it above, he was at a crossroads, and whether he sinned or not would determine whether he would go on living forever or continue on a path of mortality. Notice that after Adam sinned, God took no new action against his flesh or soul to make his death certain. He only banned him from the one thing that Scripture says would have made his life continue eternally. Let's follow the timeline. God creates man and causes him to become a living soul when he was outside of the garden. So it stands to reason that this tree of life which was inside the garden offers something more than what the man already possessed after God first breathed into him. This is significant. He had no access to this tree of life, even though God had already made him a "living soul," until God later put him in the garden. How much later he was put there is irrelevant. It could have been seconds or weeks, or even longer. It doesn't matter in the discussion of whether or not souls are unconditionally eternal. It is the order of events that is critical to recognize and which will create sound doctrine. Genesis 3:22 plainly tells us that eating of the Tree of Life is what will make them "go on living forever." And Adam simply did not have access to that tree when he first became a living soul. So being a living soul, in and of itself, is not the same thing as has having the capability of going on living forever, immortality, if we accept the simplicity of God’s Word. Now, is it possible that this passage has nothing to do with the immaterial soul, and that God only meant that their flesh would somehow go on living forever if they ate from the tree of life after sinning, and is it that He simply didn't want that to happen since they had sinned in their flesh? No, because no human flesh can be animated without the soul (James 2:26). It is nothing more than dust, earthy chemicals, and it never was. The Genesis warnings of impending death concern the whole man, body and soul. And by the same token, eating of the tree of life, were it possible after they sinned, would have given their souls eternal life, and likely would have transformed their mortal bodies as well, (this is just my own speculation regarding their bodies. I don't pretend to understand what our new bodies will be like). But God, knowing the end from the beginning, knew that he wasn't going to let them gain immortality on their own. This is the same problem we have in the world still – people trying to attain eternal life (or earn their place in Heaven) by their own efforts and works, which was never God’s plan, contrary to what is commonly taught about the Garden of Eden. We have to remember that God is omniscient. He knew they would sin and that Adam and Eve by their own free will were going to find and take the forbidden fruit which held so much “promise” before finding and taking the other fruit that would give eternal life (the fruit they were never told about, by the way). So in Genesis 3:24, God drives them from the garden, specifically, the Bible tells us, so humanity cannot eat of this fruit and live forever. But we cannot assume that eternal life is no longer available for them because of this. They and all of us are created with the potential to live forever(our soul, that is, in a new body that we will receive after this life), and it is God's will that we all become eternal (2 Peter 3:9). The following is important, and I think it is the most important thing we can take from the garden account: Being driven from the Garden and the Tree of Life only represented that Adam and Eve had no ability on their own to gain immortality, just as we do not. The banishment was not their spiritual death. It couldn’t be, and we’ll see the obvious reason why shortly. Banning them from the tree of life was nothing more than a clear statement that mankind cannot attain eternal life by his own efforts. Genesis 3:22 plainly indicates this. Don’t miss the phrase: “Lest they reach out their hand(personal effort) and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” It is only by accepting God’s work and sacrifice that we are saved from death – not physical death, for God never relented from His promise that death would become a certainty, but the saved are saved from the very destruction of the soul in the lake of fire, which is the destiny we were headed toward from birth, as vessels of wrath. So specifically, how can a person gain immortality? How can we avoid the death of the soul and “go on living forever”? It is certainly not by merely having been created as Kay Arthur and countless others imply. It requires more than that to become eternal. It required a sacrifice from God Himself. We now know that God’s work and sacrifice was fulfilled in Jesus’ death on the cross, and this is the means to eternal life. The Bible tells us that this act atoned for the sinful condition of mankind, for any who will accept it, and that we are saved from eternal death when we, by faith, accept Christ’ work as necessary and sufficient to right our relationship with God. But this does not mean that salvation was not available for those who lived prior to Christ. Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus “the lamb slain before the foundation of the world”, meaning that while His sacrifice had not yet occurred in the course of time, it was as sure as God Himself, and no one could ever have been saved at any time, before or after Christ, if this sacrifice was not certain. Jesus said Himself that none could come to the Father but by Him, by the actions He took on our behalf. So while no one could be saved at all were it not for what Jesus did on the cross, people have always been saved by faith in the one true God, even prior to specific knowledge of Christ, and their faith was always exhibited by their actions. We are told that when Abraham put his faith in God, it was counted to him as righteousness, and he exhibited his faith by following God’s instructions to move to a new land, and ultimately by offering his own son as a sacrifice(which God did not require him to go through with). And in the Old Testament story of Rahab, the non-Israelite harlot, we find that she had very little knowledge of God, yet she acted on what she knew and she earned a mention in what is commonly called the “Hall of Faith” in chapter eleven of the New Testament book of Hebrews. So how were Adam and Eve saved from the death of their souls, if they were? What action did they exhibit that indicated faith in God’s work and sacrifice? The answer to this is the very thing that negates the argument that the banishment indicated “eternal separation from God”, or so-called “spiritual death.” After they sinned and became aware of good and evil, they realized they were naked and needed a covering. They tried to provide their own, but apparently God found their attempts to cover themselves to be insufficient. The symbolism is overwhelming. We are sort of touching on the same theme we saw before – that people innately try to do things for themselves, including covering their own sin and shame in an effort to believe that they are without need of God’s involvement. But this is not God’s way. We are told in the New Testament to “put on Christ”. He is our covering. We have no sufficient covering for our shame except in Christ. And it was similar for Adam and Eve. Their own attempts at coverings were not sufficient. And so we are told that the Lord Himself provided skins for them as coverings, indicating that He apparently slew an animal to do so. Hebrews 9:22 tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, speaking of Jesus on the cross, and it was no different in their case as God shed the blood of an animal to provide for them. So it is commonly accepted(and I am in total agreement with the idea) that this covering provided for them was a foreshadowing of Christ’ sacrificial death. And for Adam and Eve, this was, in a primitive form, the very offer of salvation, which they could have rejected, had they been so prideful. But they didn’t, and therefore I believe they were saved and reserved for the inheritance of eternal life.
