A living soul (nephesh chaiyah) simply means living creature throughout the Bible, and is so translated over and over again.

It is sufficient to cite, by way of illustration, Genesis i. 20, 21 and 24, in each of which verses the translators have used the words "living creature", or "moving creature", by which they admit that the fishes, the fowls, the whales, and cattle are "living souls". Again, in Genesis ii. 19, the whole of the lower creation is summed up as living creatures.

The Hebrew word nephesh occurs 754 times in the Bible, and is translated by 45 different words, of which, however, "soul" is 475, and "life", or "lives", 120. It never has the meaning of immortality, or incorruptibility. The primary meaning is living creature; in fact, it could be well rendered by the word "self".

Read the "Llanelly Debate" on "Is the Soul Immortal?"

Herodotus speaks of the Egyptians as the first who recognised the human soul as immortal (lib.ii.,c.cxxiii). Egyptian superstition is the parent of the dogma!

Moses was well acquainted with the idea, being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii. 22), yet he gives not the remotest hint concerning it from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. He had evidently no faith in it:

Dr. John Thomas

"Fear not them which kill the body, but are notable to kill the soul" (Matt. x. 28).

The short-sightedness of the adversary in quoting this passage in support of the doctrine of never-dying souls is remarkable, for in the same verse we are told it is possible to kill the soul.

The passage shows that while the enemy may kill the body he cannot rob man of the life (Greek word psuche, rendered life in Matt. x. 39, which see). That is, the life which "is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 8), we cannot be robbed of (John x. 29); for when he "who is our life shall appear" (Col. iii. 4), then we shall be raised and receive that life (Dan. xii. 2). On the other hand, we may lose both body and soul at the judgment seat if found unworthy, hence the Judge is the one we should fear (Matt. x. 28).

F. G. J.

"And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing" (Gen. xxxv. 18).

Evidently everything turns upon the word "soul" in this text. It cannot be an immortal soul which would continue to live on after the body had returned to dust, because the Bible not only does not teach such, but is emphatically against any such doctrine. All that the text means is that Rachel was dying; her life was fast ebbing away.

The word translated "soul" in this text, is precisely the same as that in the text which says, "The life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev. xvii. 11). Surely no one will contend that an immortal soul exists in one's blood.

F. G. J.

"Ο Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again" (1 Kings xvii. 21).

Of our friends who quote this passage, we would ask:

Do you want us to believe that this little child's soul went to heaven, and was afterwards brought back by Elijah to endure the trouble which falls to the lot of all mankind?

Surely not; and yet it can mean nothing else to popular theologians. But the text means nothing more than,

"Let this child's life come into it again";

for the word translated "soul" in 1 Kings xvii. 21 is rendered "life" in no less than 120 other texts.

Note, too, that in this record of the child being raised to life again there is not a whisper of heaven-going, or of consciousness between his death and his being brought back to life.

F. G. J

The statement of Job, that he was going whence he would "not return" (Job x. 21), simply meant that, unlike many other occasions when he was absent from home, and to which he always returned, yet, upon the event happening to which he referred, namely death (verse 18), he would not return. He had full assurance of the resurrection when he would again live on the earth (xix. 25-27); but that was another matter altogether, and which no reasonable person would argue was contradicted by the first mentioned declaration. But infidels and atheists are not reasonable creatures.

F. G. J.

To say the witch saw "the spirit Samuel, is to say what the Bible does not say; in fact, in the whole record no mention is made of anything of the kind. The Bible speaks of the witch seeing "an old man","covered with a mantle" (1 Sam. xxviii. 14). More-over, whatever the witch saw, came from below, for Samuel is represented in the story as saying:

"Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up" (1 Sam.xxviii. 15),

which is hardly what our friends would say of the immortal soul of a good man like Samuel. By some, it is thought that God actually caused the witch to see Samuel, and raised him for that purpose. By others, it is thought that the witch possessed the (not unknown) power of seeing what was impressed on the sensorium of Saul, namely, Samuel as he last saw him alive.

F. G. J.

Read "Odology", by Dr. John Thomas

"Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell" (2 Cor. xii. 2).

