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Man’s Origin
Evolution is
a human theory. It is not compatible with the Bible and it
will not stand critical investigation. We cannot believe the Bible
and the theory of evolution. The Bible teaches that man
originated as the result of a special divine creative act. The
record of the creation of man is described in Genesis chapter 2.
Jesus
believed this:
“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male
and female” (Mark 10:6)
The Apostles
believed it, e.g. Paul:
“Neither was man created for the woman; but the woman for
the man” (1 Corinthians 11:9)
The act of
the creation of man is described thus:
"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” (Genesis 2:7)
This
teaches:
-
Man was
made from the dust
-
God gave
him the breath of life.
-
The dust
body + the breath of life (i.e. the complete man) was a
living soul.
The Fall of Man
As far as we
know Adam and Eve had only one commandment from God:
“Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not
eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die” (Genesis
2:17)
The issue
was clear. Death would result from disobedience. Adam and Eve
listened to the voice of the serpent, transgressed God’s law and
were therefore sentenced to death:
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken, for
dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19)
Since we are
descended from Adam and Eve, we are involved in this:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned” (Romans 5:12)
Again Paul
writes:
“Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)
All men die
because they are descended from Adam whose fallen nature they
share. The fact that they do inevitably sin shows that God is just
in condemning them to death.
The Death State
As seen
already from Genesis 3, death is a returning again to dust. When
men die they cease to exist. There is nothing in the Bible that
teaches that death is a release to another world:
“The living
know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything,
neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is
forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is
now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in
any thing that is done under the sun.......Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou
goest” (Ecclesiastes 9:5,6,10)
“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)
“Soul” in the Bible
Although the
Bible never speaks of an immortal soul, the word
“soul” occurs many times in the scriptures:
In the
Old Testament
The Hebrew
word translated “soul” is NEPHESH. It means literally “that which
breathes; i.e. a living creature” (See Genesis
1:24
where the word is translated “living creature”).
It is
interesting to note that:
-
a soul can
eat (Exodus
12:15)
-
a soul has
lips (Leviticus 5:4)
-
a soul has
blood (Jeremiah
2:34)
-
a soul can
die (Ezekiel 18:4)
-
a soul
needs a resurrection (Psalm 89:48)
The word
NEPHESH (soul) occurs 754 times in the Old Testament and of these:
Made up of:
In the
New Testament
The Greek
word translated “soul” is PSUCHE and is the equivalent of the
Hebrew NEPHESH. (This is seen by comparing Psalm
16:10
with Acts
2:27).
This word
PSUCHE (soul) is found in the New Testament 106 times and of
these:
Made up of:
Thus there
is nothing immortal about the soul when considered in its Bible
sense.
The Spirit of Man
The spirit
of man is that power by which he is kept alive. It belongs to God:
“If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his
spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together, and
man shall turn again unto dust” (Job 34:14,15)
It is loaned
to man for the period of his existence and returns to God when man
dies:
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the
spirit return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
This in no
way supports the doctrine of the immortality of the soul for:
-
It
is the spirit, not the soul, that goes back to God
-
It
returns to God. Therefore it was there before man had it.
But man has no consciousness before birth, why then should he be
conscious after death?
The return
of the spirit to God is simply the return of the breath of life
(Genesis 2:7).
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