Monday: “The Soul Who Sins Shall Die”
Read Ezekiel 18:4, Ezekiel 18:20 and Matthew 10:28. How can these verses help us understand the nature of the human soul?
Human life in this sinful world is fragile and transitory (Isaiah 40:1-8). Nothing infected by sin can be eternal by nature. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12, NKJV). Death is the natural consequence of sin, which affects all life here.
Image © Steve Creitz from GoodSalt.com
On this matter, there are two important biblical concepts. One is that human beings and animals both die. As stated by King Solomon, “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. … All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, , NIV).
The second concept is that the physical death of a person implies the cessation of his or her existence as a living soul (Heb. nephesh). In Genesis 2:16-17, , God had warned Adam and Eve that if they should ever sin, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die.
Echoing this warning, the Lord reinforced the point in Ezekiel 18:4, Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul who sins shall die” (NKJV). This statement has two main implications. One is that since all human beings are sinners, all of us are under the unavoidable process of aging and dying (Romans 3:9-18, Romans 3:23). Another implication is that this biblical concept makes void the popular notion of a supposed natural immortality of the soul. If the soul is immortal and exists alive in another realm after death, then we don’t really die after all, do we?
In contrast, the biblical solution for the dilemma of death is not a bodiless soul migrating either into Paradise or into purgatory, or even into hell. The solution is indeed the final resurrection of those who died in Christ. As Jesus stated in His sermon on the Bread of Life, “everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40, NKJV).
| Why is the surety of the Second Coming, which is made certain by Christ’s first coming (and after all, what good was Christ’s first coming without the Second?), so crucial to all that we believe? What hope would we have without the promise of His return? |
(20)
We often get ourselves tied in knots trying to sort out the body/soul/spirit/breath thing. It is compounded by the fact that the Bible uses these terms in different contexts. One of the main problems is that we sometimes try and separate and define these terms in an effort to understand them.
It helps me to understand that a living person is a combination of all of these "things". Here is an illustration - a bit limited as always - but it will give you a bit of an idea. I have a camera for taking photographs of birds. It comprises what is essentially a box with a sensor in it together with some buttons, dials, and electronics. I also have a lens (about a dozen of them actually) that is a metal tube filled with bits of glass. I can talk about the camera and its functions, describing the sensor resolution, the shutter speeds, and so on. And I can talk about the lens and its focal length, aperture and optical stabilisation. While each can be described separately, the simple truth is that a functional camera comprised both the camera and lens working together. A camera is useless without a lens. And, a lens is of little use if you cannot connect it up to the camera. A fully functional photographic instrument is more than just a camera and lens. It is a camera and lens working together in harmony.
We are more than just body + soul + breath + spirit separately. Each of these "things" must work together for us to function properly. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
I was with my father-in-law a couple of weeks ago when he drew his last breath. The chemistry stopped working, he no longer talked. His body was there but it was just a pile of chemicals. The chemistry of life had ceased. The parts had stopped working together. We live in the hope that at the resurrection, he will be changed into incorruptible chemistry with soul/breath/spirit who we will relate to once again.
Question
Can a person go a day without sinning?
Another way to word this question would be, "Can Jesus keep us for a day without sinning?"
And I'm sure He can. How about you?
I'm also sure of another thing: Anyone who goes for a time without sinning is not going to boast about it. In fact, the closer we draw to Jesus, the more faulty we will appear in our own eyes. Thus anyone who boasts about going without sinning is likely very far from Jesus.
Tina, This question often comes as people are beginning to realize the enormity of sin and begin appreciating the cost to our Savior. In the end the answer is it does not matter whether it is a day, an hour, a week etc., we are sinners and only Christ’s sinless life is seen by the Father. Live each day in the knowledge that Christ fulfilled the law for you, paid the price for you which has been accepted by the Father on your behalf and you will draw closer to Him and reflect His character more accurately each and every day.
Hello Tina,
When a child makes a mistake or his deliberate actions cause him injury, and he runs to his mom or dad because he "sinned" and is hurting, what is the action of a loving parent? Rejection? Scolding? Threats? Punishment? Anger at the child?
