The Watchtower, November 15, 1948

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“They shall know that I am Jehovah’’

-Ezekiel 35:15.

Vol. LXIX

Semimonthly

No. 22

NOVEMBER 15, 1948

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CONTENTS

The Giver of Immortality ..

When Immortality Came to Light ....340

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The Soul ....................................

Animal Souls ............................

Man Not Created for Heaven

nor Immortal ........................

The Human Soul Mortal, Destructible 344

Illustration .........................................

How Brought to Light.....................

“Who Alone Has Immortality” .....

Other Souls That Gain Immortality Other North American

District Assemblies Field Experiences .............................

... 346

._ 346

.„ 347

... 348

“Setting the Mark” Testimony Period 338

“Watchtower” Studies

1949 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses 338

1949 Calendar

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THE WATCHTOWER,

Published Semimonthly By

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY 117 Adams Street - - Brooklyn 1, N.Y., U.S A.

Officers

N. H. Knorr, President Grant Suiter, Secretary

•‘And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” - Itaiah 54:13.

THE BIBLE CLEARLY TEACHES

THAT JEHOVAH Is the only true God, from everlasting to everlasting, and Is the Maker of heaven and earth and Giver of life to his creatures; that the Word or Logos was the beginning of his creation and his active agent In creating all other things; and that the creature Lucifer rebelled against Jehovah and raised the issue of His universal sovereignty:

THAT GOD created the earth for man, made perfect man for the earth and placed him upon it; that man yielded to unfaithful Lucifer, or Satan, and willfully disobeyed God’s law and was sentenced to death; that by reason of Adam’s wrong act all men are born sinners and without the right to life;

THAT THE LOGOS was made human as the man Jesus and suffered deatli in order to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men; that God raised up Christ Jesus divine and exalted him to heaven above every other creature and clothed him with all power and authority as head of God's new capital organization;

THAT GOD’S CAPITAL ORGANIZATION Is a Theocracy called Zion, and that Christ Jesus Is the Chief Officer thereof and is the rightful King of the new world; that the faithful anointed followers of Christ Jesus are Zion's children, members of Jehovah's organization, and are His witnesses whose duty and privilege It is to testify to Jehovah’s supremacy and declare his purposes toward mankind as expressed in the Bible;

THAT THE OLD WORLD, or Satan’s uninterrupted rule, ended A.D. 1914, and Christ Jesus has been placed by Jehovah upon the throne, has ousted Satan from heaven, and now proceeds to vindicate His name and establish the “new earth";

THAT THE RELIEF and blessings of the peoples can come only by Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ, which has begun; that Ills next great act is to destroy Satan's organization and establish righteousness completely In the earth ; and that under the Kingdom the people of good-will surviving Armageddon will carry out the divine mandate to “fill the earth” with righteous offspring, and that the human dead in the graves will be raised to opportunities of life on earth.

rrs mission

HIS journal is published for the purpose of enabling the people to know Jehovah God and his purposes as expressed in the Bible. It ’ publishes Bible Instruction specifically designed to aid Jehovah’s witnesses and all people of good-will.

It arranges systematic Bible study for Rs readers and the Society supplies other literature to aid in such studies. It publishes suitable material for radio broadcasting and for other means of public instruction in the Scriptures.

It adheres strictly to the Bible as authority for its utterances. It Is entirely free and separate from all religion, parties, sects or other worldly organizations. It is wholly, and without reservation for the kingdom of Jehovah God under Christ his beloved King. It Is not dogmatic, but invites careful and critical examination of its contents in the light of the Scriptures. It does not indulge In controversy, and its columns are not open to personalities.

Notice ts Bubtcriter*.- Remittance* should be sent to office in your country in compliance with regulations to guarantee sate delivery of money. Remittances are accepted at Brooklyn from countries where no office Is located, by International money order only. Subscription rates in different countries are stated below In loeal currency. Notice of ej-phation (with renewal blank) is sent at least two Issues before subscription expires. Change of address when sent to our office may be expected effective within one month. Send your old as well as new address.

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"SETTING THE MARK” TESTIMONY PERIOD

Humane persons interested in the eternal life of people of good-will in God’s righteous new world will want to make an indelible mark in their intellect by means of the Kingdom truth. That is why the month of December has been set aside as a testimony period of special effort, as indicated by the above-given name. To help in setting the mark upon good-will foreheads, as foretold in Ezekiel, chapter 9, the offer that Jehovah’s witnesses will popularize during this closing month of 1948 will be the latest book, ‘‘Let God Be True," and the booklet Permanent Governor of All Nations (or The Joy of All the People) to all contributors of 35c for the combination. Every reader of The Watchtower can actively associate himself with this marking work which leads to our being spared by God’s executioners during the oncoming battle of Armageddon. We welcome the co-operation of all, and assure you of our best services in helping to establish your contact with experienced Kingdom publishers. Your report filled out on the form supplied by the Society will greatly interest us at the end of December’s work.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of December 19: “When Immortality Came to Light,” fl 1-24 inclusive, The Watchtower November 15, 1948.

