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

the latter says it shall perish and suffer corruption, Plato says it shall not
perish and is incorruptible. The phrases are the very same, only that what Plato denies of all souls alike,
the New Testament asserts of some of the souls of men. But the discussion of the question was not
confined to the school of Plato or to his times. Every school of philosophy took it up, whether to confirm
Plato's view, or to deny it, or to heap ridicule upon it. All the phrases we have been discussing from the
New Testament had been explained, turned over and over, handled with all the power of the masters of
language, presented in every phase, so that of their sense there could be no doubt, nor could there be
any one ignorant of their sense before Jesus spoke, or an Evangelist or Apostle wrote. The subject had not
died out before the days of Christ. It never could and never will die out. In every city of the Roman world
were schools of Grecian thought in the days of the Apostles. In every school the question before us was
discussed in the phrases and language of the New Testament" Henry Constable, "Duration and Nature of
Future Punishment," 1871.
"Plato established the basic Western tradition on this topic by defining the soul as the spiritual part of
the human that survived death" Catholic Encyclopedia, 1991.
Many believe that in the afterlife we will be nothing more than a collection of disembodied
spirits or souls that will be just as alive and just the same from the day of birth as these souls will
ever be. Death and the resurrection are out of step with the belief of Plato.
A part of a person being deathless is a philosophy of man that Paul warned about [Colossians
2:8]. An immortal soul was copied from heathen philosophy and superstition. NOTE: Those who
believe we now have "an immortal soul" get their belief from Greek philosophy, but are
inconstant and self-contradicting. They say the soul cannot die, but it needs a Savior anyway. If
we were born with an immortal soul, it would have no need for Christ to save it from the death it
cannot die. CHRISTIANITY DID NOT DESTROY THE PAGAN DOCTRINE OF EGYPT
AND GREECE; IT ADOPTED IT.
Death is the enemy [1 Corinthians 15:26]. It is the destruction of the life given by God. It is
not the liberator of an immortal soul as Plato believed it to be. It is death, which must be
conquered by the resurrection. When we understand that death is really death, not another
kind of life for an immortal part of a person that has no substance, the resurrection is allimportant.
Without a resurrection we can do what we want for this life is all there is [1
Corinthians 15:32]. Our only hope is the resurrection, and without it there will be no life of
any kind for us after death. Plato's immortal soul needs no resurrection. "Set your hope
perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" [1 Peter
1:12]. It is at the resurrection that we "shall receive the crown of glory that fades not away" [1
Peter 5:4].
1. "Be patient; therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord" [James 4:7-8]. As the
farmer is patient unto the harvest to receive his reward, the believers were to be patient
unto the coming of Christ to receive their reward.
2. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" [1 Corinthians 15:43]. It is not
the spiritual body living in the natural body that will go to Heaven at the death of the
natural body. "We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible" [1
Corinthians 15:52].
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3. "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as
he is" [1 John 3:2].
4. The wrath of God will be "in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous
judgment of God" [Romans 2:5], not wrath at death before that day and not eternal
wrath after the judgment day is over. On that day, it will be rendered "to them that by
patience in well doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life" [Romans
2:8], not to the souls of all on the day of their death. The judgment will be "in the day
when God shall judge the secrets of men" [Romans 2:16], not at death. It is the judgment
day when "we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God" [Romans 14:10]. It is the
day that the Lord will judge all, "Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord
comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the
counsels of the hearts" [1 Corinthians 4:5, also, Ephesians 4:30].
5. "And to wait for his Son from heaven" [1 Thessalonians 1:10], not wait for death to take
us to Heaven.
6. When the Lord shall descend from Heaven, them that have fallen asleep in Jesus, "the
dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with
them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with
the Lord" [1 Thessalonians 4:17]. Their hope is to be raised from their sleep at the
coming of Christ, not come back from living in Heaven or Abraham's bosom.
7. Paul says he will receive a "crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his
appearing." [2 Timothy 4:8].
The Bible teaching, "The wages of sin is death" leaves no lost souls alive after the judgment
and second death to be put anywhere. THE TEACHING OF CHRIST, THAT LIFE
(EVERLASTING LIFE OR IMMORTALITY) WILL BE GIVEN ONLY TO THOSE WHO
OBEY HIM, MAKES HELL IMPOSSIBLE. UNLESS CHRIST GIVES ETERNAL LIFE
(IMMORTALITY) TO THE LOST, THEY CANNOT LIVE FOREVER ANYWHERE. The
Greek teaching of an immortal soul must be made to stand, and the teaching of Christ that He will
give life only to those who come to Him must be removed or there cannot be a Hell.
