Do you have immortality now or not? How can you know? Two Bible passages give insight to the answer.
Transcript
[Steve Myers] A question came in from one of our viewers. They said, "What does the Bible say about bodies or souls? In the Bible, is an immortal soul part of a human being?" That is a vital question because it gets to the very heart of whether or not we have immortality or not. What does the Bible say? Do you have a soul? Or are you a soul? And the answer to that question is so vital because it gets to the very heart of one of the biggest heresies in religion today.
And here's where we should start, all the way at the beginning. Go back to Genesis 1:20 and it talks about the soul, but what about it? Let's read it, Genesis 1:20, it says, "God said, 'Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures.'" This word for living creatures is an important one. It's the Hebrew word nephesh. Nephesh is the word there for living creatures. Now, why is that important? Well, because just a couple of verses later, this very same word for living creatures is used. And that's where we begin to see the counterfeit come in, this differentiation between people and this idea of soul.
Let's notice it. Genesis 2:7, "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." That's what it says in the King James Version, "Man became a living soul." So that sounds like man already has immortality, that he has a soul. But you know what? That's the same word, living soul, in verse 7 of chapter 2 that was used in Genesis 1:20 that in verse 20 it says, "A living creature."
So, what is man? Does man have a soul or is man a soul? Is man a living creature? It's the same word. And so the New King James translates it correctly when it says, "Man became a living being." That's the same thing. And so to get to the heart of the question then, man does not have immortality. He doesn't have it and that is such a critical, important point.
We know Romans 6:23 says eternal life is the gift of God and there is hope in that. It's not that we already have eternity. We don't have an immortal soul. But we are a soul.
We're going to talk more about this in the next BT Daily so we hope you'll stay tuned into that and notice why it's so important and how you can prove that you are a soul, not that you already have one.
