Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) by William West (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

to "life with
torment." Satan said, "YOU surely SHALL NOT DIE." Satan added the "not" and many have
changed his "YOU shall not" to "YOUR SOUL shall not die" to make a person now have an
"immaterial invisible" immortal soul that shall not die.
• GOD: “You shall surely die…dust you are, and unto dust shall you return.”
• TODAY’S PREACHERS: “You shall not surely die…for you are now immortal and will
live forever some place.”
For a person to have an immortal soul two kinds of life and two kinds of death must be read
into Genesis 2 with one of the deaths not being a death at all, but eternal life with torment. Look
in your concordance and you will see that "Spiritual life" or "spiritual death" which is read into
this is not in the Bible. It is argued that Adam did not die physically that day; therefore, "spiritual
death" was Adam's penalty for eating. If this were true, why did he ever die a physical death, and
how did physical death come into the world? In the Hebrew the penalty was "dying YOU shall
die." It was the "living being" [Genesis 2:7] that would die, not an immortal soul that cannot die
but was told that it would die anyway. Death came into the world through Adam and all die [1
Corinthians 15:22; Romans 5:12-21]. "And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and
after this comes judgment" [Hebrews 9:27]. The death that came into the world by Adam's sin is
the same death that he died for eating, a physical death. "By the sweat of your face YOU shall eat
bread, till YOU return to the ground, because from it YOU were taken; for YOU are dust, and to
dust YOU shall return" [Genesis 2:19]. It was not the death of Adam's "soul," an inward
immortal never dying part of Adam that could not die. Adam could not have understood that
YOU was only his body, and that only a part of the YOU would die, but the rest of the YOU
would not die but would live forever in torment unless he had a revelation from God to tell him a
part of him was deathless. There is no such revelation recorded in Genesis although it is
repeatedly read into it today. Adam's undying soul theory is based on the silence recorded in
Genesis two and three.
"No word is said either before the fall, or on the approach of the Judge, or afterwards, of Adam's
possession of a deathless soul, when his mortal integer was broken up; - not a word is uttered in the
divine comment on the curse, of an eternity of misery to be endured by the soul after dissolution of the
Man. Indeed, that notion seems to deserve little else than the scorn, which Locke bestows upon it. It is
the gratuitous invention of theologians who have forfeited the claim to be listened to in that matter by
their perverse departure from the record.” Edward White, Life In Christ, Page 212, 1878.
A definition of death from the Bible, "Till YOU return to the ground, because from it YOU
were taken; for YOU are dust, and to dust YOU shall return," and without the resurrection, all
would forever remain dust. But, God's definition of death cannot be believed by any that believe
the soul is immortal; they tell us that by, “You shall die,” God really means “spiritually death,”
not to really die and return to the ground. The tradition of many makes changing the Bible a must;
how many times have we been told that “YOU shall surely die” means “YOUR SOUL, NOT
YOU shall surely die spiritually?”
ANOTHER USE OF "YOU SHALL SURELY DIE" [the same words in the Hebrew]; Solomon
told Shimei to "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not forth thence any
whither. For on the day you go out, and pass over the brook Kidron, know you for certain that
YOU SHALL SURELY DIE" [1 Kings 2:37]. He did go out of Jerusalem, and he did die just as
Adam did but not on the very day he went out. “Surely die” is used 19 times in the Old
Testament to mean the death of the person, not a “spiritual death.” Genesis 2:27; 3:4; 20:7;
Numbers 26:65; Judges 13:32; 1 Samuel 14:39; 14:44; 20:31; 22:16; 2 Samuel 12:14; 1 Kings
2:37; 2:42; 2 Kings 1:4; 8:10; Jeremiah 26:8; Ezekiel 3:18; 18:13; 33:8; 33:14.
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IF HELL WERE ADAM'S SENTENCE: "Die" must be changed into an eternal life for a part
of Adam but not his body. If Hell was Adam's sentence then God was unclear in His warning and
unclear in the sentence. What was the penalty God give in Genesis 3:9-24?
1. The serpent cursed
2. Sorrow in bringing forth children
3. The man ruling over his wife
4. The earth bringing forth thorns and thistles
5. Must work to eat, by the sweat of his face
6. They would return to the ground from which they came
HOW CAN ANYONE GET HELL OUT OF THIS SENTENCE? THERE IS NOT ONE
WORD ABOUT AN IMMORTAL, IMMATERIAL PART OF A PERSON IN IT AND NOT
ONE WORD ABOUT HELL OR TORMENT AFTER DEATH IN IT. THERE IS NOTHING
ABOUT ANYTHING AFTER DEATH IN IT. THE PENALTY FOR EATING OF THE
FORBIDDEN TREE ENDED WHEN THEY RETURNED TO THE GROUND.
