₦airaland Forum

All these are still teachings my guy, i thought you are coming to present what makes sense and not introducing a totally different story from what we read in the Bible.
So let's leave the story and get straight to why we open a discourse, tell us why life is so hard if you believe in a Creator who has a good purpose for creating us!

sonmvayina:
First and formost, the genesis account is a jewish creation myth. Every culture has one. Adam simpky means man, it is a short form of the word "Adamah" which simply means taken from the earth. And Eve means woman. They are not proper names.
The story is not literal , it is a recast of an earlier babylonian epic. It tells of how Man lost or forfeited the chance to dwell on earrh forever. . So you interpreting the story as literal simply shows you lack spiritual understanding..
From Dust you where made and to dust you shall return..
The serpent in jewish folklore simply means " to beguile"
Not devil or satan. Those beings dont exist in judaism..

MaxInDHouse:
All these are still teachings my guy, i thought you are coming to present what makes sense and not introducing a totally different story from what we read in the Bible.
So let's leave the story and get straight to why we open a discourse, tell us why life is so hard if you believe in a Creator who has a good purpose for creating us!

Is it not evident? Is it not the moroons in Aso rock, with their lousy policies and wickedness. And wastage of our collective wealth. And their greed...

They embezzle our money and put the rest of us in hardship..

Naaaaaaaaaaaaa!
You're looking at issues from a myopic point of view! The whole earth is affected by the evil men do.
There's no place on this planet where you will not see beggars, paupers, thieves, prostitutes, fraudsters, drug addicts and so on. All these are the consequences of what happens when men try to prove wiser than God's standards! Genesis 3:1-5

So it's not only in Nigeria or Africa that people are suffering, it's a global phenomenon, you're only experiencing part of these troubles in one place more than the other. The world is not secured and there is no real PEACE anywhere!

sonmvayina:
Is it not evident? Is it not the moroons in Aso rock, with their lousy policies and wickedness. And wastage of our collective wealth. And their greed...They embezzle our money and put the rest of us in hardship..

MaxInDHouse:
Naaaaaaaaaaaaa!
You're looking at issues from a myopic point of view! The whole earth is affected by the evil men do.
There's no place on this planet where you will not see beggars, paupers, thieves, prostitutes, fraudsters, drug addicts and so on. All these are the consequences of what happens when men try to prove wiser than God's standards! Genesis 3:1-5

So it's not only in Nigeria or Africa that people are suffering, it's a global phenomenon, you're only experiencing part of these troubles in one place more than the other. The world is not secured and there is no real PEACE anywhere!

You should have been a nigerian policeman, wey go see white,e go say nah black....

I say neck ,you say throat...what new information did you add. People are suffering because of the bad choices people make and those in authority. ..who where voted to make life easy for the citizenry...

It still boils down to choice...

You are choosing to ignore the truth that is staring you in the face. Becauae it makes you uncomfortable....

The real war or jihad in within. .you must defeat your fears, worries, anxiety, and childish thought...if not. What you get is MaxinDhouse.

Well it's not about Nigeria or people you vote in power!

For your information, i don't vote because there's none of those people i know so i can't give my thumbprint for someone i neither know nor work with before! If people like you vote them in that means you must have known them and they can gain your trust!

sonmvayina:
You should have been a nigerian policeman, wey go see white,e go say nah black....

I say neck ,you say throat...what new information did you add. People are suffering because of the bad choices people make and those in authority. ..who where voted to make life easy for the citizenry...

It still boils down to choice...

You are choosing to ignore the truth that is staring you in the face. Becauae it makes you uncomfortable....

The real war or jihad in within. .you must defeat your fears, worries, anxiety, and childish thought...if not. What you get is MaxinDhouse.

MaxInDHouse:
Well it's not about Nigeria or people you vote in power!

For your information, i don't vote because there's none of those people i know so i can't give my thumbprint for some i neither know nor work with before! If people like you vote them in that means you must have known them and they can gain your trust!

In simple lay mans terms "You are part of the problem"


No two ways about it..

In what way is the highlighted true o?

sonmvayina:
In simple lay mans terms "You are part of the problem"
No two ways about it..

Nazgul

When a spirit departs from a body, it goes to God who gave it in the first place

Ecclesiastes 12:7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Nazgul.

Here are answers to the main question asked on the thread. I shall use Bible verses to give the answers.

The first man, Adam, returned to the dust when he died.--Genesis 3:19

The Bible tells us that when someone dies, “his thoughts” die. --Psalm 146:4

Humans who die will return to the dust. --Ecclesiastes 3:20.
Thus, Humans go back to the grave or dust where they are created. Your other little questions aside the main question have been answered thoroughly by maxindhouse. No need to overflogged it.

MrPresident1:
Nazgul

When a spirit departs from a body, it goes to God who gave it in the first place

Ecclesiastes 12:7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

This means that both good and bad people die, their spirit returns back to God, while the body returns back to the earth right?

gideonjeta:
Nazgul.

Here are answers to the main question asked on the thread. I shall use Bible verses to give the answers.

The first man, Adam, returned to the dust when he died.--Genesis 3:19

The Bible tells us that when someone dies, “his thoughts” die. --Psalm 146:4

Humans who die will return to the dust. --Ecclesiastes 3:20.
Thus, Humans go back to the grave or dust where they are created. Your other little questions aside the main question have been answered thoroughly by maxindhouse. No need to overflogged it.

