Satan’s Greatest LIE Is the Immortal Soul Apart-From-Christ
You can search in vain all you want, but you’ll find no passage in the Bible saying that human beings possess immortality apart from redemption in Christ. The Bible teaches that God alone has immortality in the absolute sense (1 Timothy 6:16) and he offers it to people only through the gospel: “… Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).
God did indeed bless the first man with the gift of eternal life when he created him. Adam had immortality, but there was a condition to maintaining this immortality as God clearly instructed Adam that if he sinned he would “surely die”:
And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
Genesis 2:16-17
The Hebrew word translated as “die” in this passage is muth (mooth) which means “to die” or “kill” and is repeatedly used in the Old Testament simply in reference to death, including the death of animals (e.g. Exodus 7:18; 14:11). If Adam never sinned, he would’ve never died. Yet he did sin, and the instant that he did part of him died—his immortal nature. We know this because the aging process started that very day culminating in his death many years later (Genesis 5:5). God foretold Adam’s death immediately after Adam’s fall, “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). This helps us to understand why muwth—“die”—is actually used twice in Genesis 2:17 (two forms of the word, that is— tamut muth). A more literal translation of this verse would read: “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, dying, you will die.” In other words, the very day Adam sinned part of his being died, leading to his eventual demise.
The immediate spiritual death of Adam & Eve is evident by the fact that they hid from God and were afraid of Him (Genesis 3:8-10). Their relationship with the LORD severely changed when they sinned as their pure communion died. Humanity has been hiding from God ever since. This is spiritual death—being dead to the Creator. Like Adam & Eve, we’ve tried to cover up our sin with the fig leaves of religion, but religion can never solve the problem of spiritual death, including quasi-Christian religion. That’s why Jesus Christ, the second Adam, taught that we need to be spiritually regenerated to have a relationship with God (John 3:3,6).
Thus no one born into this world intrinsically possesses eternal life because we’ve been born of the perishable seed of Adam. The only life (zoe) that people born of the perishable seed of Adam possess is the temporal life (zoe) which God “gives all men” (Acts 17:25). To inherit eternal life (zoe) we must be born again of the imperishable seed of Christ, the second Adam. This is what the gospel of Christ is all about: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
This offers a better understanding of the Bible’s most popular verse:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The last verse of this biblical chapter offers even more clarity: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them” (John 3:36).
Where did this popular idea that human beings inherently possess an immortal soul apart from God’s redemption originate? The devil, the “father of lies” (John 8:44). Remember what God said to Adam and Eve would be the consequence of disobedience: He warned them that they would “surely die” (Genesis 2:17). The LORD made it perfectly clear way back in the beginning that going the wrong way—the way of selfishness and rebellion—would lead to death. This is in harmony with the biblical fact that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Yet when “the father of lies” tempted Eve to sin in Genesis 3:4, he contradicted what God said by saying that she would “not surely die” if she sinned. This is the very first lie recorded in the Bible. The devil was saying in essence, “What God said is a lie, you will not surely die—you have an immortal soul.” Regrettably, people have been believing this lie about the so-called immortal soul ever since; this false doctrine infiltrated Christianity early on and has become the “orthodox” view even though the Bible does not teach it, thus proving the power of religious tradition and sectarian allegiance. This long-lasting mass deception explains why I refer to the doctrine of the immortal soul apart-from-Christ as The Great Lie.
After the unfortunate fall of Adam and Eve, notice what the LORD says:
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
God would not have said this if Adam already possessed an immortal soul (i.e. unconditional immortality). Secondly, this statement makes it clear that human beings can obtain unconditional immortality if they eat of the tree of life. The obvious reason God did not want Adam to eat of the tree of life is because he was unredeemed. If Adam ate of the tree of life in his disgraced condition, he would have attained unconditional immortality and thus would have condemned himself and his descendants to live forever in a fallen, ungodly state, like the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41, cf. Matthew 10:28, Hebrews 10:26-27, Luke 19:27, etc.). The LORD is just, righteous and merciful and didn’t want such a horrible tragedy to befall humanity, so he immediately banished Adam & Eve from the garden and was sure to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:23-24).
The LORD would have to redeem humankind before allowing us to eat “from the tree of life and live forever.” That’s what the gospel of Christ is all about. And this explains Jesus’ statement in Revelation 2:7, “To him who overcomes I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Notice clearly that only those who are born of God and overcome the world by faith (1 John 5:4) have the right to eat of the tree of life and live forever. That’s because eternal life and immortality are only available through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).
This article was edited from chapter 4 of…
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Related Topics:
IMMORTALITY — Only Available Through the Gospel
Death — Does it Mean “Separation” as Religionists Claim? (No)
Hell (Human Damnation) — Questions and Answers
Q&A on SHEOL / HADES, the Intermediate State of the Unsaved
RICH MAN & LAZARUS: Fantastical Parable or Literal Account?
The Believer’s “Intermediate State” (between Physical Death and Bodily resurrection)
Eternal Life: Questions & Answers
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