Immortality or Resurrection - William West (best pdf ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

nothing is said about an immortal soul. It was Adam that sinned, Adam that died; and it was through Adam that death came into the world and passed unto all men, not death passed to all immortal souls [1 Corinthians 15:21-22; Romans 5:12-14]. The penalty to Adam and all his seed is death, not eternal life in Hell. There will be a resurrection from the death that came into the world from Adam's sin.
Today's preachers would tell Adam that he was going to Hell for his sin, but God said not one word about Hell. "Die" has been changed to "Hell." "Death" has been changed to "life with torment." Satan said, "You surely shall not die." Satan added the "not" and many have changed his "you shall not" to "your soul shall not die" to make a person now have an "immaterial invisible" immortal soul that shall not die.
• God: “You shall surely die…dust you are, and unto dust shall you return.”
• Today’s preachers: “You shall not surely die…for you are now immortal and will live forever some place.”
For a person to have an immortal soul two kinds of life and two kinds of death must be read into Genesis 2 with one of the deaths not being a death at all, but eternal life with torment. Look in your concordance and you will see that "Spiritual life" or "spiritual death" which is read into this is not in the Bible. It is argued that Adam did not die physically that day; therefore, "spiritual death" was Adam's penalty for eating. If this were true, why did he ever die a physical death, and how did physical death come into the world? In the Hebrew the penalty was "dying YOU shall die." It was the "living being" [Genesis 2:7] that would die, not an immortal soul that cannot die but was told that it would die anyway. Death came into the world through Adam and all die [1 Corinthians 15:22; Romans 5:12-21]. "And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this comes judgment" [Hebrews 9:27]. The death that came into the world by Adam's sin is the same death that he died for eating, a physical death. "By the sweat of your face YOU shall eat bread, till YOU return to the ground, because from it YOU were taken; for YOU are dust, and to dust YOU shall return" [Genesis 2:19]. It was not the death of Adam's "soul," an inward immortal never dying part of Adam that could not die that would return to the ground from which it was made. Adam could not have understood that YOU was only his body, and that only a part of the YOU would die, but the rest of the YOU would not die but would live forever in torment unless he had a revelation from God to tell him a part of him was deathless. There is no such revelation recorded in Genesis although it is repeatedly read into it today. Adam's undying soul theory is based on the silence recorded in Genesis two and three.
"No word is said either before the fall, or on the approach of the Judge, or afterwards, of Adam's possession of a deathless soul, when his mortal integer was broken up; - not a word is uttered in the divine comment on the curse, of an eternity of misery to be endured by the soul after dissolution of the Man. Indeed, that notion seems to deserve little else than the scorn, which Locke bestows upon it. It is the gratuitous invention of theologians who have forfeited the claim to be listened to in that matter by their perverse departure from the record.” Edward White, Life In Christ, Page 212, 1878.
A definition of death from the Bible, "Till YOU return to the ground, because from it YOU were taken; for YOU are dust, and to dust YOU shall return," and without the resurrection, all would forever remain dust. But, God's definition of death cannot be believed by any that believe the soul is immortal; they tell us that by, “You shall die,” God really means “spiritually death,” not to really die and return to the ground. The tradition of many makes changing the Bible a must; how many times have we been told that “You shall surely die” means “your soul, not you shall surely die spiritually?”
Another use of "you shall surely die" [the same words in the Hebrew]; Solomon told Shimei to "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not forth thence any whither. For on the day you go out, and pass over the brook Kidron, know you for certain THAT YOU SHALL SURELY DIE" [1 Kings 2:37]. He did go out of Jerusalem, and he did die just as Adam did but not on the very day he went out. “Surely die” is used 19 times in the Old Testament to mean the death of the person, not a “spiritual death.” Genesis 2:27; 3:4; 20:7; Numbers 26:65; Judges 13:32; 1 Samuel 14:39; 14:44; 20:31; 22:16; 2 Samuel 12:14; 1 Kings 2:37; 2:42; 2 Kings 1:4; 8:10; Jeremiah 26:8; Ezekiel 3:18; 18:13; 33:8; 33:14.
