Soul Sleep

SDA Bob writes volumes. Does anyone read it all? Is anyone learning anything from it? Has anyone changed their position based upon what SDA Bob has written? As of this writing approaching 16,000 posts!! All lengthy, I presume!! I think the answer to each question must be a very loud NO!

Are you putting it all in a book, SDA Bob?

Until you understand the basics, you're caught up in a never ending story. The simple truth is that:

1. Body, soul, and spirit are not the same thing.

2. Soul and spirit are not the same thing.

3. Soul is mental, spirit is spiritual.

Fin d'histoire.
Conclusione della storia.
Ende der Geschichte.
End of story.
For Spanish, press 1.

 

Now we're talking, Thank God for Jesus! Now there's something I know...

I've been noticing reading this forum that many of us obviously have differences as to what is actually saved and what will go to heaven. Bob, I have to admit of all my studies you were the first to enlighten me to the bodily resurrection.

Now I'm trying to distunguish between flesh as in what we have now and a resurrected body that does not need blood to exist.

 

I appreciate your method of simply "saying stuff " without actually having a point.

I on the other hand prefer substantive content, details that make a difference. ... you know "that pesky Bible stuff" you enjoy ignoring.

But obviously - you already knew that.


To each his own.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Here the blood is the life of the body but in a resurrected body it will be the spirit as I understand it.

Lev 17:11For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.


Jhn 6:63It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.


1Pe 1:23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

(I was afraid you had got mad at me for some reason, glad you are back)

 

I for one certainly agree with you IM

 

In the OT the term Nephesh is used sometimes for soul and other times for spirit.

"The spirit that returns to God who gave it" Eccl 12 is the essence of the "person". It is not the body.

Nephesh - in 1Kings 17 "the life" of the boy returned to him.

His life was gone and then returned. In Gen 2 man "BECAME a LIVING being".


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, I pray You, let this child's life return to him."[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]17:22 The LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]17:23 Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Elijah said, "See, your son is alive." [/FONT]

Gen 2 -

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

"Became a living Nephesh" - Living being.

In Christ,

Bob

 

If the soul just vanishes "poof" then there would be no way it could be destroyed in Hell for the rich man was dead before hell.
How could you destroy something that didn't exist.

 

The argument is that the Bible has two uses for Soul is

#1. "Living Being" (as we saw in Gen 2) -- ignoring the text does not delete the example.

#2. The essence of the "person" that goes back to God at death. As Eccl 12 points out the spirit of ALL goes back to God at death.

So - yes God places the spirit BACK into a body on this earth at the 2nd resurrection (the one after the actual 1000 years). And then destroys BOTH body AND soul in the lake of fire - the 2nd death. The actual fate of all the wicked of all time. Such that "The souls COME TO LIFE" and then reign for 1000 actual years in the first resurrection.

Hint: IF you listen to IM instead of me - for what my position is - there will always be somewhat of a disconnect.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I always read what you post Bob but you know how I believe and I believe the soul either goes to heaven or hell at death.

Why would the soul need salvation if it only exists when spirit and body are together?

1Pe 1:9Receiving the end of your faith, [even] the salvation of [your] souls.

 

If the soul is also called the "spirit that goes back to God" at death (Eccl 12) and the spirit of ALL - goes back to God at death as we see in Eccl 12 -- then it is God "alone" who places the spirit back into the body (for both the wicked and the righteous) resulting in the resurrection of the righteous "the First resurrection" at the start of the 1000 years and the resurrection of the wicked - (the second resurrection by deduction) at the end of the 1000 years.

Since the soul's of the righteous "come to life" at the First resurrection (according to scripture Rev 20:2-4) - then we know that the souls of the wicked also "come to life" at the end of the 1000 years in the resurrection of the wicked.

But then God "destroys BOTH body and soul" in fiery hell - the lake of fire - the 2nd death -- in the case of the wicked (those over whom the 2nd death DOES have power) according to Matt 10.

So we both agree that the earthly body was 'destroyed' at the first death just as Matt 10 states. And I clalim that in the form of the spirit that "goes back to God" the soul that has gone dormant (falls asleep according to 1Thess 4 and John 11) is in its dormant state waiting to "Come to life". But at the 2nd death when the souls of the wicked first "Come to life" (in resurrection) and are then destroyed along with the body - the spirit is not going back to God who gave it. Rather it is obliterated. The "person" is not preserved in any form - not even in a dormant form.

In that case "The soul that sins - it shall die" Ezek 18 is fulfilled in the "destruction of BOTH body and soul" in fiery hell Matt 10.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Sry Bob;
I don't understand how the souls can be under the altar of God and the body in the grave. I certainly don't believe the bodies were under the altar of God.

Rev: 6
9": And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

Rev: 20
4": And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Also, no one has explained to me yet why the scripture says "souls" of them. In other words a part of a whole.

 

I agree with you -- no bodies under the altars. That is why I never claim that the soul is tied to the body and stuck in the grave. I claim that the spirit that goes back to God is in fact all that is left of the soul - and so it is dormang "Fallen asleep" as Paul says in 1Thess 4 and John 11 and elsewhere in 1Cor 15.

Paul says "WE shall not all sleep but WE shall all be changed" HE is speaking as a person - to other beings - to other living souls.

But as Christ points out in Rev 20 the "souls..COME TO LIFE" at the resurrection.

So when God brings your spirit back with him and places it in another body - THEN the soul "COMES to life" according to Rev 20.

NASB helps clarify --


4 Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of thosewho had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Before they "Come to Life" -- they are not "alive". That is not the hard part - right?


Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Click on any word you like.

 

God says that we have body soul and spirit - the PERSON is not "something else" -- rather that is all there IS to the "PERSON".

So Christ says "LAZARUS SLEEPS I go that I may wake HIM" then later "LAZARUS IS dead" - the PERSON.

In 1Thess 4 the saints that have passed away are called "The dead in Christ"

 

I don't have a lot of company in this belief or don't think so but I believe when the Lord said Lazarus is asleep He was talking about the soul and when He said lazarus is dead He was talking about the body.

They are pretty hard to separate Bob;

Hbr 4:12For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Even the Bible you quoted says souls "of those". A part of a whole.