A common belief among professing Christians is that when you die, you do not really die. According to the widespread teaching, your body dies but there is an immortal (ever-living) soul in you—which either goes to heaven to be with God or goes to hell to writhe in pain forever. Is this what the Bible teaches?
This idea that human beings will not really die is found in the Bible—but it may surprise you to learn who actually introduced this teaching. It is a very ancient notion, going back to the time of our first parents. God placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden full of trees bearing fruits and nuts of all kinds. No doubt there were vegetables and other foods available to them, but there was one kind of fruit—found on a special tree in the midst of the garden—that they were not to eat.
Satan, in the form of a serpent, cunningly asked Eve: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1). She answered him by explaining that they could eat of every tree, but with one exception. Eve then repeated God’s warning as it was given to Adam. “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Genesis 3:3). To this, the serpent replied, “You will not surely die” (v. 4). Here, Satan contradicted God’s clear statement, leaving Eve with a decision: believe God who said she would die, or believe Satan who said she would not die. To this day, most people in the world believe Satan’s statement, not God’s.
Many people misunderstand this first encounter between humankind and Satan, in part because it is a very compressed account. The tree from which they were forbidden to eat was called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” We should not think, though, that this means God had not given them knowledge of His standards of conduct—He had indeed done so, and as part of that instruction had forbidden them to eat from that tree. Eve, however, was persuaded by Satan’s temptation that eating from the tree would “make one wise.” Yet her choice—rejecting God’s revelation—was in fact unwise, the first of human beings’ countless decisions, up to our present day, to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil.
Adam and Eve rejected God and listened to Satan’s advice. When they did so, their view of life and how to live it began to change immediately. They suddenly became ashamed of their bodies and sewed fig leaves together to cover their private parts (v. 7). Why? What caused this change in how they saw each other? The answer is found in God’s question the next time He met them, after they had given in to Satan’s sales pitch. “Who told you that you were naked?” (v. 11). Remember, they were the only two humans in the garden at the time, and God put them there with no clothes. God did not have a problem with their state, and—until they listened to Satan—neither did they. It was Satan who taught them to feel shame and fear regarding their naked bodies.
Dualism
The idea that the body is a source of shame is indeed an old one, and it occurs in many forms throughout history. It is a common feature of dualistic philosophies which teach that a person’s mind is the “real” or eternal person, and that the body is a temporary, lesser—and often shameful—feature of our existence. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes and a multitude of other philosophers have contributed to this false understanding of the human self. The Neo-Platonist concept of dualism heavily influenced professing-Christian doctrine, but it all began with Satan’s lie, which taught Adam and Eve to feel shame regarding God’s physical creation.
Modern “Christianity” has been unknowingly so deeply influenced by pagan ideas that the average churchgoer is totally deceived about what the Bible really says regarding this and many other subjects. Most of us who grew up with a professing Christian background were taught that the “soul” is something distinct from the body, and it goes to heaven or hell (or purgatory for a while) after the body dies.
Yet John’s gospel makes it clear that Jesus totally rejected Satan’s assertion. John tells us that no human being other than Christ—which would include such biblical figures as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses—is in heaven: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).
So, what is the human soul? The word “soul” in the Old Testament comes from the Hebrew word nephesh, and merely means “a creature.” For example, the first time the word “soul” is used in the King James Version is in Genesis 2:7, where we read: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This alone should cause us to pause. Note that it says “a living soul.” Would that not indicate the possibility of a dead soul? The New King James Version translates it in a way that leads to less confusion, stating that “man became a living being.”
Genesis 1:21 refers to animal life—apart from humankind—as nephesh when it tells of “great sea creatures and every living thing [nephesh] that moves.” And notice that Leviticus 21:11 speaks of a dead nephesh! So, if nephesh is the Hebrew word translated into English as “soul”—and it is—then a soul can die! This is confirmed in Ezekiel 18:4: “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.” This is repeated in verse 20: “The soul who sins shall die.”
Man Is Perishable
When most professing Christians read John 3:16, they fail to notice the importance of a powerful statement it contains. Much attention is paid to the first half of the verse: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” But every part of this “golden verse” is rich with meaning, and should not be “glossed over.”
To gain a better sense of what John is saying, we can pick up his context by reading the passage beginning in verse 14. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (vv. 14–16).
The Encarta Online Dictionary definition of perish is: “to die… to come to an end or cease to exist.” We know what it means when food perishes. We speak of people perishing in a plane crash. So, when it comes to the biblical matters, why do people push other, incorrect meanings onto perish?
