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

in consequence, the believers would in due course rise also. This set them off from all the other teachers of the ancient world...Nothing is more characteristic of even the best thought of the day than its hopelessness in the face of death. Clearly the resurrection is of the very first importance for the Christian faith" Page 1010, 1996. The resurrection is a New Testament teaching. The word resurrection is used forty-one times in the New Testament but not once in the Old Testament.
ADAM CLARKE on 1 Corinthians 15:32: "I believe the common method of pointing this verse is erroneous; I propose to read it: 'If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what does it advantage me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.' What the apostle says here is a regular and legitimate conclusion from the doctrine that there is no resurrection; for if there be no resurrection, then there can be no judgment-no future state or rewards and punishment; why, therefore, should we bear crosses, and keep ourselves under continual discipline? Let us eat and drink, take all the pleasure we can; for tomorrow we die, and there is an end of us forever."
JERRY CROSS: "It is important to notice that Paul argues for a resurrection, and not a release. Paul does not have in mind some disembodied existence such as advocated by Greek thinkers such as Plato. Furthermore, Paul is arguing for a resurrection that is a transformation and not a continuation or resumption of life just as it had been laid down. The resurrected body is to be radically different from the body of this earthly life (vv. 35-49). This is the same position argued by Jesus against both the view of the Sadducees and that of the Pharisees (Matt. 22:23-33; esp. v. 30)" Magnolia Bible College 1984 Lectures, pages 47-48.
DILLARD THURMAN, Brown Trail Church of Christ: "The hope and aspiration of many has been shifted from His coming again to receive His own, to an immediate immortality and heavenly bliss immediately at death! Jesus DID NOT promise that!" Gospel Minutes, Volume 34, Number 5, February 1, 1985. “I have heard funeral orations extol the happiness and bliss the departed has instantly with death: but on checking the New Testament assiduously, I have yet to find a single promise where the dead go into heaven on an instant pass, or have immediate conscious happiness” Gospel Minutes, Volume 34, Number 5, February 1, 1985.
The resurrection was the backbone of the belief and teaching of the New Testament Church [Philippians 3:10-11; Acts 17:31, 23:6, 24:15, John 6:39-54, Luke 14:13-14, Hebrews 9:27, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58]. If the body is only a house in which the soul lives, then the putting off this house is not a death; if the soul is alive and anything comes forth out of the grave, it could only be the body of flesh; and then the "soul" must come back from Heaven to rejoin the body, or we would have our dead earthly body resurrected on earth but with no "soul" when our “soul” is alive in Heaven both at the same time. The apostles never preached a disembodied life after death, but a resurrection from death. "God both raised the Lord, and will raise up us" [1 Corinthians 6:14].
If we are now a two parts being of body and spirit, what is the spiritual body that the saved soul or saved spirit will "put on" [1 Corinthians 15:44]? Is the "soul" (as the word is used today) different from the spiritual body that we will put on at the resurrection? Is the spirit part of a person, which some teach we now have, going to put on another body at the resurrection, and become a different spiritual body from what it is now? Will it be a second spiritual body? If we now have this spirit or soul, how can it be changed in any way? Will it be different from the soul we now have? If it will not be different, all we could do would be to put off the body of flesh; and then our immortal part would be just as it will be in Heaven; if not, why not? There could be no other change or a resurrection; nothing other than putting off the body of flesh at death, and those who have died would have already done this and are NOW without the resurrection just as they will always be. If the "soul" is now immortal there will be no resurrection and no spiritual body to be put on at the resurrection.
• "How are the dead raised, and with what manner of body do they come?" [1 Corinthians 15:35].
• "You sow not the body that shall be" [1 Corinthians 15:37].
• "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption" [1 Corinthians 15:42].
• "And as we have born the image of the earthy [Adam], we SHALL also bear the image of the heavenly [Christ]" [1 Corinthians 15:49].
• "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" [1 Corinthians 15:50].
• "We shall all be changed in a moment" [1 Corinthians 15:49].
• "The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed" [1 Corinthians 15:52].
• "It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" [1 John 3:2].
