What Happens After Death? ( 8)

Is the spirit in man the immortal soul?

Earlier we noted a special spiritual aspect of the human mind that gives us our intellectual abilities, separating us from animals in function and purpose (see 1 Corinthians:2:11).

What we've seen so far is that the Bible shows a dead person is in no way immortal; his life has perished. So what happens to the spiritual essence that separates man from animal? Does it continue as a conscious, immortal soul independent of the physical body? Certainly not!

The Bible shows that the spirit in man, which originally came from the Creator God, returns to Him. "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes:12:7). This spirit that returns to God is neither the source of human life, nor is it human consciousness. Life and consciousness both perish when one dies. God does not tell us why this spirit returns to Him, just that it does. This may be the way God preserves the characteristics of each person until the resurrection.

The truth is that man has no spiritual soul with conscious awareness independent of the physical body. This has been proven time and time again when individuals have gone into comas for weeks, months and sometimes years at a time, only to emerge from that comatose state with no memory or recollection of the passage of time.

If one had a soul that existed independently of the human body, wouldn't that soul have some memory of remaining aware during the months or years the body was unconscious? That would be powerful and logical proof of the existence of an independent soul within the human body—yet no one has ever reported any such thing, in spite of thousands of such occurrences.

Summary

In this chapter we have considered the mystery of death. The good news is that it doesn't have to be a mystery. The scriptures we have reviewed make clear that a human being is a mortal soul and does not possess an im mortal soul. Upon death, life ceases. It does not continue in some other form; a dead person does not transmigrate to be reincarnated as another being.

Since the time of Adam and Eve, all people have died a physical death—even Jesus Christ. But death is not the end. As Paul wrote, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christall shall be made alive" (1 Corinthians:15:22). Even though our life is temporary, God has not left us without hope and a greater purpose for living.

Another vital step we have mentioned here and will take up more fully in the next chapter, the resurrection, brings us from death back to life.

To be cont'd. 

God bless you all.