No!!! I have never heard of that term before you just mentioned it.
But, is that what you think I was saying …?
No!!! What you are suggestion is a over simplistic match for the description I gave you.
I said that the SPIRIT of a Person goes into a dormant state WITH GOD. Since the spirit of physical entities require a physical in-body presence in order to respond to stimuli from the physical world activities, that spirit cannot be active in the world or in any other situation. Plus, since there is no activation of it in the Spirit realm, there is no activity attached to it there either.
Heaven is the realm of Spirit THAT ARE ACTIVE, and only God and Angelic ones are its occupants.
There us no such place as ‘Hell’ or ‘Sheol’ - such names of terms refer only to a ‘State of being unable to act in the physical world’
It is therefore a dormant spirit (the body counts for nothing!):
- “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” (John 6:63)
‘Soul Sleep’ gives a weird view of this reality and moreover gives way to an opening for pagan belief.
I have argued many times about people teaching others, especially children, that they, or ‘departed Granny’ or a pet, ‘HAS GONE TO HEAVEN’ and ‘CAN TALK (Communicate) BACK TO THE LIVING’)… also that ‘BAD PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING IN TORMENT IN HELL!’
But Again, since you think that I was alluding to ‘Not going to Heaven or Hell after death’ please let me know what YOU think happens when a person dies!
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But be it known that I did not say anything about going to heaven or hell when a person dies. And ‘going to heaven’ or ‘going to hell’ is certainly isn’t not anything taught in the Bible about ‘at or after death’.
In the Old Testament, among the Israelites, there was no notion at all of what happened to a person at and after death. There were, of course, many other beliefs among PAGAN AND HEATHEN TRIBES AND NATIONS about the departed Soul which centred around some kind of ‘After Life’ spent in punishment (‘Sheol / Hell’) or in some kind of endless pleasure ‘paradise’. Such beliefs were used to control the behaviour, mainly of fighting persons to discourage (hell) or in courage (paradise) strength and purpose in fighting and purpose for fighting.
We do not have much information about pagan/Heathen beliefs on this matter from the Bible source but the Israelite source from say, David, and Solomon, only
barely touches on such similar beliefs. However, the ‘torment’ was only in that the SOUL would not delight in the pleasures of the living world - thus the opposite is touched on: ‘Do not let my soul be in torment in Sheol’, or similar phrase.
It is obvious, then, that this ‘living soul’ cannot be a factual truth since the spirit of a person needs nothing that is in the PHYSICAL world. So why would the spirit of a departed soul be in torment??
King Solomon in his wisdom pointed to the truth (as of those times):
- “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten.” (Eccl 9:5)
But it is clear that ‘even their name is forgotten’ is not factually true - depending on the exact meaning of ‘forgotten’. We know now that no one is ‘utterly forgotten’ after death… there are writings, memorials, plaques, evidence, etc., that point to their existence before death. Even the patriarchs were remembered and great defeated enemies were depicted in carvings and such like.
But as for torment! Who can claim that their soul is tormented in some kind of ‘dungeon’ after death? Has anyone come back from the dead and claimed what their life in death was like? Absolutely no!!
So, it is as Solomon said: ‘The dead know nothing’!
And why? Well Solomon also wrote:
- “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?“ (Eccl 3:20-22)
- “the dust [the body] returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecc 12:7)
Another fact, then, that a Soul (a PERSON) is indeed of two parts: BODY AND SPIRIT.
The body is but a vehicle made of ‘dust of the earth: Chemical elements) which is controlled (animated / enspirited) by the Spirit of the person.
At his creation, the body of Adam was first created and thereafter GOD put a spirit into it - only then did Adam ‘BECOME A LIVING SOUL’. It can thus be concluded that before the spirit was in the body, Adam was NOT A
LIVING SOUL but a INERT, UNLIVENED SOUL… always a SOUL but either living (spirit in body) or resting (Spirit awaiting appointment to a body).
We see the same thing in the birth of Jesus: The egg in Mary is equivalent to the body: it is just a material body… it is ANIMATED by the injection of a LIVING ENTITY - the ACTIVE ENSPIRITED SPERM (equivalent to the Spirit). However, in the exact and specific case of Mary, it was not sperm from a human male but like Adam, direct from the Holy Spirit of the Father: YHWH… and thus it is sad by the Angel:
- “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
The one born is thus Holy, pure, righteous, Sinless… unlike that which would be if it had been a human who had ‘overshadowed’ Mary.
And note that it is a FUTURE event that WILL (some translations use the stronger term ‘SHALL’) make the child be called: ‘A Son of God’.
When Jesus was on the point of departing the physical world on the cross, he gave up his spirit TO GOD who gave it to him: all Spirit comes from God: That is why God is FATHER: ‘Father of Spirits’:
- “YHWH, the God who gives breath to all living things’ (Num 27:16)