Although this text is quoted as proof that the soul continues to exist consciously after death, it is not applicable, for Paul was not dead; he is writing about a vision he had while he was alive. It would also appear that our opponents who quote this verse had never read a similar statement by Paul:

"I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit" (1 Cor. v. 3).

Again:

"For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit" (Col. ii. 5).

It must be a poor case which can only be proved, or supported, by "visions" and "parables". Why not heed the many plain and emphatic Biblical statements on the condition of the dead (Psalm vi. 5; cxv. 17;cxlvi. 4; Job x. 19)?

The student who rightly divides the word of truth will interpret parables and visions in the light of simple Bible truths, and not twist plain Scripture statements to suit one's own interpretation of vision and parables.

F. G. J.

“ For in death there is no remembrance of thee: In Sheol who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps 6:5 ASV)

“ The dead praise not Jehovah, Neither any that go down into silence;” (Ps 115:17 ASV)

“ His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish.” (Ps 146:4 ASV)

“ I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.” (Job 10:19 ASV)

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was :and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Eccles. xii. 7).

Those who quote this passage in support of immortal soulism fail to see that, nowhere in Holy Writ is the spirit said to be the man, but simply that which keeps the man alive (Gen. ii. 7). The same inspired writer, in Eccles. iii. 19, says:

"That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath" (or "spirit", for the original is "ruach" as in Eccles. xii.7). The difference between man and beast lay in the former's responsibility to God, for which reason man will be raised to judgment, which the beast will not (Psalm xlix. 20).

F. G. J.

"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Pet. iii. 19).

It must be admitted this is a difficult text to explain, but not more so to Christadelphians than to their opponents. It ill becomes the latter to produce the text as their witness, for there is nothing in it about the death state; or, if so, even then it would prove that the wicked have another chance in the next world. We are inclined to think Peter is referring to the preaching of Noah, by the spirit of Christ, in the same way that the prophets spake by "the spirit of Christ" (1Pet. i. 11). Spirits are not immortal souls, but tangible beings (1 John iv. 1). "In prison" is, figuratively, to be in the bondage of sin (Isa. lxi. 1).

F. G. J.

Read "The Christadelphian Shield".

“ Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (1Jo 4:1 ASV)

"To the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb.xii. 23).

This text cannot possibly mean what the popular theologian says it means, namely, that the spirits are good men who have gone to heaven, for the writer to the Hebrews says, that even those divinely praised worthies of whom he writes have

"received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect" (Heb. xi. 40).

The expression, "written in heaven", is a very different thing from the individuals being in heaven — even the margin has "enrolled". Paul elsewhere refers to certain ones "whose names are in the book of life" (Phil. iv. 3).

F. G. J.

"Then Abraham gave up the ghost" (Gen. xxv. 8);

"Isaac gave up the ghost" (Gen. xxxv. 29);

Jacob "yielded up the ghost" (Gen. xlix. 33).

The Hebrew word rendered "gave up the ghost" and "yielded up the ghost", is gava, which simply means die, or died. It is so translated in Genesis vi.17; vii. 21 (which Scripture refers to animals as well as to human beings); Job xxvii. 5; xxix. 18; xxxvi. 12;Psalm civ. 29; Zech. xiii. 8. In Job xxxiv. 15, it isrendered "perish". Thus, it will be seen, there were no grounds for translating gava, "gave up the ghost", and thus lending support to the old wives' fable about departed spirits.

F. G. J.

Whatever Stephen meant when he said:

"Lord Jesus receive my spirit" (Acts vii. 59),

he most certainly did not mean "receive my immortal soul"; for the simple reason that there is not such a thing.

The spirit is the life of the body (Psalm civ. 30), without which there is no knowledge, love, hatred or memory (Eccles. ix. 6). Therefore, when the spirit or life leaves the body, the body is dead, and absolutely hopeless without resurrection or repossession of the spirit.

How natural, therefore, for such a godly man as Stephen with his dying breath to exclaim:

"Lord Jesus receive my spirit".

F. G. J.

“ Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; And thou renewest the face of the ground.” (Ps 104:30 ASV)

“ As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, is perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.” (Ec 9:6 ASV)

“ And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (Ac 7:59 ASV)

The verse from which this phrase is taken reads:

"We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (2 Cor. v. 8).