Ok.

So there's no after life after death?

NO!
Except the hope of resurrection! John 5:28-29, 11:25; Act 24:15; Job 14:13-15

Nazgul:
Ok.
So there's no after life after death?

Nazgul:
Ok.

So there's no after life after death?

No, there is none.

Nazgul:
Good morning and happy Sunday. This question has really been bothering me cos we've been made to believe that once a person dies, he'll either go to heaven or hell. But the Bible is saying something totally different.

Let's observe these three scriptures.

1Thessalonians 4:16-17
King James Version
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.


Revelation 20:13-15
13 [a]And the sea gave up her dead, which were in her, and death and hell delivered up the dead, which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

14 [b]And death, and hell were cast into the lake of fire: this is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.

[b] Matthew 22:23-46
23 (A)On that day some (B)Sadducees (who say (C)there is no resurrection) came to [a]Jesus and questioned Him, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘(D)If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; and the first married and died, and having no [c]children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 It was the same also with the second brother, and the third, down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her in marriage.”

29 But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, (E)since you do not [d]understand the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither (F)marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: 32 ‘(G)I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 When the crowds heard this, (H)they were astonished at His teaching.


In the first scripture it talked about the rapture. The second coming of Christ. It says the dead in Christ shall rise first, meaning when people die good or bad, they remain the in ground according to that passage pending when the trumpet shall sound. But this contradicts what we were taught in Sunday School that once you die and you're a Christian you'll find yourself in Paradise.

The second passage confirmed the first passage that there are actually people in the ground whose souls are waiting for judgement. It says the sea gave up the dead, meaning those who died and we're buried in the earth, those buried in the water or anywhere else would be resurrected on the last day to face judgement. Here also doesn't speak of the dead immediately going to heaven or hell upon death.

Finally the last passage was an answer Jesus was giving to the Sadducees. He made them understand that even though there's a resurrection it would happen on the last day and not immediately after death.

My question is If the dead are already in heaven as we're made to believe, how do they rise at the second coming?

Or would they descend from heaven back to their graves on earth then resurrect to face the last judgement?

If all the evil people are already in hell, why will the sea and the earth give up the dead in them for judgement and why will the book of life be opened to check if their names are written on it since they've already been jugded and thrown into hell?

I'll like to be clarified on this issue.

Cc lalasticlala mynd44 Dominique

Hi there.

First off, I have read you say later in the thread that the Bible says that "chickens" (and I suppose, by extension all animals) don't have souls. I wonder where you read anything like that in the Bible. Of course, nobody and nothing has a soul. A soul is what anything becomes when it has a spirit put into its body.

7 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 (KJV)

Furthermore, the Bible also says,

18 I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” 19 For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. 21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 (NKJV)

So, (1)the Bible says that animals have spirits just like human beings, although this should be obvious since it is a spirit that animates a physical body; (2)when animals die, their spirits go somewhere just like the human spirit does too when a human being dies.

To your specific question, however...

The first thing to say is that as you will see in the foregoing, human beings are spirits that live in physical bodies. So, there are two parts to the human person. What death actually does is, as you can see from Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 quoted above and from Ecclesiastes 12:7, separate our spirits from their physical vessels. Our spirits are the real us, so when we die, it is our spirits that go back to God to answer for our choices made while still in our physical bodies here on earth. This is the gist of Hebrews 9:27 too. Our bodies, on the other hand, decay and fall to dust here on earth.

What then is the resurrection? It is the provisioning of our spirits with an eternal material body. Our spirits were designed to live in a material vessel. They were not built to be "naked" (2 Corinthians 5:3 in Greek). So death is like robbery. It takes from our spirits their rightful homes and would have us walk naked. But of course, God is generous even so. When we die, He gives our spirits a temporary sheath (again, see 2 Corinthians 5:3 in Greek; see also Revelation 6:11) within which they exist in the place that our choices have assigned to us.

That brings us to a discussion of what happens to our spirits after we die. When we die, our spirits are put into a temporary or interim body and then taken to the place that fits our choices. If we chose to believe the Gospel and hold on to that faith until the end of our earthly lives, then we will be taken to the Third Heaven to be with God and all His elect angels and other departed believers. There, we wait for the time of Jesus's Return to the earth to take His Throne. At that time, all those who believe including departed saints are resurrected to live in perfect bliss with God forever.

22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luke 16:22-23 (NKJV)

The passage above demonstrates that when we die, we go to a place that is in keeping with our choices here on earth. The rich man was an unbeliever, so he was taken to and deposited in Torments in Hell/Hades/Sheol, as the Scriptures severally call it. This is not his final deposition either. All unbelievers who die until the end of Jesus' Millennial Reign (that is, until the end of human history) will be deposited in Torments. But they will be resurrected at the end of that Reign to face their final judgment and be deposited into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15). This Lake is indeed in the same place as Torments, in fact, it will fill the whole of Hades/Hell/Sheol, but Torments is really just a sort of holding cell for those who die as unbelievers. This is where the rich man in the passage above was. It isn't the same as the Lake of Fire, technically speaking.