WHAT IS THE DEATH THAT CAME INTO THE WORLD AND PASSED UNTO ALL
THROUGH ADAM'S SIN?
"It seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires the plainest and direct words, that by death
should be meant eternal life in misery...I must confess that by death, here, I can understand nothing but a
ceasing to be, the losing of all actions of life and sense. Such a death came upon Adam and all his
posterity, by his first disobedience in paradise, under which death they should have lain forever had it not
been for the redemption by Jesus Christ" John Locke, "Reasonableness of Christianity," Volume 6, page 3,
1695
The "soul" as it is used today will live forever if it eats of this fruit or does not eat of it, and the
teaching is that not even God can keep it from living forever. If God had made men with
unconditional immortality, would it have done any good to put him out of the garden to keep him
from eating of the tree of life to live forever? If Adam were made with an immortal undying part,
he would have lived forever and could not have died even if he did not eat of the tree of life.
Adam and Eve passed from a state in the garden where they had access to the tree of life,
where it was possible for them to live forever, to a state where it was impossible for them not to
die. The day they did eat was the beginning of the dying process ["Dying you shall die"]. There is
nothing in this about a person being a dual being with an immortal soul, but most read it into this.
It was the whole person as he was then, which would have lived forever if he had eaten of the tree
of life. It was the whole person, not just some inter part of a person, which God said would die.
HOW COULD AN "IMMATERIAL INVISIBLE" PART OF A PERSON EAT OF A VISIBLE
MATERIAL TREE? Satan's lie was that THEY, not some inter part of them, would not die. The
presence of the "tree of life" in Eden indicates that immortality was conditional on eating of that
tree. To prevent the possibility of being able to "live forever" [Genesis 3:22] God put a barrier to
the garden when Adam was put out of Eden and the dying process began.
The New JOHN GILL Exposition of the Entire Bible "For in the day thou eat thereof thou shalt surely
die; or in dying, die; which denotes the certainty of it...man became at once a mortal creature, who
otherwise continuing in a state of innocence, and by eating of the tree of life, he was allowed to do, would
have lived an immortal life; of the eating of which tree, by sinning he was debarred, his natural life not
now to be continued long, at least not forever; he was immediately arraigned, tried, and condemned to
death, was found guilty of it, and became obnoxious to it, and death at once began to work in him; sin
sowed the seeds of it in his body, and a train of miseries, afflictions, and diseases, began to appear, which
at length issued in death."
YOUNG'S Literal Translation Genesis 2:17 "For in the day of thine eating of it - dying thou dost die."
ADAM CLARKE "Thou shall surely die. Literally, a death thou shall die; or, dying thou shall die-from
that moment thou shall become mortal, and shall continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find
literally accomplished; every moment of man's life may be considered as an act of dying." On Genesis
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2:7: “From that moment thou shall become mortal, and shall continue in a dying state till thou
die.”
JOHN WESLEY "Thou shall die-That is, thou shalt lose all the happiness thou hast either in possession
or prospect; and thou shalt become liable to death, and all the miseries that preface and attend it. This
was threatened as the immediate consequence of sin."
A DOUBLE CHANCE: First change: Adam's death must be made to be a "separation," not death.
Second change: Then his "separation" must be made to be an eternal life of torment in Hell. "For
as in Adam all die" [1 Corinthians 15:22]. If death = separation, and separation = Hell, then all go
to Hell for "in Adam all die."
[5]. "WITHOUT MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD" Job 19:25-27
In "Reason and Revelation" May 2000, Dr. Bert Thompson used this question Job asked to
prove a person has a part in him or her that will live after the death of the body. If I understand
him right, he is saying a person without a body will see God. Job said, "Even after my skin is
destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall
see and not another." When will anyone see God? Will it be before the resurrection or not unto
after the resurrection? The clear teaching of the Bible is that no one will see God before the
resurrection and than it will be without the body of flesh, but not without a body. "It is sown a
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" [1 Corinthians 15:44]. No one can see God while in
the natural body, and no one will see God before they are raised from the dead. The dead do not
know anything [Ecclesiastes 9:5] and will not know anything unto the resurrection. He is reading
into this passage that Job is saying he has a part that cannot die, and reading in that it is not Job
but only this immaterial no substance part of Job that will see God without the resurrection.
WHAT WAS JOB REALLY SAYING? Job had much but lost everything and his friends and
wife was telling him it was because he had sinned. The book is made up mostly of speeches by
his threes friends accusing Job of sin and Job's response to them. Earlier in Job's third response he
had said, "For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its
shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground, and its stump dies in the dry soul, at
the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant." For a