The Living Soul
A Riddle for the Logical Mind
Three verses. One logical answer. Can you find it?
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Genesis 2:7 (KJV) And the LORD [Yahuah] God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
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Ezekiel 18:4 (KJV) Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
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1 Timothy 6:16 (KJV) Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
Read all three. Lay them side by side. What must be true?
Paul said when immortality is put on.
1 Corinthians 15:53 (KJV) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
- Man became a living soul; he was not handed one. — Genesis 2:7
- The soul that sins dies. — Ezekiel 18:4
- Only He has immortality. — 1 Timothy 6:16
Man is mortal. Immortality is given at the resurrection.
Why It Matters
The church teaches that every person has an immortal soul that lives on, conscious, after death. Genesis 2:7 says man "became a living soul." Dust plus the breath of life equals a soul. Man does not have a soul; he is one. The same Hebrew phrase, nephesh chayyah, describes the animals in Genesis 1:24, translated "living creature." Ezekiel 18:4 says "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Paul says Yahuah "only hath immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16). If immortality belongs to Him only, no man carries it by nature.
Scripture describes death as sleep and silence. "The dead know not any thing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5). When breath goes, man "returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish" (Psalm 146:4). The spirit that returns to Elohim (Ecclesiastes 12:7) is ruach, the breath He lent, not a conscious person floating free.
The immortal soul came from Plato. In the Phaedo he taught that the soul is trapped in the body and set free at death. Church writers trained in Greek thought carried the idea in. The Fifth Lateran Council made it binding dogma in 1513. The doctrine was decided by a council, not found in a text.
This matters because it empties the resurrection. If the dead are already in glory, raising the body is an afterthought. Paul argued the reverse: if there is no resurrection, "they also which are fallen asleep in Messiah are perished" (1 Corinthians 15:18). Immortality is "put on" at the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:53), and Paul tells believers to seek it (Romans 2:7). No one seeks what he already owns. The doctrine also opened the door to prayers to the dead and to saints, which the Law forbids (Deuteronomy 18:11). It feeds the teaching of endless torment as well (see Riddle 7).
Revelation places the dead where Scripture always placed them, waiting. "The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them" (Revelation 20:13). They are raised from the grave, not called back from heaven.