The Nature of Man
What is your life?
Did God endow you with an “eternal spark” of life that cannot die? Only the Bible’s evidence can settle this question. Mankind’s speculation about the alleged “immortal soul” is baseless and worthless. It is merely ‘the wish, the father of the thought’.
What does the Bible say about your life?
- It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanished away” (James 4:14)
- “Man is like to vanity: his days are like a shadow that passeth away” (Psalm 144:4)
- “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more (Psalm 103:14-16)
- “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes” (Genesis. 18:27)
What is Man?
- A living “soul” = a natural body (Genesis 2:7 cp. 1 Corinthians 15:42-49) “soul” = any breathing creation; Genesis 1:20,24; 2:19; 9:10; Numbers 31:28 in death as well as in life (Numbers 6:6,11; Numbers 9:6,7,10,13; 19:13).
- Death attacks and destroys the man. (Ezekiel 18:4; Psalm 78:50; Psalm 89:48; 22:29; Ecclesiastes 3:18-21)
- In death man is unconscious. (Psalm 146:2-4; 6:4-5; Isaiah 38:17-18; Ecclesiastes 9:3-6,10)
- Without Christ the dead perish. (John 3:14-17; 1 Corinthians 15:18)
The Reality of Death
- “As a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light” (Job 3:16)
- “Oh that I had given up the spirit and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave’ (Job 10:18-19)
- “O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more” (Psalm 39:13)
- “While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being” (Psalm 146:2)
- “They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish” (Isaiah 26:14)
Immortality a Hope and a Promise
- Immortality brought to light by Christ through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10)
- Immortality obtained through obedience (Romans 2:6-10)
- Immortality promised by God, but not yet possessed (1 John 2:25; Titus 1:2; James 1:12; 2 Timothy 1:1)
- Immortality our hope (Titus 1:2; 3:7)