YEA Lesson Library

The Lesson

Have you ever seen the picture in Dante’s Inferno with a man face down in a hole and his feet sticking out? Dante was trying to depict his idea of an ever-burning hell. But how can a loving God torment people, in hell fire, for all eternity? How did some people get this idea of an ever-burning hell anyway?

Back in time, Christian theologians decided that man has an immortal soul. This immortal soul is like having a little man inside of you. When you die, it can’t die, because it’s immortal. Then if this little man, or soul cannot die, logic would say at death it has to go someplace. It must live forever because it cannot die.

But does your Bible say that man has an immortal soul? Before you make up your mind, let’s call some witnesses and see what they say. All of the witnesses we will call are from the Bible.

Our first witness is Job. He was truly a great man – he feared God and stayed away from evil. Even God said he was righteous. In the course of time he became the object of a test between God and the devil. All of his children were killed when a tornado struck their house. His livestock were stolen, leaving him totally bankrupt. Boils covered his body. His wife had had it! She couldn’t stand to see Job suffer any more so she asked him to curse God so that he would die. But Jobs troubles didn’t end there. His friends showed up to explain why he was suffering so much. They found more things to point out about how Job was simply not righteous enough. Now that’s the kind of friends you don’t want around when everything is going wrong. At a time like this Job knew He could talk with God, and he did.

“For there is hope for a tree – if it’s cut down it sprouts again, and grows tender, new branches. Though its roots have grown old in the earth, and its stump decays, it may sprout and bud again at the touch of water, like a new seedling. But when a man dies and is buried, where does his spirit go? As water evaporates from a lake, as a river disappears in drought, so a man lies down for the last time, and does not rise again until the heavens are no more; he shall not awaken, nor be roused from his sleep. Oh, that you would hide me with the dead, and forget me there until your anger ends, but mark your calendar to think of me again!

“If a man dies, shall he live again? This thought gives me hope, so that in all my anguish I eagerly await sweet death! You would call and I would come, and you would reward all I do. But now, instead, you give me so few steps upon the stage of life, and notice every mistake I make. . .” (Job 14:7-16). Job saw death as sleep. He never thought that he was immortal. Job knew that when you’re dead you’re dead. But he knew there is life after death and asked God to mark his calendar and remember him in the resurrection. So our first witness had no illusions of being immortal.

Our second witness is the wisest man whoever lived – King Solomon. God told this king that he could ask anything of Him and He would give it to him. Solomon asked for wisdom and got it and riches. In his great wisdom he concluded that man is no better than an animal. They breathe the same air and they both die. “All go to one place – the dust from which they came and to which they return” (Ecclesiastes 3:20). Solomon knew that man is mortal the same as animals. “There is hope only for the living. ‘It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion!’ For the living at least know that they will die! But the dead know nothing; they don’t even have their memories” (Ecclesiastes 9:4-5). Solomon acknowledged that their love, hatred, and envy perish. He exhorted us “Whatever you do, do well, for in death, where you are going, there is no working or planning, or knowing, or understanding.” This doesn’t sound like Solomon thought he would go immediately to heaven or hell when he died, for in heaven or hell you would be conscious. The wisest man that ever lived knew well that he was mortal – that when he died he wouldn’t know anything.

For the third witness, let’s call Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 18, people were saying that the children are punished for their father’s sins and God is unfair. In no uncertain terms Ezekiel tells the people that “the soul that sins, it shall die” (verses 4 and 20). If a soul can die, it cannot be immortal!

We could call Isaiah and Jeremiah as witnesses, but space does not permit. So let’s call Jesus as a witness and see if He says man has an immortal soul. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus taught that contrary to the soul being immortal, it is very mortal. He said, “Fear him which is able to destroy soul and body in hell.” The “soul” has to be mortal or it cannot be destroyed.

Since our witnesses from both the Old and New Testaments say the soul is mortal, we know that this teaching that man has an immortal soul doesn’t come from the Bible. Then what is the source of this doctrine. It came from Greek philosophers. With this belief came a problem. If the soul can never die, then at death it has to go some place. So the doc- trine of the immortal soul led to another mistaken doctrine – that man goes immediately to heaven or hell at death. One mistaken belief led to another.

Even though man does not have an immortal soul, there is a mystery the Bible speaks of that has significance here. Paul says, “Behold, I shew 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” (I Corinthians 15:52-56). Man does not have an immortal soul. However, he can put on immortality. At the resurrection of the dead those in Christ become immortal and will live forever!