Socrates drinks hemlock and died with a smile on his face because he thought he was freeing
his soul to live with the gods. Christ "sweats as it was great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44). Death
is the enemy of man. It destroys him, and only the resurrection frees us from death, and gives us
back the life death takes. In death there is no life in Heaven or any other place for us before the
resurrection. The resurrection is not just a coming back from Heaven to be judged and then going
back to Heaven, it is our only hope of life after our death. Without the resurrection "then they
also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Corinthians 15:18). The Greek philosophy
that found its way into the Church says they have not perished, but are freed to live with God in
Heaven without the need of a resurrection. After the pagan immortal soul doctrine came Hellfire,
Purgatory, worship of Mary and saints, etc. The Protestant Reformation was largely a reaction to
medieval superstitious beliefs and Purgatory, an intermediate state of temporal punishment where
souls that were not good enough to go to Heaven, and not bad enough to go to Hell; in the Church
in the Dark Age, this was almost all people. The priests would have their loved ones pay for him
to pray to shorten their time in Purgatory. Selling indulgences and paying to reduce the time the
souls of departed loved spent ones in Purgatory was rejected by the Reformation, as was many
other superstitious beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church; but the Greek dual nature of a person
and Hell was retained. Calvin believed the soul did not sleep, but went to Heaven or Hell at death.
The Westminster Confession says, "The souls of the righteous...are received unto the highest
heavens...the soul of the wicked are cast into Hell." The doctrine of an immortal soul replaced the
resurrection, and made it useless and impossible.
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UNCONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY IS THE PAGAN TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
AUGUSTINE AND OTHER PARTLY CONVERTED "CHURCH FATHERS" WHO KNEW
MORE OF THE TEACHING OF PLATO THAN OF CHRIST AND REWROTE
REINCARNATION TO FIT CHRISTIANITY.
Transmigration of souls
• Transmigration of souls: Souls live somewhere after the death of the body. Where a soul
goes to after death varies from country to country and age to age.
• Unconditional immortality: Souls live somewhere after the death of the body. The place
where souls go after death varies from one group to another. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or
Abraham's bosom; but, wherever it goes it is as alive as it will ever be and that without
the resurrection.
Reincarnation
• Reincarnation: Souls that are living somewhere come back to an earthly body.
• Unconditional immortality: Souls that are living in Heaven or Hell come back to the
earthly body at the second coming of Christ.
Ancient Egyptian belief was that the soul had a gloomy existence in the underworld
(transmigration). The Greeks and Romans believed about the same with some changes. Oriental
and Pythagorean philosophy, Buddhists, Hindus, and Grand Lama all believed in some from
reincarnation. All believed the "soul" of the evil had some punishment, but not all believed the
same punishment. With most the punishment was only some kind of gloomy existence in the
underworld, not torment as it is taught today. With most, the more evil a person was the lower his
soul would have the capability to reincarnate. Some would come back as a person, the more evil
as a plant or insect. Some believed the very evil would never be able to reincarnate, and must
forever have a gloomy existence in the underworld. This punishment was believed to be under or
down in the earth by most. Hell was and is still believed by some to be under the earth. This is the
nearest thing to today's Hell in heathen philosophy and in any writing unto after the New
Testament. The "church fathers" borrowed from the heathens (mostly Greek and Romans) and
invented unto by the time of the Dark Age they had invented Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, worship of
Mary and saints, the Pope declared to be God in the flesh, and much more. God was made into a
cruel and sadistic being. Those who worshiped him truly became like the god they invented.
Millions who believed the world was round, or in any way did not believe all the Church taught,
were put to death as heretics. It put some to death for having the Bible in their own language-not
in Latin. It was one of the bloodiest times of history, and continued into the Protestant
Reformation (The Crusades, bloody Mary, witch-hunts, and much more). Some of the cruelest
ways of torment the world has ever known were invented and used, and all in the name of their
god. It would take many books to tell of all the bloody deeds of the Dark Age by the so-called
"church." The reasons for them are summed up in the words of bloody Mary. "As the souls of
heretics are hereafter to be eternally burning in Hell, there can be nothing more proper than for
me to imitate the divine vengeance by burning them on earth." In the Dark Age, the "church" was
a mixture of Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, and their own