The resurrection of the unrighteous involves giving them an eternal body for their spirits, but that eternal body is made for condemnation. Consider it a sort of tool provided for their spirits so that they can experience the full extent of suffering in the Lake of Fire that is due to them, just as our current bodies are a tool with which we experience life on earth currently.

2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
Some to everlasting life,
Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2 (NKJV)

28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
John 5:28-29 (NKJV)

On the other hand, those who die believing have always been taken to a place where they can commune with God and rest from life on earth. Before the Lord Jesus came and died for all human sin, such believers could not go into the Presence of the Father in the Third Heaven because their sins were not yet atoned for (animal sacrifices did not answer for sin, they only demonstrated faith in God's Messiah Whose then-coming Sacrifice alone could atone for our sins -- Hebrews 10:4). But because they believed in God's Promise to send a Messiah to die for their sins, they did not belong in Torments either. The Lord prepared a place especially for them in Hades/Hell/Sheol called Paradise (Luke 23:43) or Abraham's Bosom (Abraham's Bosom because the Bible recognizes him as the epitome of faith -- Romans 4:1,11-12). This is the place from where the spirit of Samuel came to King Saul in 1 Samuel 28, from where Moses and Elijah came to speak to Jesus Christ at the Transfiguration, and where Lazarus and Abraham are seen together by the dead unbelieving rich man. As the name suggests, it was a place of beauty and rest for all those who believed before the Cross. The only downside was that it was still cut off from the Presence of the Father, although of course, just as it was in the days of Adam and Eve, the Lord (Jesus Christ Himself before His first Advent) would go to fellowship with them frequently, so they were not left without God entirely.

After our Lord died on the Cross, He went to Hades where He proclaimed His Victory to the rebel angels who are imprisoned there (especially since the debacle of the Nephilim) because they did not know what had transpired on earth, and from where He took those departed saints as part of His spoils of victory to the Third Heaven with Him (Ephesians 4:8-9). His Sacrifice opened the way into the Presence of the Father for those saints, not only for them, but it also opened the way for every other believer who would die from the time after the Cross until the end of human history. So, all believers who have died since that time have been taken by the angels into the third Heaven where they rest in their interim bodies as they await the resurrection of the righteous.

In summary, I offer the following statements to answer your quandary:

1. When we die, our bodies, which are a legitimate God-given part of our identity, go into the ground or are destroyed in some way, even though our spirits are not in any way diminished. That is the point of resurrection: the restoration of a material body to our spirits, but this time the body remains ours for eternity.

2. Our spirits do go somewhere after we die since they are indestructible (Ecclesiastes 3:14). They either go to Torments if we are unbelievers or they go to the Third Heaven since the Cross if we are believers. Resurrection gives our spirits permanent eternal bodies or homes in which to either enjoy God's eternal blessings or to suffer His eternal cursing depending on our choices here on earth.

3. Hell is a big place that has been acting like a holding cell for all who are in it. Believers who died before the Cross were held in Paradise, one of the compartments of Hell, as captives of sin until Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind and they were free to go with Him to the Third Heaven. Unbelievers who die from the time of Cain until the end of history are held in Torments, another compartment of Hell, until their judgment at the White Throne at the end of human history. Rebel angels who violate the ground rules of their warfare with God are held in the Abyss, the third compartment of Hell, until the time of their release for the Tribulation. It is not yet a place of final judgment.

4. Hell will eventually be filled with the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14) after the Judgment of the Great White Throne. After that Judgment, all unbelievers and rebel angels will be consigned to it for all eternity.

Cheers.

PS.: Please note that what I have written up is a very condensed summary of the subject of death and resurrection. There are many questions that I left unanswered for the sake of conciseness. Such questions include very many passages that appear to suggest to some people that we cease to exist after we die. There are also quite a few weird or difficult passages that weigh into the discussion. If I wrote to address them all, my answer would be a very long post indeed.

Suffice to say that I tried to answer your questions and at the same time cover the most basic biblical ideas about death and resurrection. So you have a good starting point for any further investigation into the matter from my post. I would be happy to help you further if you want, although Nairaland has taught me to expect little interest in the truth of the Bible's teachings. If you decide that you are different and want the unattended questions answered, I will do my best to answer them.

However, I must warn you that there is no doctrine of the Bible that can be understood in isolation. The whole Bible provides the necessary context for understanding any given biblical teaching. Therefore, it takes a deliberate commitment to spiritual growth to be able to make full sense of any given doctrine. If you are unwilling to make this commitment, then it is very likely indeed that you will still not be satisfied with any answers that you get. And where you are satisfied, you may be satisfied with a lie.

Nazgul:
This means that both good and bad people die, their spirit returns back to God, while the body returns back to the earth right?

Yes. then the reincarnate to pay for or enjoy the benefits of the deeds of past life.

There is no place in the skies where God incinerates people. Under the sun the place of judgment...

Ecclesiastes 3:16
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

Ihedinobi3:
PS.: Please note that what I have written up is a very condensed summary of the subject of death and resurrection. There are many questions that I left unanswered for the sake of conciseness. Such questions include very many passages that appear to suggest to some people that we cease to exist after we die. There are also quite a few weird or difficult passages that weigh into the discussion. If I wrote to address them all, my answer would be a very long post indeed.

