Some problems i found with adam and the afterlife

Frank Goad said:

The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (body), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life; and man became a living soul (soul)". Genesis 2:7. It is not said that man became spirit and soul; but rather, that God inbreathed spirit, and man became a living soul.

I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)



If you look at Genesis 2:7 adam does not have a soul.But in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 man DOES have a soul.

"The Word of God ... piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." (Hebrews 4:12)

I read Hebrews 4:12. And that made it more confusing.

I found all of this at this website: The Errors of Soul Sleep

I find myself going back and forth on the idea if man has a soul that leaves the body at death.So this didn't help matters.Because i like the jw idea of the soul more.

Click to expand...

The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (body), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life; and man became a living soul (soul)". Genesis 2:7.It is not said that man became spirit and soul; but rather, that God inbreathed spirit, and man became a living soul.

Genesis 3:19 gives us the report of mans design. “Dust thou art and unto the dust shalt thou return.” It was man's physical nature that was made from the dust not his spiritual nature. God breathed into man the spirit, the spirit was not taken from the ground. It came from God.

I got this quote from here: Soul Sleep

If when man dies his body turns to dust like in Genesis 3:19

And his spirit just goes back to God like in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

What happens to his soul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23?

Frank Goad said:

The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (body), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life; and man became a living soul (soul)". Genesis 2:7.It is not said that man became spirit and soul; but rather, that God inbreathed spirit, and man became a living soul.

Genesis 3:19 gives us the report of mans design. “Dust thou art and unto the dust shalt thou return.” It was man's physical nature that was made from the dust not his spiritual nature. God breathed into man the spirit, the spirit was not taken from the ground. It came from God.

I got this quote from here: Soul Sleep

If when man dies his body turns to dust like in Genesis 3:19

And his spirit just goes back to God like in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

What happens to his soul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23?

Click to expand...

Man is a mortal creature like all the other "souls" who were created to live on earth. Man alone has a spiritual component to his nature because man alone has an inbuilt need to worship. It does not exist as something separate to his body.

Please understand that the soul and spirit are not interchangeable terms. The "spirit" breathed into Adam by God was his breath. His life began when he started breathing. Just as life ceases when breathing stops. Can you understand that?

A living soul is a human or any living creature that breathes. Your breath has no personality....it has no life on its own, just as soul is the whole person...it cannot exist independently. A soul is not a disembodied spirit. The Bible never says this.

The 'spirit that returns to God' is the breath returned to humans at the resurrection. Only God can return that spirit to man.

Please make up your mind Frank. We either have an immortal soul/spirit that can exist apart from the body...or we don't. Since the Bible has never taught that the human spirit can exist apart from a human body, who do you want to believe?

For those who go to heaven to rule with Jesus, these give up their mortal existence on earth and are given a body that can live in the invisible spirit realm. They don't have to be "souls" to live and exist. The will live as spirits with a spirit body (as angels have) in a spirit realm (as opposed to a material world). They have no need to breathe or to eat or drink because they do not exist in material form. God has to give then this body.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 is not speaking about individuals, but figuratively about the entire congregation. I am sure I explained this before.

That is what the Bible teaches as I understand it after 47 years of study.

Soul can be rendered “life”, or “person”....depends on context.
(In any case, the soul dies.)

Spirit is the force that keeps the creature living. The Hebrew word, “ruach”, translated spirit in some places, is also used for “breath”, or “wind”.

Take care.

@Frank Goad points out

“…when man dies his body turns to dust like in Genesis 3:19
And his spirit just goes back to God like in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7“
Frank Then asks : “ What happens to his soul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23?” (post #21)


Hi Frank,
I like the early Judeo-Christian model that describes the model of a spirit (which exists independently of the body); a body (which is lifeless and useless without an animating intelligent spirit to give it life character and intelligence, movement, etc), which, when joined, create a living “soul”. That is, the being that has both body and spirit and exists inside this mortal stage of existence. This model seems to me to be the most rational and logical of all the models and I do not think the later interpretations have any advantage over this early interpretation.

Just a point regarding 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

The Greek words for spirit, soul and body all have the article in the phrase where they appear. That is, "The God of peace" is "to perfect them in their entirety..." (ολοτελεις), which the second phrase defines as “the spirit, and the soul and the body” (grk : το πνευμα και η ψυχη και το σωμα...).

By using the direct article "the" in referring to spirit/soul/body, the writer of thessalonians is making a distinction between these three specific states of being. God is not merely doing something with their spirits that came from him, but he is doing something with their bodies as well (the resurrection has a purpose) and ultimately, he is doing something involving perfection with the soul (i.e. the body inhabited by a spirit).

IF we leave the sentence in this early Judeo-Christian context where the spirit is the source of intelligence and emotions and personality and life, and the body is the shell that becomes alive when inhabited by the spirit, and the soul is the state of being where both are together, then such statements such as “body and soul (spirit)” make more rational and logical sense than many of the interpretations laid on the text by the various Christian movement of later eras.

In any case, good luck in coming to your own determinations as to what such things mean Frank.

Clear
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