God knows our every weakness—read the lyrics to "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" because he showed us exactly what God is like—and he yearns to have us back even when we are feeding pigs in foreign country (Luke 15:11-32). When we sin by mistake or deliberately, we must come to our senses regardless of how we feel and go to God because he is the only one who can write his law of love in our hearts. We are deluded if we think we can do it ourselves.
Keep on fixing your eyes on Jesus and keep on following him, regardless of how the Devil (a liar from the very beginning) makes you feel. (Hebrews 12:1-3.) Jesus is our only hope. The Way, the Truth and the Life is not about sinning; its about love, God's love.
Richard Ferguson
Asked another way can we be prefect as We are urged to be? The answer a matter of how. …and yes we can. But it’s not my righteousness. It’s Jesus’ righteousness. It’s simply believing in his saving grace, staying connected to him and accepting his merits. His righteousness covers us daily- so we become one with Jesus - perfect by his grace.
Matthew 10:28 Do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul.
For "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
Basically what I see this is saying:
Don't worry about dying in this present life, don't worry about suffering the first death, for if you are hid in Christ, you will live again, for God has all your characteristics and everything that makes you, you, on record in some unfailing heavenly system. Your identity has not perished in the first death, your "soul" is in safe storage in the heavenly computer "sleeping" inactive, unconscious, till the resurrection when Christ will reactivate it in your new, glorious body.
But if you reject Christ and His provisions for eternal life, that identity, will be wiped out forever in the second death. Your "soul", your identity, your character, can be sold for some advantage in this life but the cost caused you to stray away and separate you from Christ. Thus those not hid in Christ face the second death which is the destruction of the person; body and soul.
I can only thank God for everything He has done in my life. I owe Him everything! Even when I get far away from Him, I still realize that I owe Him everything... because my worst enemy is myself, and I get tired of fighting me... just when I remember "Take my yoke..." This internal fight against the flesh can only be broken by the blood of Christ, which means Grace..
To answer the question posted at the end of todays lesson, I like quote 1 Cor. 15:14
If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
This is to begin with as it is crucial to understand what follows at Jesus 2nd Advent. Then we could move on to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16 which I always quote when talking to non adventists about the state of the dead.
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 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.
16 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.
Life is short and uncertain and this is a reality . Even James said „ You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.“ James 4:14
„So what advantage is there to me, if the dead rise not? “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.“Isaiah 22:13
So by this hope, our perspective is redirected and rooted in the fear and honor of God so that we can serve Him and live here on earth a righteous life.
Jesus said that He would come again the second time,
"And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Rev. 22:12
After fulfilling his earthly ministry He went back to Heaven to prepare a place for all those who have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. We should all look forward to His second coming because we will see Him face to face in all His wonderful beauty! His coming brings an end to this vicious legacy of sin and it will be the beginning of how life was truly meant to be before sin. There will be no more wars, no more political and social unrests, no more human trafficking, no more climate change, no more physical and mental health problems, no more serial killers, and no more death! We have this hope that burns within our heart! Hope in the coming of Jesus. Dear friends let us pray for one another that we never lose sight of this blessed hope. Maranatha!
Hello Tina - to find an answer to your question, I suggest to recall the Lord's Prayer. In particular His reference to forgiveness of trasspasses, which also ought to be forgive when committed against us. Tresspasses are what we possibly deal with daily.
Sin, as I understand it, is born in the heart - James 1:14-15. Sin could therefore be understood as a willful rejection of that which we know to be God's Will and Way; refusing to yield to the Holy Spirit's prompting. Our Lord and Savior has given us shelter in Him by covering us within with His Rightousness, forgiving the repentent heart.
Yes, a person that loves God with all their heart, mind, and spirit and loves their fellow man as him/herself can go a day without sinning.
If the original sin was rejecting the Creator by choosing to go one’s own way, than accepting Him through Faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ opens the Way to go back to be reunited with Him. This is the whole reason why Christ Jesus came to earth, to redeem mankind by showing them the Way back.
I consider the ‘second concept’ to describe the dying which Adam and Eve were warned off when being told that ‘they should surely die’. It is the initial dying of the body. But, depending which spirit the living soul would decide to follow in life, the resurrection calls it forth to everlasting life or to the final death.