Suffice to say that I tried to answer your questions and at the same time cover the most basic biblical ideas about death and resurrection. So you have a good starting point for any further investigation into the matter from my post. I would be happy to help you further if you want, although Nairaland has taught me to expect little interest in the truth of the Bible's teachings. If you decide that you are different and want the unattended questions answered, I will do my best to answer them.

However, I must warn you that there is no doctrine of the Bible that can be understood in isolation. The whole Bible provides the necessary context for understanding any given biblical teaching. Therefore, it takes a deliberate commitment to spiritual growth to be able to make full sense of any given doctrine. If you are unwilling to make this commitment, then it is very likely indeed that you will still not be satisfied with any answers that you get. And where you are satisfied, you may be satisfied with a lie.

I see that you read your Bible

Ihedinobi3:
There are also quite a few weird

A Christian admitting there are weird passages in the Bible wow. Care to mention 1 or 2?

LordReed:
A Christian admitting there are weird passages in the Bible wow. Care to mention 1 or 2?

Since you and I know each other quite well, there is more specificity to that statement than there would be if you were talking to a strange Christian. Where then have I suggested that the Bible is that easy to understand or that there is no strangeness in it? I often post the following passage --

15 ...our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
2 Peter 3:15-16 (NKJV) --

to show that the Bible does not lend itself so easily to interpretation. It requires humility, a willingness to submit to tutelage, and a commitment to seek out a qualified pastor-teacher to learn what it means. Otherwise, much of what it says sounds weird and is certainly very difficult to understand.

Nazgul:
This means that both good and bad people die, their spirit returns back to God, while the body returns back to the earth right?

Good or bad is only a mans perspective...God is not a man or a human being. To God they mean the same thing...
The spirit belongs to God, it goes to him.

Nazgul:
Ok.

So there's no after life after death?

Life is all there is..we are spirit dwelling within a physical body made from dust. Death is just the spirit leaving the body back to the spirotual realm...feom where it left to have a human expereince...

Judgement is ONLY for the living, never for the dead. The sentence is death

The soul that sins it shall die...

For those insinuating other wise.

The spirit is pure, it belongs to God...it does not need saving from anything.

When God was speaking of salvation it is always from physical danger.

Ihedinobi3:
Since you and I know each other quite well, there is more specificity to that statement than there would be if you were talking to a strange Christian. Where then have I suggested that the Bible is that easy to understand or that there is no strangeness in it? I often post the following passage --

15 ...our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
2 Peter 3:15-16 (NKJV) --

to show that the Bible does not lend itself so easily to interpretation. It requires humility, a willingness to submit to tutelage, and a commitment to seek out a qualified pastor-teacher to learn what it means. Otherwise, much of what it says sounds weird and is certainly very difficult to understand.

Sure but it's different when you as a Christian use the word weird. Also it piques my curiosity, what verses would you consider weird?

Answer: We go back to where we were before we were born.

LordReed:
Sure but it's different when you as a Christian use the word weird. Also it piques my curiosity, what verses would you consider weird?

I think you didn't read what I wrote. Peter himself writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said, "things that are hard to understand." I said, "weird or difficult." I'm not sure then how it is different when a Christian, especially myself given all I have been doing on this platform since 2018, uses the word. It only means "strange." I am only acknowledging the difference in paradigm between the Scriptures and what may be called earthly wisdom or philosophy.

I spend a great deal of energy on Nairaland explaining Bible teachings. The whole reason for that is that there are very many weird (read, strange...to natural human thinking) bible passages. In this matter of death and resurrection, I have already mentioned Ecclesiastes 12:7 which appears to some -- even here on this thread -- to mean that when we die, our spirits are sort of reabsorbed into the substance of God, whatever they think that that means. I certainly had my own problems with that passage growing up. But it only means that the real us will answer to God for the choices we made here on earth when we die. That is why unbelievers are in Torments at death, while believers are in the Third Heaven at death too.

Another difficult passage for some is Mark 5:39 along with other passages that talk of death as sleep. They have been used to falsely teach that death puts us in an unconscious state until we are resurrected. Some, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, believe that they mean that we cease to exist at death. But if that is true, then many other passages would then be false. What this verse and others like it actually teach is just that death temporarily truncates existence in the earthly realm for those who die. They are removed from the earth until the Resurrection. This is particularly true of believers since they will spend Eternity on the new Earth in a new powerful eternal body.

Difficult passages are hardly ever hard to find, considering that there is only so much that one can understand in the Bible without the help of a gifted and prepared pastor-teacher.

Ihedinobi3:
The whole reason for that is that there are very many weird (read, strange...to natural human thinking) bible passages.

Exactly. The is the point I guess is Christians generally give the impression the Bible is easy to figure out and if its not making sense to you then something is wrong you and not with the text.

LordReed:
Exactly. The is the point I guess is Christians generally give the impression the Bible is easy to figure out and if its not making sense to you then something is wrong you and not with the text.

Well, I have certainly never communicated here since 2018 that the Bible is easy to figure out. I have been advocating spiritual growth (see the link) since I got back on this platform back then. The reason for that is that it is only through spiritual growth that we come to understand the Bible.