The whole chapter disproves the popular theology idea of the soul. Paul had no desire to be separated from his body; his desire was to be made immortal,

"desiring to be clothed upon" (2 Cor. v. 2);

"not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. v. 4).

F. G. J.

"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand" (2 Tim. iv. 6).

The Greek word rendered "departure" in this text has the absolute meanings of dissolution, death, loosing, and releasing. Therefore, the text is no help to those who believe in immortal souls. Nay, the very context puts to shame their contention:

"Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day" (2 Tim.iv. 8).

F. G. J.

"Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle" (2 Pet. i. 14).

Even those who oppose Christadelphian belief admit that "tabernacle" is a figure of speech. So, evidently, the "putting off" is also figurative.

To rush off to figurative language as proof of clerical dogma is truly a sign of weakness, especially when the death state is dealt with in hundreds of plain and literal texts, such as

"The dead know not anything" (Eccles.ix. 5).

Job, too, speaking of the condition of death,said:

"I should have been 'as though I had not been' " (Job x. 19).

F. G. J.

"Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's" (Rom. xiv. 8).

Knowing what we do of Paul, we can quite appreciate his statement; but, our religious contemporaries can only accept this text with grave reservations, for they do not really accept that word "die" at its face value, or with its simple meaning; they do not believe they die, but only their bodies. The Bible, however, says "they die"; "we die", but it also teaches that we shall "come forth" again to life — When?

God tells us:

"They shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels" (Mai. iii. 17).

F. G. J.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth" (Rev. xiv. 13).

If this means that they entered upon their reward at death, how about all those that died before this promise? For the text says it refers to those who die "henceforth". The Book of Revelation is not only a book in which the matter is "signified" (Rev. i. 1), but it is a programme of events which were to be "hereafter" (Rev. iv. 1). Note, too, the reason and results of the blessing:

"That they may rest from their labours".

F. G. J.

"Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John xi. 26).

The word "never" in the Greek, literally meant "not for ever". That is evidently what the Lord meant. He beautifully paraphrases his meaning when, in the previous verse, he said:

"He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John xi.25),

that is, when

"The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live" (John v. 25).

F. G. J.

When Christ said,

"If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death" (John viii. 51),

he must have meant in the ultimate sense; otherwise how about Peter, and James, and John, and Lazarus, and Paul, and those who were "faithful unto death" (Rev. ii. 10). Although they did see death, Christ has promised to raise them from the dead (John v. 29; vi. 40; xi. 23; 1Thess. iv. 16; Heb. vi. 2), and give to them a nature which will not be hurt by the Second Death (Rev. ii.11). The word "never", in some cases, has the meaning of "not for ever", which affords a ready explanation of the difficulty, if there be such.

F. G. J.

Turn up almost any passage in the Word where we have any record of God's children dying, and it is, "They fell asleep". It is a beautiful expression, a true expression. We do not know what dying is like by experience; the nearest to it that we know is natural sleep; to fall asleep and sleep soundly; no dreams. We may sleep five minutes or five hours, but that time has been lost to us, and so it is with death. We do not know, but we fancy that death is just like going to sleep, and we wake to find such a delightful change. This midnight orgy in which we are living played out; we wake to find this rollicking debauch exhausted — gone, and gone for ever; and we wake up to find the "morning without clouds", calm, serene, glorious, dawning upon a new world.

S. A. Garside

" We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. v. 1).

The context of these lines altogether opposes the doctrine for which they are produced to support. Paul did not expect, and had no desire, to be separated from his body; he wanted to be made immortal, which he tells us means "the redemption of the body" (Rom.viii. 23). He yearned for his mortal body to be swallowed up of immortality. He wrote of "Desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven" (2 Cor. v. 2), and he goes on to explain:

"Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life" (verse 4).

F. G. J.

"I Am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matt. xxii. 32).

The object of these words of Christ was to prove, not that these patriarchs were alive in heaven, but that they must be raised in order to live (see verse 23). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are all dead (Gen. xxv. 8; xxxv.29; xlix. 33). They "died in faith, not having received the promises" (Heb. xi. 13, 39). Now, as God calls Himself their God (Exod. iii. 6), and as He is not the God of dead men, it is certain, says Christ, they must be raised from the dead (Matt. xxii. 31). The reason why God called Himself the God of these dead patriarchs is given by Paul, when pointing out that God, long before Abraham had children, said:

"A father of many nations have I made thee" (Gen. xvii.5).