Dying to self and following the Creator’s spirit instead leads to life here and now and after the resurrection, following the spirit of ‘pride of self’ is rebellion, leading to condemnation in life now and to the final death at the time of the resurrection.
Through the sin of unbelieve, causing rebellion to God’s Will and Way, there has come a different spirit into this world – 1Cor.2:9-16. (Ezekiel 20:13; Rom8:7; Isaiah63:10)
Yes, indeed, we who are alive in the Spirit look forward to our Lord’s return. We keep ourselves well supplied with the oil of His Spirit at all times to avoid not being prepared when He returns.
Thank you for your insights, Brigitte. I really wish that the lesson had been more clear on this. Yes, the first death only came about because mankind sinned. However, seeing it is experienced by both the righteous and the wicked, and is followed for both by a resurrection, I think it is safe to say that the first death is NOT the wages or penalty for sin. It is merely a sleep, even for the finally impenitent, although they might rather not wake up to face their life record. The death penalty that fell upon Adam and Eve when they sinned, was postponed and made avoidable by the newly announced plan of salvation.
When Ezekiel says that the soul who sins (without coming to repentance) shall die, he is obviously referring to the soul death that Jesus says comes only in Gehenna -- the second death from which there is no resurrection. That hopeless death of eternal separation from God is the experience that Jesus took on for us, in Gethsemane and on the cross. In the words of Ellen White, He "could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon Him as man's substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God."
I'm not sure that the passages they chose to prove that the soul can die are the best ones. The context of Ezekiel 18 is that God doesn't punish fathers or sons for each other's sins. It is not making a statement about the immortality of the soul. It feels quite "proof-texty" here.
Hi, Christina. You are certainly right about the context. It is about letting the punishment fall only upon the one (the very soul) who is guilty. And yet that punishment for the one who stubbornly clings to his sins, coming from God, is in fact death, not unending torment of an inherently immortal soul. So I think that this text has its place.
Personally, I find Matthew 10:28 far more satisfying, especially for its encouragement. But this requires us to accept that, in at least one very important sense, the first death is not soul death, but only soul sleep. So, we may have to get comfortable in dealing with the nuances of the teachings of Jesus. There are deeper meanings to plumb, and we may not know everything.
What we do know is that death is an unconscious state, and that the soul of the finally impenitent does indeed die in Gehenna. In effect, this simply means that the person is tragically never coming back.
when God said that you will surely die after eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is He referring to second death?
Hi, Dennis. Yes, I believe that is the case. The death sentence that passed upon Adam and Eve on the day when they sinned would have been their first and only death, but it would have been permanent, eternal -- what we know as the second death. When the plan of salvation was implemented, that gave the human race a way out. Praise God!
I have a question not a comment. Is "the breath of life," the same as the air that we breathe?
No, It is a metaphor for being alive.
Hello Lawrence,
Maybe it is a bit more complicated. Marine life does not "breath" air but has the "breath of life", that is, oxidative phosphorylation. But even in so-called "simple" life forms, the process of living is far more than energy production and utilization and biochemical processes. Even in this world, it is obvious nothing lives for itself without hurt to itself and others.
Real life is a complex of relationships, which Genesis 2 tells us in story form. That is the breath of Life from the Creator.
Richard
The second coming of Jesus is so crucial to what we believe because we have a second chance to live again. But, this time forever. Importantly, we no longer have to deal with aging, getting sick, always feeling tired, getting hurt and broken hearted. No one likes aging or in other words getting old. We don’t like seeing our wrinkled skin and gray hair. We always want to look young as much as possible. Who likes getting sick all the time? I know I don’t (maybe when I was a baby student to stay home and not go to school hehehe) We have to pay money just to see the doctor and we have to eat our vegetables and exercise for hours just to stay healthy is burdensome. Rather, I want to eat well and really enjoy my physical fitness when I’m aging, not limit my time due to body aches. And, I’m always getting tired, getting tired. We experience getting hurt, being let down, and making big mistakes. What’s worse is that without the promise of Jesus’s return. The only thing we know is love, happiness, pain and suffering. This is something the next generation are not looking forward to without the promise of Jesus coming back again to redeem this sinful world.