If Hell were Adam's sentence: "Die" must be changed into an eternal life for a part of Adam but not his body. If Hell was Adam's sentence then God was unclear in His warning and unclear in the sentence. What was the penalty God give in Genesis 3:9-24?
1. The serpent cursed
2. Sorrow in bringing forth children
3. The man ruling over his wife
4. The earth bringing forth thorns and thistles
5. Must work to eat, by the sweat of his face
6. They would return to the ground from which they came
How can anyone get Hell out of this sentence? There is not one word about an immortal, immaterial part of a person in it and not one word about Hell or torment after death in it. There is nothing about anything after death in it. The penalty for eating of the forbidden tree ended when they returned to the ground.
What is the death that came into the world and passed unto all through Adam's sin?
"It seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires the plainest and direct words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery...I must confess that by death, here, I can understand nothing but a ceasing to be, the losing of all actions of life and sense. Such a death came upon Adam and all his posterity, by his first disobedience in paradise, under which death they should have lain forever had it not been for the redemption by Jesus Christ" John Locke, "Reasonableness of Christianity," Volume 6, page 3, 1695
The "soul" as it is used today will live forever if it eats of this fruit or does not eat of it, and the teaching is that not even God can keep it from living forever. If God had made men with unconditional immortality, would it have done any good to put him out of the garden to keep him from eating of the tree of life to live forever? If Adam were made with an immortal undying part, he would have lived forever and could not have died even if he did not eat of the tree of life.
Adam and Eve passed from a state in the garden where they had access to the tree of life, where it was possible for them to live forever, to a state where it was impossible for them not to die. The day they did eat was the beginning of the dying process ["Dying you shall die"]. There is nothing in this about a person being a dual being with an immortal soul, but most read it into this. It was the whole person as he was then, which would have lived forever if he had eaten of the tree of life. It was the whole person, not just some inter part of a person, which God said would die. How could an "immaterial invisible" part of a person eat of a visible material tree? Satan's lie was that THEY, not some inter part of them, would not die. The presence of the "tree of life" in Eden indicates that immortality was conditional on eating of that tree. To prevent the possibility of being able to "live forever" [Genesis 3:22] God put a barrier to the garden when Adam was put out of Eden and the dying process began.
The New JOHN GILL Exposition of the Entire Bible "For in the day thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die; or in dying, die; which denotes the certainty of it...man became at once a mortal creature, who otherwise continuing in a state of innocence, and by eating of the tree of life, he was allowed to do, would have lived an immortal life; of the eating of which tree, by sinning he was debarred, his natural life not now to be continued long, at least not forever; he was immediately arraigned, tried, and condemned to death, was found guilty of it, and became obnoxious to it, and death at once began to work in him; sin sowed the seeds of it in his body, and a train of miseries, afflictions, and diseases, began to appear, which at length issued in death."
YOUNG'S Literal Translation Genesis 2:17 "For in the day of thine eating of it - dying thou dost die."
ADAM CLARKE "Thou shall surely die. Literally, a death thou shall die; or, dying thou shall die-from that moment thou shall become mortal, and shall continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find literally accomplished; every moment of man's life may be considered as an act of dying." On Genesis 2:7: “From that moment thou shall become mortal, and shall continue in a dying state till thou die.”
JOHN WESLEY "Thou shall die-That is, thou shalt lose all the happiness thou hast either in possession or prospect; and thou shalt become liable to death, and all the miseries that preface and attend it. This was threatened as the immediate consequence of sin."
A DOUBLE CHANCE: First change: Adam's death must be changed to be a "separation," not death. Second change: Then his "separation" must be made to be an eternal life of torment in Hell. "For as in Adam all die" [1 Corinthians 15:22]. If death = separation, and separation = Hell, then all go to Hell for "in Adam all die."
[5]. "WITHOUT MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD" Job 19:25-27
In "Reason and Revelation" May 2000, Dr. Bert Thompson used this question Job asked to prove a person has a part in him or her that will live after the death of the body. If I understand him right, he is saying a person without a body will see God. Job said, "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another." When will anyone see God? Will it be before the resurrection or not unto after the resurrection? The clear teaching of the Bible is that no one will see God before the resurrection and than it will be without the body of flesh, but not without a body. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" [1 Corinthians 15:44]. No one can see God while in