The Bible consistently and unambiguously agrees with the standard dictionary definition of “perish”! It clearly teaches that life and death are opposites! Nowhere does Scripture ever describe human life as being inherently immortal. As we have already seen, even the soul—whatever one may think it is—can die (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). God’s word reveals that immortality is not something we already have, but rather that it is something we must seek (Romans 2:6–7) and “must put on” (1 Corinthians 15:53–54).
Further, we read that Christ “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10), and among all who have ever lived in the human flesh, only Christ now “alone has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). Note this amazing comment from the mainstream Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary on this verse: “It is mere heathen philosophy that attributes to the soul indestructibility in itself, which is to be attributed solely to God’s gift” (p. 223). Paul affirms this very point, that eternal life is a gift from God: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Paul wrote to Titus describing eternal life as something that we do not yet have, but for which we hope (Titus 3:7). And Jesus Himself tells us: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24).
We all know that our bodies will eventually die. That means you, and that means me. But then what? Based on how most people live their lives, this must not be a burning question for them. So, what exactly did Jesus mean in John 3:16 when He said that we might not perish?
Smoke and Fire
Many assume that to perish means to live forever in a place of torment. However, as we have seen above, this is entirely inconsistent with the verses of Scripture cited above. Even so, there are a few scriptures people commonly cite when trying to establish the idea of the immortal soul.
One such verse is Revelation 14:11, which describes that “the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night.” But what is the context of this passage? Is it discussing the final eternal fate of the wicked? No! It concerns the Day of the Lord—the time of God’s wrath on rebellious mankind—during which suffering human beings will experience one trial following closely on the heels of another.
But what about “the smoke of their torment ascend[ing] forever and ever”? One of the plagues poured out during the Day of the Lord involves the sun giving off much more heat than normal, which will “scorch men with fire” (Revelation 16:8–9). This will no doubt cause fires on the earth, and the smoke of this tormenting plague will ascend up “forever.”
When we hear someone say, “the line went on forever,” we understand the use of figurative language. Smoke is the by-product of combustion, and it is that smoke that is described in this verse as ascending forever. When the source of fuel for a fire is consumed, the fire will cease to exist, but its smoke can disperse upward for a long, long time.
A lake of fire is spoken of in Revelation 19:20. Here we read that the leader of the coming European power, known as the beast, and the false prophet will be thrown into it just prior to the thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth. They are physical beings and—as are all human beings—are vulnerable to physical destruction by fire.
John the Baptist said Jesus would come baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). John explains the baptism of fire in the next verse: “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
This will be the fate of the beast and false prophet. They will be burned up with fire—totally consumed and extinguished. Fire by nature is unquenchable (Proverbs 30:15–16). It burns as long as there is combustible material (Proverbs 26:20). Only smoke and ashes are left when the fuel is gone. “‘For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘that will leave them neither root nor branch’… for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet” (Malachi 4:1, 3).
One scripture that can be confusing in this regard is Revelation 20:10. Part of the problem is that translators present the Bible in terms of their own preconceived theological perceptions. This may not be deliberate, but is a fact nevertheless. The King James Version renders this more accurately than some other translations, but it is not entirely perfect. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
In this passage, John is focusing on the devil’s punishment, and where he will be cast. The devil, unlike the beast and false prophet, is a spirit being, yet he will be cast into the same fire, from where he will be tormented and will see all his works and deceptive efforts go up in smoke.
Notice that in the New King James Version, the word “are” is in italics. This means that it is not in the original, but was supplied by the translators. And it can be misleading. For example, my father before his death arranged to have his dead body cremated. His ashes were put into an urn and placed in a cemetery. That is where he is now. We know that he is dead, but the cemetery is where his ashes are located.
In the same way, the lake of fire is where the beast and false prophet will be cast—and is where their ashes will be! In time sequence, the beast and false prophet “were cast” (a better rendering of the Greek phrase in Revelation 20:10) into the lake of fire a thousand years before the devil.
Regrettably, some read this passage and get the mistaken idea that the beast and false prophet will remain conscious and experience eternal torment. Some translations, reflecting translators’ preconceived ideas, go so far as to say they—meaning these two humans—shall be tormented day and night forever and ever, but this would contradict both the immediate context and that of the entire Bible.
The Bible consistently describes the dead as being unconscious. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:3–4, KJV). “For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
Lazarus Slept
John relates the account of Jesus’ friend Lazarus who was gravely ill. On the way to see him, He told His disciples, “‘Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.’ Then His disciples said, ‘Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.’ However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’” (John 11:11–14). The Apostle Paul also likened death to sleep (1 Thessalonians 4:13, 15).
The Bible is abundantly clear that human beings are mortal, and will utterly perish unless they receive God’s grace. As it says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”