On the other hand, I don't believe at all that there is anything wrong with the original text of the Bible (and all the translations and surviving manuscripts have such a high degree of accuracy that one can say for all practical purposes that there is no great problem with them). If one does not understand the Bible, something is indeed wrong with them. It may be because they don't have the Holy Spirit in them to provide them with the faculty to even understand Bible teaching in the first place (which is the situation of all unbelievers), or it may be that they have not yet submitted to a pastor-teacher to be taught what the Bible teaches as a whole (the position of the vast majority of believers today). Both things are certainly not the right positions for anyone to be in.

Life is like a say between two nights, and death is like a night btween two days...

MrPresident1:
Nazgul, When a spirit departs from a body, it goes to God who gave it in the first place
Ecclesiastes 12:7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

[img]https://media./images/baf9f44d698f2aff876dff37dafed35b/tenor.gif[/img]

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Nazgul:
This means that both good and bad people die, their spirit returns back to God, while the body returns back to the earth right?

MrPresident1:
Yes. then the reincarnate to pay for or enjoy the benefits of the deeds of past life.

There is no place in the skies where God incinerates people. Under the sun the place of judgment...
Ecclesiastes 3:16
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there

@ Nazgul
Absolutely, the spirit aka breath of God returns back to God. It's the soul that will face judgement and not the spirit

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MuttleyLaff:
What Makes Man?
Or better still what is man?
Man is a spirit being, residing or housed in a Body and possessing a Soul, so Man is made up of Body, Soul (i.e. uses the heart as an outlet) and Spirit. The Soul has the body and spirit on each opposite sides of it. In a nutshell, Man essentially, is a spirit being with a soul, housed, encapsulated, and/or wrapped up in a human being body suit

The spirit and soul have different faculties, and so the faculties of the spirit, comprises of Fellowship, Conscience, Discernment or Intuition, whilst the faculties of the Soul comprises of the Mind (i.e. consciousness and sub consciousness) or Intellect, Will or Freewill, and Emotions and the Body has 5 faculties of senses, which are, to see, via the eyes, hear, via the ears, feel, via applicable part of the body, smell, via the nose and taste, via the mouth.

Some people have lost that ability to know bad from good. It's similar to losing sense of taste, smell, sight, hearing, feeling pain or not et cetera

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MuttleyLaff:
"Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life
(i.e. for everything you do flows from the heart)"
- Proverbs 4:23

"The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart,
and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart.
For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks"
- Luke 6:45

shadeyinka, I am 110% sure you'll agree and accept that, it is the Soul that is saved even Ezekiel 18:20 emphatically states that: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die.", it doesnt say its the Body or the Spirit. Now, the heart is used by the Soul but the heart definitely is not the Spirit

Let me slip this bit in, first, as a preamble. Proverbs 4:23 and Luke 6:45 above, informs us that, it's out of the abundance of the heart first, then processed in the brain or mind, before the mouth speaks. All evil intents comes forth out of the heart, as in, the heart housed in the human Body. Mark 7:21-22, paints a picture of the heart with the following: "For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness" and Jeremiah 17:9 doesnt paint the heart in good light either, as it says: "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?"

Incidentally, the verse, Psalms 51:10, informatively tells us, that the heart is linked with the mind, which is part of the Soul. The same Soul or psyche uses the heart as an outlet, to pass out or pass in things, from the Body and/or Spirit via the heart in the Soul. I'll soon below explain how it does this and/or how this works

What is man?
"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

"For the Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life."
- Job 33:4

Man is a spirit being, residing or housed in a Body and possessing a Soul (i.e. a psyche). In fact, Man is made up of Body, Soul and Spirit. As a matter of fact, the Soul or psyche, has the Body and Spirit on each opposite sides of it. In a nutshell, Man essentially, is a spirit being with a Soul, housed, encapsulated, and/or wrapped up, in a human being body suit.

Genesis 2:7 and Job 33:4 above, informs us, its "ruach" the Spirit from God and "neshamah" that keeps the human body animated.

Now Nazgul, please dont try to mix up "ruach" and "neshamah" with ordinary and/or commonplace spirits, as in meaning, dont try to mix up the Spirit of God and the breath or wind of God, with extraterrestrial beings, which is what evil and good spirits are.

Fyi, "ruach", in Hebrew, with its corresponding Greek word "pneuma" essentially and in an almost oversimplified way means force. It is breath, wind, spirit of God, all rolled in as one thing. It in a sense, is the invisible force or power of God, hence why being perceived as a Spirit, so yes, "ruach" is the Spirit of God. In fact you wont wrong in saying that "ruach" or "Ha Ruach Ha Kodesh" is the Holy Spirit, as in, the Spirit of God.

You can see both "ruach" and "neshamah" being interplayed in the creation of man from Genesis 2:7 reproduced above, and as a witness plus as a supporting verse, Job 33:4 you see reproduced above, confirms, by testifying, that, its "ruach" that made man and it is "neshamah" that gives man life

"Neshamah", incidentally, is actually derived from another Hebrew word called "nasham" that means to pant and/or blow away with air, now, when the spirit, as in, meaning, "neshamah", the breath, returns back to God, the Body slumps and the Soul goes into comatose. This looks and feels, similar to a TV animated cartoon changed and turned into a cartoon strip character, on a comic book or magazine paper. TV animated cartoon characters moves, but cartoon strip character, on a comic book or magazine paper dont move like animated cartoon characters watched on TV screens. For the life of the body is in the blood and the life of the soul is in the spirit. When the spirit leaves the body, it returns back to God, leaving the body inanimate, meaning leaves it motionless and lifeless, as in, without life or no more with life. Ecclesiastes 12:7

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
- Ecclesiastes 12:7

Now, moving further on, the Spirit and Soul have different faculties, where the faculties of the spirit, comprises of Fellowship, Conscience, Discernment or Intuition, while the faculties of the Soul are made up of the Mind (i.e. consciousness and sub consciousness) or Intellect, Will or Freewill, and Emotions. The Body is not left out, it has 5 faculties of senses, and these are, sight, as in to see via the eyes, hearing, as in hear via the ears, touch, as in, feel via applicable part of the body, smell, as in, perceive via the nose and last but not the least, taste, as in, sense with the mouth.

