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Exodus 3:15
And God said moreover unto Moses, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: Jehovah, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my [title? No. Redemptive characteristic? Try again] name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.

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Edited by: Rafael Olmeda   at: 12/11/00 11:14:16 pm

Well hello all you happy people. I just wanted to take a few minutes to post some partial observations on the word soul. We started this discussion a few weeks ago in the context of death and resurrection. I noted then that VP's comments about the soul dying with the body seemed ill conceived and at odds with several verses in the Bible.

As you all know, we've gotten back into it more deeply in the study of the infamous formed made created teaching from Session,...what session six? Yes, I believe we're halfway through. But I seem to be bogging down here. I've spent a couple of weeks now looking at every occurrence of psuche, and literally hundreds of uses of the Hebrew words nephesh (soul) and ruach (spirit). Sunlight has also been communicating some great insights via email. We've come to similar conclusions on some of these truths, but I can't seem to get a grasp on the whole concept. It seems the more I read, the more questions arise. So for efficiency's sake, I'll just post a few quick observations as they relate to what was taught in PFAL, and continue this study while we go on with the class material. Some of it will no doubt come up again when we run into the teachings on the word pneuma and its usages, so we'll be back here sooner or later.

As you know, VP defined soul as "that which makes you you" which is a pretty sorry definition, btw. My DNA makes me me doesn't it? Anyway, as we've discussed at length, VP's approach is rather segmented. We are beings made up of three parts, we're people. The holistic approach is indeed, backed up by Scripture, imho. Before I go any further, I need to acknowledge that the prinicpal truth here is indeed in this session of the class. VP said "all life is spirit." Spirit being defined as that which is beyond the realm of the five senses. "You can't put love in a bunsen burner and get hot love". So soul life is in the realm of the spirit. This is why it's referred to in I Corinthians 2 as the spirit of man.

Bearing that in mind, I think the best understanding of the words nephesh and ruach I can come to at this point in time is that they're essentially the same thing. That is to say, they're both spirit. Natural man is not a purely physically being. He is a spiritual being with limited spiritual perception. I think of it this way. Soul is the Spirit of Life. Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Power (and wisdom and utterance). Indeed ruach is often translated "spirit of life" and used in reference to soul life; specifically animals. I think we've looked at these verses before, but here they are again.

If you have three people in a room, one of whom is plagued by a hateful, violent, evil spirit, one of whom is a natural man, and the other a person upon or in whom is holy spirit, the natural man would be able to sense the anger and hostility stirred up by the evil spirit in the afflicted person, but would not understand where it was coming from and would be powerless to remove the cause of the hostility. The person with holy spirit on the other hand, would not only be aware of the same hostile thoughts and emotions, but would also be able to receive revelation from God about the evil sprit and would be able to cast the spirit out and bring deliverance and peace to its victim. Three different types of spirits, same little word.

One other observation. The words soul and spirit are related to related terms; breath and wind.

And finally, we know that ‘the soul that sinneth shall die', but what happens to it then? Here again, we have conflicting verses. The abundance of verses referring to dead nephesh as corpses [by which Israelites were made unclean] indicate that the soul dies with its physical home or host. But Genesis 35:18 says Rebekah's soul ‘departed' ["And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin."] and Jesus spoke of the destruction of the body but preservation of the soul. [Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."] And Revelation 18:3 and 20:4 speak of John seeing the souls of dead saints in heaven, which contradicts not only the "dead soul" verses in Numbers, but also those that declare that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. More to the point, if the soul of the flesh is in the blood thereof, and if flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God (I Corinthians 15:50), why is the word soul used here instead of spirit.

By the way, the New Testament usage of the word psuche is not eqivalent to the Old Testament usage of nephesh The basic meaning of psuche is "person". Although there is one verse in Acts that resembles Genesis 35:18, speaking of the revival of Eutychus the sleepy lad who fell from a loft. Paul rushed to him and declared "His soul is in him.". Had he died, where would it have gone? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Cleveland? Questions, questions...

Peace

Jerry

While we ponder PFAL's teachings from Genesis, I thought I'd take a short moment to point out a few little inconsistencies and contradictions. One we've noted before, in the context of death, but I thought I'd resurrect it. Wierwille ridiculed the Christian idea of an immortal soul based on faulty logic and a fabricated law. On page 235 we read;

As I see it, there are two problems with this statement [besides VP once again trying to make Church people look foolish]. The first is Wierwille's "law" that everything has to go back to its original source. This is just as much a fabrication as law of believing and his "immutable law" of tithing. Just because God told Adam he had come from dust and would return to dust does not mean that there is a "law" that everything must return to its source.

The second problem with VP's above statement is it, focuses on ridiculing the Church, but ignores the similar testimony of Scripure. The Bible does indeed teach that the soul must go back to God. Romans chapter two says so explicitly.

Another interesting statement made in this part of PFAL which refutes later Way doctrine is made in the course of explaining how soul life is passed on. On page 237, we find this surprising declaration.

Now let's think about that a moment. On page 233, he said, "...and because of the law that everything ultimately must return to its original state, the body must return to dust." Now he says of the soul, it is passed on to one's progeny. But if my soul came from my father, and there's a law that everything must ultimately go back to its original state, why doesn't my soul go back to my father? Must be a loophole in the law eh?

By the way, if one wanted to believe in such a law, one could find Scriptural support for a "return of the soul" IF one was willing to believe that the soul is indeed immortal. If one's soul came from his fathers, then when one died, he would be "gathered unto his fathers".

This line of thinking works very well and makes perfect sense: as long as you don’t actually study the verses cited. When you do, one glaring error becomes apparent. Wierwille attests that the earth fell into ruin when Lucifer was cast out. Before we review that notion, let’s take a look at a couple of related verses in the Old Testament.

So the question remains; what caused the earth to become a lifeless wasteland–without form and void? I dunno, and as far as I can ascertain, the only Biblical information about this is in II Peter 3:6, which says, “"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:" It is possible that this cataclysmic flood was caused by the original sin of Lucifer, but not by his fall from heaven. So we can no longer associate the darkness of Genesis chapter one with the casting down of the angel of light.

The fall of Lucifer is still future. At this point in time he still has access to the throne of God and uses that access to accuse God’s people day and night, as he did Job. Fortunately, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. This truth is the context of the epistle of Ephesians which presents us as seated in the heavenlies, declares that by the Church the wisdom of God is manifest to those in the heavenlies, and declares that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6, 3:10 & 6:12).

This is a sobering reality, but our hope of justice and of the eventual destruction of the destroyer is certain. God will throw down and humiliate the god of this world before he is eventually brought to ashes before the people he continues to enslave. That will be a glorious day indeed!

Peace


Jerry