Week of December 26: “When Immortality Came to Light,” fl 25-46 inclusive, The Watchtower November 15, 1948.

1949 YEARBOOK OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

With gratitude to God for accomplishing through his servants the greatest service achievement during this past year, the Society now releases the 1949 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses. It will be really a stirring experience, and not a dull review of data and figures, for you to read the president’s report at length on the year’s activities of Jehovah’s witnesses in more than ninety lands. Also, introduced by his own special comment on the 1949 yeartext, the texts and comments drawn from the latest Watchtower issues provide you with a choice thought for each day of the year. Orders for copies of the 1949 Yearbook, bound in peach-color cloth, with more than 350 pages, should be accompanied by remittances at 50c a copy. Companies should send in combined orders to minimize our work of handling and shipping.

1949 CALENDAR

Again the Lord provides us with a new service calendar, for the year 1949, the text for which is, “I will . . . yet praise thee more and more.” (Ps. 71:14) The picture embellishing it steps into the field of realism by exhibiting under the year’s text a bird’s-eye view of that now world-famous missionary school, Gilead, in its environs, in four colors, and which is mightily aiding today in praising Jehovah more and more. Under the picture the date pad presents the six special testimony periods of 1949 and the alternative months, together with the service theme for each such month. Orders may now be sent in, with remittance to cover, at 25c a calendar, or $1.00 for five mailed to one address.

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM

Vol. LXIX November 15, 1948 No. 22

THE GIVER OF IMMORTALITY

"Who hath destroyed death, and hath brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel." —2 Tim. 1:10, Douay Version.

JEHOVAH God was the only one to possess immortality originally. Infinity of existence belongs to him, -as it is written, at Psalm 90:1, 2: “A prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, a place of refuge hast thou been unto us in all generations. Before yet the mountains were brought forth, or thou hadst ever produced the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Leeser’s translation) In an expression of praise to Jehovah God the inspired Jewish-Christian writer Paul says: “Now unto the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, alone God, be honour and glory unto the ages of ages.” Because he is “from everlasting to everlasting” he can have such honor and glory ascribed to him “unto the ages of ages”, or for all eternity to come. To identify Jehovah God and show he is different and distinct from his Son, who is the Messiah or Christ, the apostle Paul continues on to say: “For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, a man—Christ Jesus: who gave himself a ransom in behalf of all.” (1 Tim. 1:17 and 2: 5, 6, Rotherham) Jehovah’s being incorruptible denotes his immortality, that is to say, his indestructibleness, his imperishableness, the impossibility for him to decay or waste away. Because he is from everlasting or from all past eternity and so is without beginning, he stands out alone above every other intelligent person in the universe, without even the exception of his beloved “only begotten Son”, the Messiah. It is because all these others are creatures, Jehovah’s creations.

2 Being immortal in all past eternity, Jehovah God is the source of all life throughout the universe. “0 Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast. For with thee is the fountain of life.” (Ps. 36: 6, 9, Am. Stan. Ver.) Aside from the Most High God, no one possessed immortality and incorruptibility from all past eternity, not even his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, as we shall show by the Holy Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, Jehovah did not create a single creature with the gift and power of immortality and incorruption. Time was when his only begotten Son Jesus Christ did not have immortality. It was only when he had shown his mortalness by being faithful to God his Father down to a martyr’s death and God resurrected him from the dead that Jesus Christ gained the supreme prize of immortality and incorruptibility. Since all the above-mentioned facts can be proved by the inspired Scriptures, the apostle Paul is correct when he tells us there was a time when incorruptibleness for certain favored creatures of God came to light. And when was that time? In Moses’ day, when he wrote the first five books of the Holy Bible? No; but about sixteen centuries after Moses, in the days of Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul says: “Grace which was granted to us in Christ Jesus before this world existed, but is now manifested by the enlightenment of our Savior Jesus Christ. He has destroyed death and brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel, of which I have been appointed a preacher and an apostle.” —2 Tim. 1: 9-11, Catholic Confraternity translation.