The Body is worldly conscious and relates to the environment and its surroundings, the Soul is self conscious and relates to self & other people and the Spirit is God conscious and relates to God. After the death of the Body, the Soul without God, without any affinity with God, cant achieve or have eternal life

Now, remember Nazgul, that the question was: "What is Man" Well, my intro response is, the Soul, biblically speaking, is the most important existence of Man and that is why the battle is and always has been about and over the Soul. All attacks, are ultimately targeted at and for the Soul. Now, getting started proper, the Soul is the first medium key component of Man created by God and Man is tickled and accessed through this same Soul, by way of the Body and Spirit. The Soul, as a matter of fact and in effect, is the mediator between the Body and Spirit. The Soul uses the heart, as the point from where issues are sent out and/or distributed from.

Let me elaborate and explain a bit how everything works, the different faculties in the Soul waits, to pick up signals coming from the relevant and/or applicable faculties in the Body and the Spirit. This crucial bit of information here, is very important to grasp, and it is that, the Soul receives from the Body and deposits into the Spirit. Whatever the Body reads or sees via the eyes, hears via the ears, feels via applicable part of the body, smells via the nose and talks or tastes via the mouth is picked up by the Soul and deposited into the Spirit. The Spirit then, upon receiving these things from the Soul, has to deal with or process what the Soul has deposited into the Spirit's laps.

Fya Nazgul, please note, anywhere in the post you see "Spirit", unless it is stated otherwise, take it, to mean, as in, spirit-man, and not the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God. Thank you

Now, this here, is why regulation is very important. It is why we ought to control and oversee what the Soul is picking up from or what it is picking up with the senses. If you have to by all means, eat the chicken or fish, then its necessary to know when and how to spit out the bones, or if it's straw to eat, then know when and how to spit out the sticks, alternatively, if it's liquor to drink, and you cant hold it down so you don't throw it up, then know how or when to stay away from the liquor. Caveat emptor clause #1 done.

The devil has no power over anyone, except if such person, is in the dark, dabbling in the dark or is ignorant, so I'll advise the curious to distance themselves from dabbling into the dark, to save themselves from misery, but if hellbent on dining with the devil, then make sure you've got a long spoon to dine and eat with. Caveat emptor clause #2 done.

Resuming and back on track, now, if the Soul picks up an interaction, info, instruction, message, communication, issue etcetera from the Body, it cant interpret, then the deposit the Soul received from the Body and put into the Spirit will be unfruitful then (i.e. remember the red emboldened above hmm?) The thing here, is that, the Spirit, by the God design, knows what it expects from the Soul for positive fruition to be possible but the Soul has received from the Body something it doesnt via the Mind or Intellect understand or know about. Wahala don begin to gas be dat ooo. Now, just as in the physical, when the stomach growls, making noises for food, when nourishing is long overdue, so it is spiritually, the Spirit, intercedes for us through wordless and noiseless groans for substances necessary for growth, health and good condition

The Soul, as a conduit, a vent hole determines what the Spirit receives, but if the Soul is transferring the wrong expectations (e.g. like not praying right, not asking right, not the will of God etctera) then the Spirit, does the wordless groans. It does this because the spirit-man knows what should be prayed for, so it becomes restless with wordless groans, when the expectation(s) is not forthcoming or not in sight. The Spirit, as in, the spirit-man, is like saying: Hey Mr Soul, where are the goods I am expecting, please dont feed me with trash, junk and any of all these ungodly razzmatazz stuffs. So since the Spirit, is capable of asking and telling the Soul what it needs, the Soul just has to return back to the Body to honour the request and be asking the Body for correct or "kosher" stuff and not the crap its received

Now, if it is one of those classic cases of the Spirit, is willing BUT the Body is weak, then the Body many times will REFUSE the Soul the request of the Spirit, and here we have a typical case of struggle or power tussle going on in the Soul involving the Body and the Spirit
The Spirit , knows what it needs the Soul giving it from the Body (i.e. the Spirit tells the Soul what to do, expecting the Soul to relay this information request to the Body) but the Body, many times, is not ready or prepared to act in accordance with the wish or command of the Spirit, by giving or offering it to the Soul for the Spirit.

There is a rule, that the Spirit, cannot give to the Body righteous things it didnt receives from the Soul. Hmm, I perceive someone's going to trip at this point, so OK, here is the clarification to ward off any confusion:
The Soul passes on all righteous things it receives from the Body, if the seed is able to bear fruit and is meaningful when the Spirit receives it, the Spirit, will then fertilise the ''seed'' and return it back to the Body, via the Soul, bumper harvest fruitfully. Call it positive and welcome payback, if you like.