So how does this fit with the theory that their expulsion from the garden foreshadowed eternal conscious separation from God or “spiritual death”? It doesn’t, nor should it. (The Bible plainly indicated why they were expelled and we’ve covered it sufficiently.) The order of events will again give us a sound doctrine. Their covering preceded their expulsion, so either the covering did not represent salvation, or the expulsion did not represent eternal separation from God because Adam and Eve’s “salvation” could not precede their “damnation”, as would be indicated if we took the traditional stance on the meaning of the banishment. And because the symbolism for the covering representing salvation is so strong, and since Genesis tells us precisely why they were expelled (so they couldn’t gain eternal life by their own efforts), I am forced to view these aspects of the garden in a light not commonly expressed in Christian circles, but one that agrees completely with what the New Testament teaches about salvation, that it is of God. Now, a traditionalist might challenge what I’ve written and say to me, “If you believe that the covering represented their gaining eternal life, then the banishment has no meaning in terms of whether or not gaining eternal life was by their own efforts or not.” I would have to agree with this if the covering had literally and immediately caused them to become immortal. But it didn’t. That is why I said the covering “reserved” them for eternal life, just as when we put our faith in Christ today we are reserved for eternal life. We “have” eternal life in the sense that it is a sure guarantee, a promise from God, but we are not literally immortal yet. We, nor any believer while still in their flesh, ever “attained the prize” or “received the inheritance” (as Paul referred to it) prior to physical death. Read Ephesians 1:13-14:
Even those of us who are “saved” have not yet eaten of the tree of life that causes one to go on living forever, but we will after we have endured to the end. The tree of life makes another appearance in Scripture and we’ll come back and examine this toward the end of the chapter. I need to clarify something in case I have been unclear. I am not claiming that there is no such thing as “spiritual death”. I am only claiming that the expulsion from the garden did not represent it or cause it, and I am claiming that an unbelieving soul is temporarily alive, yet already spiritually dead in the sense that it is headed for death. I also believe, contrary to traditional thinking, that Adam was spiritually dead until he humbly accepted God's offering of a covering, and rather than the expulsion representing spiritual death and separation, Adam was actually "saved" at the time he left Eden. Again, I believe our bodies, alive yet wasting away, are the perfect object lesson for what is happening at the soul level. And while there is no hope for our flesh, in that there is no avoiding the first death, God has graciously made a way of escape from the second death, the one that would take our souls. The Garden account is a powerful and deeply meaningful portion of scripture, and for some teachers and commentators to make less of it is first of all quite a shame but, unfortunately, most necessary if they are going to insist that every soul is already going to live forever - somewhere. I believe that the Garden account very plainly teaches just the opposite, and only by turning a blind eye to it and insisting on maintaining tradition can one continue to claim that it doesn't.
Note Chapter two, in its entirety, will develop these ideas further, offer more evidence that there was not a separation between God and man (real or represented) in the expulsion, challenge some of the traditional lines of reasoning in defending the idea that we are already immortal or at least eternal, and address other issues raised in the Garden.
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Biblical Judgment
A Scriptural challenge to the traditional view of Hell and Immortality
© 2009 Scott McAliley
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It is required that verbatim use of any portion of text contained on this website be accompanied
by both a reference to the author, Scott McAliley, and a link back to http://www.biblicaljudgment.org
For full license details click Here.