3 Religionists who follow the “vain philosophy” of this world can be expected to object to Bible truth. They will point to the pagan Grecian philosopher Pythagoras, born 608 B.C. and who taught that every human creature has a soul that is separate and distinct from his fleshly body and that is immortal and so able to transmigrate from one fleshly body to another. A century and a half later another pagan Grecian philosopher rose up, Socrates, born 468 B.C., and who through his foremost pupil, Plato, popularized the theory of the “immortality of the human soul”. Looking for some appearance of Scriptural support for following Plato’s teachings, the Roman Catholic theologians will point to the books The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach). To show that the words “immortal, immortality, incorruptible, and incorruption” occur before Christ and his apostles, they will make the following quotations from those two books, which they call “deutero-canonical” books but which others call “apocryphal” books.

4 “For justice is perpetual and immortal.” “For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him.” “But the souls of the

just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality." “0 how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men.” “And the care of discipline is love: and love is the keeping of her laws: and the keeping of her laws is the firm foundation of incorruption: and incorruption bringeth near to God.” “Moreover by the means of her I shall have immortality: and shall leave behind me an everlasting memory to them that come after me. Thinking these things with myself, and pondering them in my heart, that to be allied to wisdom is immortality.” “But thou, our God, art gracious and true, patient, and ordering all things in mercy. For to know thee is perfect justice: and to know thy justice, and thy power, is the root of immortality." (Douay Version of Wisdom 1:15; 2:23; 3:1,4; 4:1; 6:19,20; 8:13,17; 15:1,3) “A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality: and they that fear the Lord, shall find him.” “For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal, and they are delighted with the vanity of evil.”—Douay Version of Ecclesias-ticus 6:16; 17: 29.

5 For what the great Giver of immortality has to say upon the subject by means of his authentic Scriptures about the inspiration of which there is no dispute, we refer our readers to the'next article below’.

WHEN IMMORTALITY CAME TO LIGHT

THE inspired apostle Paul plainly declares that our Savior Jesus Christ brought incorruption (or immortality) to light by the gospel which Paul preached. His declaration is one of the proofs to show that the books The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus are not inspired or canonical, but are apocryphal. It, of course, needs no proof to say that the teachings of the pagan philosophers Pythagoras and Plato are uncanonical, unscriptural, uninspired, and unchristian. The books The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus were written centuries after Pythagoras and Plato and were produced by Jews who lived and wrote after the conqueror Alexander the Great made Palestine subject to Greece; and so those Jews became tainted with Platonic teachings about the human soul. Even the Roman Catholic Jerome, who translated the Holy Scriptures into Latin, disputed that Solomon wrote the book The Wisdom of Solomon. And the great Synagogue of Jerusalem never did accept it or Ecclesiasticus as canonical, belonging to the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. Paul’s words show he as a Christian did not accept such books as a part of the inspired canon, and for that reason neither he nor any other disciples of Christ who wrote the inspired Christian Scriptures make any quotation from Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus.

2 Look again carefully at the above-quoted verses from those two books. Note that they do not once mention such a thing as an immortal soul, nor say that any man has immortality or ever had it. Even they speak of immortality as something future, for only certain ones. So. even in those so-called “deutero-canonical” books or apocryphal writings we find no support for the pagan doctrine of “immortality of the human soul”. Turn, now, from dis-

1. What proxes the books Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus not canonical? 2. Why does mention of immortal (ity) not support immortal soul? puted books to the true inspired Scriptures. Scan them minutely with the help of an exhaustive concordance of the Holy Bible. Then you will demonstrate to yourself that not once in all the Holy Scriptures does the expression “immortal soul” occur, neither any other expression to say that the human soul is immortal. To the contrary, all the Scriptural expressions from Moses onward pointedly declare that the human soul is mortal and dies, ceasing to exist, tii agreement’with’that, and in harmony with what the apostle Paul writes under inspiration, the words immortal, immortality, incorruptible, incorruptibility, and incorruption are found in the Holy Bible for the first time in the writings of the disciples that follow Jesus Christ.*

THE SOUL

’ In a Questions and Answer Bookf the title page of which says it is an “expose of Jehovah witnesses” the Roman Catholic priests that produced it answer the question, “Is it revealed doctrine that the soul of man is immortal?” and say: “The account in Genesis of man’s formation proves it. God is immortal, and cannot die. He made man in His own image and likeness. But our bodies are nothing like God in appearance, and are mortal. Therefore the real image of God is in our soul, and it resembles

• In the Christian Greek Scriptures the Roman Catholic Douay Version contains immortal just once and immortality just three times, whereas incorruptible occurs five times, incorruptibility once, and incorruption six times. (See 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Corinthians 15:53, 54; 1 Timothy 6:16; Romans 1:23; 1 Corinthians 9-25 and 15:52; 1 Peter 1:4, 23; 3:4; Romans 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 50, 53; Ephesians 6:24; and 2 Timothy 1:10.) In the King James Version see also 1 Corinthians 15: 54, for an extra occurrence of incorruption.

t Radio Replies in Defence of Religion, by the Rev Dr. Rumble, M.S.C., and Rev. C. M. Carty, with the Imprimatur of Archbishop J. G. Murray, of St. Paul, Minn., of February 11, 1938. (9th printing)

3, 4. Under what rule do we examine priestly writings on the soul’’ God by immortality. Both Old and New Testaments insist upon the immortality of the soul.”

