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Thanks for the thorough reply. I beg to differ, but I’m glad to read your argument. –Mark

ANSWER: They are all cow pies. I’m sorry, is that a CPI(Christian Politically Incorrect way of answering?) They are journey’s on that sincerely paved road to hell.

Once again, “Conditional Immortality” proves its weight in exegetical (and rubber-meets-the-road)gold! Here are a few choice quotes from a booklet I’ve just written which I use as serving to introduce my as yet unpublished 600 page book:

Genesis 2:7 The lifeless formed body became alive; man became a living creature; man is the living body or living soul (soul simply means life, or alive). The fusion of formed dust (body) imbued with the breath of life (the non-personal, non-individualized life-force or life-principle, from God) produced the living indivisible person. This life force or life principle is exactly the same for every creature God created. J. B. Heard, in a theological treatise on the nature of man, says: “The Hebrew nephesh, instead of suggesting any idea of immateriality, much less immortality, is a general expression used for all animal life. It is used indifferently of man and beast.”

At death, the whole person dies. There is no separable and separating immortal “soul” supposedly containing the person. The living body is the person. Ecclesiastes 3:19-20; 12:7 The life-force or life-principle (breath of life) returns to God. The Ancient Hebrews knew nothing about any kind of so-called immortal soul –such a thought is totally non-scriptural. The NT knows nothing of such Greek mythology, either. God Himself, directly in His own words, in Genesis 3:19c, said, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” MAN IS DUST.

The whole man dies –body and soul –the whole person dies, as in, the living body and the soul that the body projects, both die together precisely because both are in-separately joined: an indivisible person.

[In1852, noted linguist, Dr. J. H. M'Culloh wrote, “There is no word in the Hebrew language that signifies either soul or spirit, in the technical sense in which we use the term as implying something distinct from the body.”

The soul, therefore, is best understood or regarded as a kind of projection of the living body, exactly as the mind is a projection of the living brain: you can’t have one without the other, the living brain dies and the mind ceases to be; the living body dies and the soul ceases to be. The living body/soul dies, and both the living body and its projection, the living soul –are dead; thus the soul ceases to exist, ceases to be when the body dies, and thusly it is indeed the whole person that is dead.]

Indeed, soul ascension could never be true not simply because there is no biblical teaching concerning it, and because the biblical understanding of resurrection stands DIAMETRICALLY opposed to it, but also because the Scripture actively, specifically, and repeatedly precludes it. The future resurrection/transformation event is both individual and corporate –which means it happens to all believers individually but at the one and same time, event, or juncture, corporately, as it were, to all believers all at once. In Hebrews 11:39-40, it says no one will be made perfect (sinless and actively holy) –until we all are, all at once. That’s corporate salvation: meaning all true believers (of all time and history) will be transformed into new incorruptible people at the same time, instant, and event; see also 1Cor. 15:51-52; with 2Cor. 4; 14 From the preceding three passages cited, here is what they are saying, “only together with us would they (OT saints) be made perfect,” “we will not all sleep (i.e., the dead), but we will all be changed,” and “will bring us, with you, into his presence.” It says no one has yet come into the presence of Christ –that is proof positive against any kind of soul ascension. Furthermore, the scriptures teach that only Jesus has ascended into heaven, Jesus and Jesus alone –no one else. (John 3;13 with Acts 2:34) Peter drives this home in Acts 2:29, emphasizing that David is still dead in his grave! There are no disembodied souls in heaven.

As hard as it may be to hear, and harder still to understand, the truth of the matter is that nowhere, and in absolutely no fashion, does the Bible ever proclaim or teach that life is a continuum, something which continues on after death. That is not a biblical teaching. Please hear this: the Bible never posits life continuing on after death as the biblical hope. Rather, according to the scriptural hope and its unified teaching, life is renewed after death, only via resurrection. Death is the end of life; and death is only overcome by an as yet future resurrection. This is why the Bible declares Jesus’ triumph as “overcoming death.” That was the final victory. By resurrection, Jesus overcame death, and by resurrection true believers who have died –we too will overcome death! Indeed, resurrection is the only avenue whereby the saints that have died can also overcome death and enjoy the renewal of life. And God’s promise to act on our behalf, that He won’t forget and is powerful to actually do so, that promise is our bridge from death to a future living again. It is the bridge we are to trust in, to get us across from this life that ends in actual, real, and whole death –to reanimation, transformation, and life eternal. There is no intermediate life; thus the Bible never teaches of any such. Rather, there is an intermediary promise, and that sure promise (by trusting faith) is what fills the gap between death, and resurrection to life eternal with Jesus.
Dying and immediately going to heaven was never the hope of the disciples of Jesus!

DOCUMENTARY PROOF:

G. Ernest Wright, internationally-renowned OT scholar and biblical archaeologist, declares, “…the Hebrews had no conception of pure being in spiritual terms apart from material form.” “There was no separation of body and soul, and man was conceived as a unified psycho-physical organism.”

Publisher and author, Robert Brinsmead writes, “When we come to the New Testament, we should realize that Hebrew thought forms are maintained. In most cases, especially in Paul, soul (Greek, psyche) simply means life.”

Professor D.R.G. Owen said, “The Hebrews had no idea of the immortality of the soul in the Greek sense…It was impossible for them even to conceive of disembodied human existence.”

[The legendary conservative scholar and exegete, F.F. Bruce, in effect, voiced the same summary conclusion; see inside.4 ]

F. F. Bruce: “Paul evidently could not contemplate immortality apart from resurrection; for him a body of some kind was essential to personality…for the Greeks man was an embodied soul, for the Hebrews he was an animated body… in this as in other respects Paul was ‘a Hebrew born and bred’ (Phil. 3.5)…if Paul longed to be delivered from the mortality of this present earthly ‘dwelling’, it was with a view to exchanging it for one that was immortal; to be without a body of any kind would be a form of spiritual nakedness or isolation from which his mind shrank.”

H. Wheeler Robinson, Biblical Theologian and OT scholar extraordinaire, wrote, “The Hebrew idea of personality is that of an animated body, man is a psychophysical unity, body not (like the Greek) that of an incarnated soul.” “The soul has no existence apart from the body.”

Perhaps the most respected Hebrew linguist in the history of the church, Dr. Franz Delitzch, “There is nothing in the entire Bible which implies [to man] a native immortality.” –Commenting on Genesis 3:22

There are no disembodied souls in heaven, or anywhere else, for that matter. Scripture wholly (i.e., utterly)(and holy) disavows them any existence.

Richard Eric Gunby

p.s.= I love your AUTO spell-checker! Neat.

Congrats on the big news at CT! Looking forward to seeing CT continue to be a great place to learn and explore the big questions of life. Don’t let the haters and know-it-alls bring you down.

Cheers!