Summary: The reinterpretation of the nature of a person, that he is now a two part being of body and soul or spirit, that he now has an immortal spirit and/or soul that is just as it will be after the resurrection, and the dead in Christ are now just as they will always be. If this were true, then the "soul," which is now the immortal part of a person were alive, it could not put on immortality, it could not be changed, it could not be transformed, or it could not be resurrected at the coming of Christ. If this immortal soul were changed or resurrected from the dead then the spirit and/or soul some say we now have cannot be the same soul as the soul they say we will have after the resurrection. The simple Bible truth is that the saved will be changed and resurrected with a spiritual body, not resurrected with the earthly body [1 Corinthians 15:53].
All this is only because unconditional immortality must have something come from the grave that was dead, which could not be the "soul" for we are repeatedly told that it is as much alive as it will ever be.
(1) The soul is alive now.
(2) The soul will be alive after death before the resurrection; and it will be "at home with the Lord" from the time of the death of the body before and without the resurrection.
(3) The soul will be no more alive after the resurrection than it now is.
David Owen said in 1996 Florida College Lectures, Page 216 that it should be noted that Paul said we would be raised with a spiritual body, not a spirit. It will be "us" that will be raised with a new "spiritual body," not an undying inter spirit part of a person that is not dead being raised from Heaven?
If the resurrection were taken from the Bible, it would not affect the theology of many churches today. They take a short cut and go directly to heaven at death without the resurrection. Because they believe they are born with an immortal soul, which is the only part of them that they believe will be in Heaven, they do not need to put on immortality at the resurrection which they have bypassed.
A believer in unconditional immortality said, "Therefore, at the Second Coming, all the resurrected saints are brought together and publicly displayed, not raised at that time." From a web site at: http//www.tranexp.com/win/intertrans.gif.
The belief in the resurrection and the need for it is being abandoning by many; but, the Bible teaches that all die, and none will live before the resurrection; and without it there would be no life for anyone after death, no life for the saved or no life for the lost.
If you believe that only a part of a person will be saved, and that part is his immortal soul, which can never die, you cannot believe in the resurrection. Both cannot be true. If the soul was immortal it could not die and it now possesses eternal life, even if it rejects Christ and it could be raised from the dead. Satan's lie, "You shall not surely die" after being changed to "My soul shall not surely die" has succeeded to the point that many now say, "No Christ, a part of me needs no resurrection, my soul is immortal and at death it will come to you in Heaven; this part of me will not wait to go to heaven unto after your second coming and the resurrection." One of the "church fathers," Justin Martyr said those "who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven are not Christian at all." A faith in something God has not spoken is a vain useless faith, therefore; a faith based on life after death because we have an immortal soul that is not subject to death is a vain faith that is based on a lie.

[4] THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE WAGES OF SIN
MAKES "THE WAGES OF SIN" IMPOSSIBLE
BY ELIMINATING DEATH [Romans 6:23]
If the soul cannot die, it cannot pay the wages of sin, which is to die, therefore, the wages of sin had to be changed from death to an eternal life of torment.
• Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death" has been reinterpreted to be an eternal life with torment
• James 1:15: James should not have said, "And sin, when it is accomplished, it brings forth death." He should have said, "And when it is accomplished, sin brings forth eternal life in Hell to be eternally tormented by God."
As long as a person has life, that person is not dead, therefore, as long as any part of that person is alive, that person has not received the wages of sin. Nor can a person be said to be dying if death can never be reached. To an immortal soul that cannot die, death cannot be the wages of sin. Mankind does not like death, and most have made themselves believe there is no real death. Even at the time of our death, many believe we do not die, and have reduced God's death row to life in prison. And as we now have immortality, the promise of "eternal life" must be reduced from being eternal life to just being a reward [heaven]. If only the earthly body dies, not the real "us," the resurrection could not be the center of the gospel [1 Corinthians 15:1-10]; it could not even be a part of it; therefore, the undying immortal soul doctrine takes the resurrection out of the Gospel; both the resurrection of Christ and our resurrection.
NEVER A VICTORY: Evil and good beings must live side by side. If death is only separation from God, the separation must go on forever. There never can be an end to death. There never