"God, who quickeneth the dead, calleth those things which be not (but are to be) as though they were"(Rom. iv. 17).

F. G. J.

" For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. i. 21).

Absolutely true; for, if to die was gain to any man, it was to the Apostle Paul; for his life was one of stripes, imprisonments, beating with rods, stoning, shipwreck, robbery, false brethren, tortures, hunger, cold, nakedness (2 Cor. xi. 23-28). Death to Paul was gain; not because it meant heaven, but because it meant rest until the time he referred to later in the same epistle, where, in speaking of heaven, he says,

"From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. iii. 20).

Job speaks similarly of what death would have meant to him in view of his terrible calamities (Job xiv. 13).

F. G. J.

"I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better"(Phil. i. 23).

Any difficulty as to the meaning of this statement vanishes when we remember that the word rendered "depart" — analuo — only occurs in one other text, and is there (Luke xii. 36), rendered "return";

"And be ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding".

The Septuagint Version has in 22 cases used analuo as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word shoov, which always signifies to return, as in Joshua xxii. 8:

"And he spake unto them, saying, 'Return with much riches unto your tents' ".

F. G. J.

"Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise" " (Luke xxiii.43).

There is no proof of heaven going in this text. Christ did not go to Paradise in any event until three days later (John xx. 17). His "soul" was in Sheol (Psalm xvi. 10), or Hades (Acts ii. 27), where the Bible tells us there is absolute unconsciousness (Eccles. ix. 10; Psalm vi. 5; cxv. 17; cxlvi. 4; Job x. 18). All difficulty in understanding what Christ meant in his answer to the thief disappears when we remove the comma after "thee", and place it after "today". This is in accord with the New Testament adverb "today", for out of 221 uses thereof, in no less than 170 the comma is placed before the adverb, and not after. In the Old Testament the rule is the same, for instance, Deut. viii. 19; "I testify against you this day".

F. G. J.

It must be a poor case which requires a parable to prove it, and that is what the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is used for. The first four words are evidence of its being a parable (Luke xvi. 19, compare with xv. 11; xvi. 1,etc.). It was spoken to the Pharisees (see Matt. xiii.34). Not a word is found in the whole story about "souls," or "spirits," or "vital sparks". The one who was taken to hell, or hades, was "a rich man," "clothed in purple" (Luke xvi. 19). The poor man, who had sores, was taken to "Abraham's bosom"(xvi. 22). They had "tongues" and "fingers" (xvi.24).

The parable was based upon the Pharisees' belief concerning hades (see "Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades", by Josephus). That Christ should refer to such is no more evidence of his sanctioning such belief than that he endorsed the belief concerning Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 27). Christ's object in the parable was simply to enforce the moral found at the close of the parable (Luke xvi.31).

F. G. J.

Read "The Parables of Christ", by R. Roberts

"Whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him" (1 Thess. v. 10).

Live together with him; yes, but when?

Paul answers in this very epistle:

"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thess. iv. 15, 16).

So that, at that time, if we be Christ's, "whether we wake or sleep, we shall live together with him".

F. G. J.

It is evident from the context that when Paul speaks of certain ones being "glorified" he was referring to a time yet future. The passage reads:

"Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called,them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Rom. viii. 30).

In each case the tense of the verb is the aorist; that is, indefinite as to time. First comes "predestination", then the "calling", and finally the "glorification". In no case is glorification affirmed of anyone apart from immortality; thus, of the Lord Jesus himself, the Apostle Paul said, God "hath glorified His Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up" (Acts iii. 13).

F. G. J.

This incident is frequently cited as evidence of the separate existence of an immortal soul, it being contended that as Moses died and was buried (Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6) he must have had a "double" to have appeared with Elijah and Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark ix. 4). But those who so contend omit to notice that Christ said that what they saw was "a Vision" (Matt. xvii. 9); that is, a pictorial representation of the Kingdom of God, in so far as it represented Jesus exalted over the Law as represented by Moses; and above the prophets as represented by Elijah.