Tags
In the most absolute sense of the word immortality is ascribed only to God. Paul speaks of Him in I Timothy 6:15,16 as “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the only One having immortality.” …The evident meaning of his statement is that God is the only being who possesses immortality “as an original, eternal, and necessary endowment.” Whatever immortality may be ascribed to some of His creatures, is contingent on the divine will, is conferred upon them, and therefore had a beginning. God, on the other hand, is necessarily free from all temporal limitations.
- L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 672
Since God is holy and just, that future judgment of the non-elect is necessary and important. But the resurrection to life is only for the elect, and that is why I Corinthians 15 pays no attention to the non-elect. “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (v17-19)
Hebrews 9: 27-28, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
When a person dies, life has left the body; breath has left. Genesis 2:7 teaches us that dust plus breath from God is the “soul”–the living being. So death is the “separation” of life from a person. The idea of separation surely does not prove the Roman Catholic dogma of a separate and immortal “soul”. God alone is immortal and will give immortality to His justified elect.
One thing I know: death is not our friend but our enemy. Resurrection is our hope.“Poured out his soul” goes to the definition of the word “soul”.
Pingback: Mikko.ws » Cancer vaccines and biological immortality