So, in effect, the Soul feeds the Spirit, and the Soul receives from the Spirit, to feed the Body. This is the reason, why if your mind (i.e. Soul) doesnt understand something OR anything, it would be unable to interpret, to then, successfully feed the Spirit or the Body.

Nazgul, do you ever recoil back, when watching something gruesome happening in real life or maybe just on a TV screen slash internet, as in, like in a horror film or something? If you do, well that's your spirit, as in your spirit-man, not wanting to be needlessly grieved. Sometimes, you have to protect the gateway to your spirit-man because you might not necessarily want to relive or remember that moment, so you block any avenue, contact or link to that thing happening or going on at that moment of time. What is happening here, is you preventing your spirit-man from being fed with junk. You are protecting your heart and shielding it from receiving and/or taking in from junk. You are blocking the faculties from transferring junk to the Soul via the heart.

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health,
even as thy soul prospereth"
- 3 John 1:2

As seen in 3 John 1:2 above, the Soul (i.e. the Mind (i.e. conscious and sub conscious) or Intellect, Will or Freewill, and Emotions) tops it all. Of course, the ability of the Soul to prosper or be held back to any degree, is dependent on the Spirit, getting the right detail, at which to relay back to the Body via the Soul at a latter date, future or time, as and when needed.

This is another God design, quest for quality GIGO and QIQO system set-up. GIGO is an ancroymn for "Garbage in, Garbage out" and QIQO is an ancroymn for "Quality in, Quality out" If the Soul sends in shiit to the Spirit, the Soul gets shiit back from the Spirit. It just implies that bad input by the Soul will result in bad output in return, sent back from the Spirit to the Soul. Ultimately too, the Body, at the receiving end of it all, gets the flawed and nonsense input data from the Soul, this comes by nonsense output garbage obtained from the Spirit that originally and in first place was sent in from the Soul coming from one or more of the Body's faculties (e.g. eyes, ears, touch, mouth, smell)

"For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay."
- Psalm 16:10

shade/yinka, you're too heavy to want to fall for my hand now, please dont. Biko, jor abeg. The soul of Jesus, not being left in Sheol, aka hell/hades, is King David's Psalm 16:10 prophecy being fulfilled. Everything written about Jesus, in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms were each and every one fulfilled, and so we have it that the soul of Jesus was not abandoned in Sheol nor His body decayed. Praise God. Alleluia.

Now, when our Lord Jesus Christ resurrected, He resurrected with a glorified body. Need I go on, need I say more, if not, then I rest my case then.

After the death of the Body, the Soul without God, without any affinity with God, cant achieve or have eternal life

I guess that you'll agree that the devil and demons are soulless, meaning they have no soul. Now, the reason why the devil and the demons are inredeemable is because of the fact that they have no souls. The devil and the demons, are not able to be saved, be improved, or be corrected because of the mere fact that they lack a soul. The devil and the demons, to start with, unlike human beings, havent got diddly squat souls to make better, to improve upon, to make more desirable, satisfactory and/or effective.

God doesnt have a soul, heart, eyes, legs, hands ears, etcetera literally as we human being and/or we terrestrial beings do physically have

[img]https://media./images/69fbe49b6295f8e5a7dfc0be251feccd/tenor.gif[/img]
Just ask if you do have any questions Nazgul

Ihedinobi3:
Hi there.

First off, I have read you say later in the thread that the Bible says that "chickens" (and I suppose, by extension all animals) don't have souls. I wonder where you read anything like that in the Bible. Of course, nobody and nothing has a soul. A soul is what anything becomes when it has a spirit put into its body.

7 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 (KJV)

Furthermore, the Bible also says,

18 I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” 19 For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. 21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 (NKJV)

So, (1)the Bible says that animals have spirits just like human beings, although this should be obvious since it is a spirit that animates a physical body; (2)when animals die, their spirits go somewhere just like the human spirit does too when a human being dies.

To your specific question, however...

The first thing to say is that as you will see in the foregoing, human beings are spirits that live in physical bodies. So, there are two parts to the human person. What death actually does is, as you can see from Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 quoted above and from Ecclesiastes 12:7, separate our spirits from their physical vessels. Our spirits are the real us, so when we die, it is our spirits that go back to God to answer for our choices made while still in our physical bodies here on earth. This is the gist of Hebrews 9:27 too. Our bodies, on the other hand, decay and fall to dust here on earth.

What then is the resurrection? It is the provisioning of our spirits with an eternal material body. Our spirits were designed to live in a material vessel. They were not built to be "naked" (2 Corinthians 5:3 in Greek). So death is like robbery. It takes from our spirits their rightful homes and would have us walk naked. But of course, God is generous even so. When we die, He gives our spirits a temporary sheath (again, see 2 Corinthians 5:3 in Greek; see also Revelation 6:11) within which they exist in the place that our choices have assigned to us.

That brings us to a discussion of what happens to our spirits after we die. When we die, our spirits are put into a temporary or interim body and then taken to the place that fits our choices. If we chose to believe the Gospel and hold on to that faith until the end of our earthly lives, then we will be taken to the Third Heaven to be with God and all His elect angels and other departed believers. There, we wait for the time of Jesus's Return to the earth to take His Throne. At that time, all those who believe including departed saints are resurrected to live in perfect bliss with God forever.

22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luke 16:22-23 (NKJV)

The passage above demonstrates that when we die, we go to a place that is in keeping with our choices here on earth. The rich man was an unbeliever, so he was taken to and deposited in Torments in Hell/Hades/Sheol, as the Scriptures severally call it. This is not his final deposition either. All unbelievers who die until the end of Jesus' Millennial Reign (that is, until the end of human history) will be deposited in Torments. But they will be resurrected at the end of that Reign to face their final judgment and be deposited into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15). This Lake is indeed in the same place as Torments, in fact, it will fill the whole of Hades/Hell/Sheol, but Torments is really just a sort of holding cell for those who die as unbelievers. This is where the rich man in the passage above was. It isn't the same as the Lake of Fire, technically speaking.

The resurrection of the unrighteous involves giving them an eternal body for their spirits, but that eternal body is made for condemnation. Consider it a sort of tool provided for their spirits so that they can experience the full extent of suffering in the Lake of Fire that is due to them, just as our current bodies are a tool with which we experience life on earth currently.

2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
Some to everlasting life,
Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2 (NKJV)

28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
John 5:28-29 (NKJV)

On the other hand, those who die believing have always been taken to a place where they can commune with God and rest from life on earth. Before the Lord Jesus came and died for all human sin, such believers could not go into the Presence of the Father in the Third Heaven because their sins were not yet atoned for (animal sacrifices did not answer for sin, they only demonstrated faith in God's Messiah Whose then-coming Sacrifice alone could atone for our sins -- Hebrews 10:4). But because they believed in God's Promise to send a Messiah to die for their sins, they did not belong in Torments either. The Lord prepared a place especially for them in Hades/Hell/Sheol called Paradise (Luke 23:43) or Abraham's Bosom (Abraham's Bosom because the Bible recognizes him as the epitome of faith -- Romans 4:1,11-12). This is the place from where the spirit of Samuel came to King Saul in 1 Samuel 28, from where Moses and Elijah came to speak to Jesus Christ at the Transfiguration, and where Lazarus and Abraham are seen together by the dead unbelieving rich man. As the name suggests, it was a place of beauty and rest for all those who believed before the Cross. The only downside was that it was still cut off from the Presence of the Father, although of course, just as it was in the days of Adam and Eve, the Lord (Jesus Christ Himself before His first Advent) would go to fellowship with them frequently, so they were not left without God entirely.

After our Lord died on the Cross, He went to Hades where He proclaimed His Victory to the rebel angels who are imprisoned there (especially since the debacle of the Nephilim) because they did not know what had transpired on earth, and from where He took those departed saints as part of His spoils of victory to the Third Heaven with Him (Ephesians 4:8-9). His Sacrifice opened the way into the Presence of the Father for those saints, not only for them, but it also opened the way for every other believer who would die from the time after the Cross until the end of human history. So, all believers who have died since that time have been taken by the angels into the third Heaven where they rest in their interim bodies as they await the resurrection of the righteous.

In summary, I offer the following statements to answer your quandary:

1. When we die, our bodies, which are a legitimate God-given part of our identity, go into the ground or are destroyed in some way, even though our spirits are not in any way diminished. That is the point of resurrection: the restoration of a material body to our spirits, but this time the body remains ours for eternity.

2. Our spirits do go somewhere after we die since they are indestructible (Ecclesiastes 3:14). They either go to Torments if we are unbelievers or they go to the Third Heaven since the Cross if we are believers. Resurrection gives our spirits permanent eternal bodies or homes in which to either enjoy God's eternal blessings or to suffer His eternal cursing depending on our choices here on earth.

3. Hell is a big place that has been acting like a holding cell for all who are in it. Believers who died before the Cross were held in Paradise, one of the compartments of Hell, as captives of sin until Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind and they were free to go with Him to the Third Heaven. Unbelievers who die from the time of Cain until the end of history are held in Torments, another compartment of Hell, until their judgment at the White Throne at the end of human history. Rebel angels who violate the ground rules of their warfare with God are held in the Abyss, the third compartment of Hell, until the time of their release for the Tribulation. It is not yet a place of final judgment.

4. Hell will eventually be filled with the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14) after the Judgment of the Great White Throne. After that Judgment, all unbelievers and rebel angels will be consigned to it for all eternity.

Cheers.

Thanks for this. But the story of the rich man and Lazarus was a parable Jesus told. It didn't actually happen, just like the story of the prodigal son and the story of the good Samaritan.

I'm not trying to argue with your submission cos it really enlightened me, all I'm saying is who were the dead the Bible was saying will rise up?

And why will they be another judgement if the dead are already in Hades and the good in the third heavens like you pointed out.

Thanks for your contribution once again.

MuttleyLaff:
[img]https://media./images/baf9f44d698f2aff876dff37dafed35b/tenor.gif[/img]

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@ Nazgul
Absolutely, the spirit aka breath of God returns back to God. It's the soul that will face judgement and not the spirit

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[img]https://media./images/69fbe49b6295f8e5a7dfc0be251feccd/tenor.gif[/img]
Just ask if you do have any questions Nazgul

Thanks for this.