4 Priests of religious organizations are men, and with regard to them we are bound by the words of the apostle Paul: “But God is true; and every man a liar, as it is written, That thou mayest be justified in thy words, and mayest overcome when thou art judged.” (Rom. 3:4, Douay) We will therefore let God be true by going direct to his inspired written Word rather than accept outright, without proof, what religious priests say. We dishonor God if we accept what men say in contradiction to God. Men can be liars.

5 These priestly would-be exposers of Jehovah’s witnesses say “the account in Genesis of man’s formation proves it”. So we turn to Genesis 2:7 in the new 1948 translation of the book of Genesis of the Holy Bible by the episcopal committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and'there we read: “Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” The Douay Version reads: “And man became a living soul.” The cross-reference of this verse points us to 1 Corinthians 15:45, which reads: “So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (Confraternity translation) “The first man Adam was made into a living soul; the last Adam into a quickening spirit.” {Douay) Let everyone here notice that the apostle Paul shows a distinction between soul and spirit.

8 Notice, too, that the episcopal committee of the Confraternity tries to conceal the truth by using the expression “a living being” instead of “a living soul” at Genesis 2:7. But when the apostle Paul quotes it he renders it “a living soul”. If now we study Genesis 2: 7 and Paul’s quotation of it, we see that God does not say he breathed or put into Adam’s lifeless form an “immortal soul”. God breathed into the man’s form the “breath of life”, and the result of combining the human body and the breath of life from God was that “man became a living soul”; “the first man Adam was made into a living soul.” Here we have in God’s own words the simplest explanation of what a human soul actually is. It is not something invisible, like an unseen vapor, but is the living human creature himself, the live man with the five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting.

7 Refusing to accept this simple Bible explanation, but arguing for Plato’s pagan teaching, our priestly critics say {Question 29): “That breath of life was either a definite something, or it was nothing. But you cannot tell me that nothing vitalized that body. It was a definite something, that something was a 5, 6. (a) How does the 1948 Catholic translation of Genesis 2:7 hide the truth about the soul? (b) Scripturally, what is a human soul*’ 7. 8. How do we answer the priestly argument about naming man a soul? created human intelligent soul. ... A body, of flesh and bone, could never become a living soul. Man was but named after the superior element of his being.”

’ Very well, then. If the “breath of life” which God breathed into Adam's body of flesh and bone was itself the “human intelligent soul”, then, instead of “breath of life”, let us read “human intelligent soul” at Genesis 2:7 and see whether it makes sense: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face [the human intelligent soul], and man became a living soul.” (Using Douay Version) An honest person will choose to let Jehovah God be true although it makes Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato liars, and such a person will admit that Genesis 2:7, if read with -the priestly perversion of it, does not make sense; it is not reasonable. God is reasonable, because he is true.

’We must remember that Moses, who wrote Genesis 2: 7 under inspiration, wrote more than nine centuries before the above Grecian philosophers. Moses did not borrow his ideas about the human soul from those pagan worshipers of false gods. Hence we deceive ourselves if we think Moses and those pagan philosophers agree as to what the human soul is. They did not teach by inspiration of God, but Moses, by the inspiration of God, taught the truth about the human soul without waiting for any philosophical guesses from them. The fact is, most of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures was written before those philosophers were born, and only the last five books of the Hebrew Scriptures were written during the lifetime of Socrates and Plato. Those pagans are liars, but God is true.

10 All the inspired Scriptures support the truth that “man became a living soul”. Yes, the human creature is a soul and does not have an intelligent soul that is separable from the body and able to leave it at death and carry on a separate, independent conscious existence in the spirit realm. But our priestly critics rebel at this Bible truth and go on to say (Q. 29): “Again, if man has not got a soul, then instead of being composed of body and soul, he is a body. And if that body is a soul, then a soul wears boots!” Exactly so. The living body, the body animated by the breath of life from God, is the soul; and such a human soul can wear boots, and also wear pants underneath skirts. That is why the apostle Paul speaks of it as a “psychical body”, or a “soulical body”, at 1 Corinthians 15:44. {Rotherham, marginal reading; The Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear reading) The Bible says the soul can do many things.

11 At Genesis 2:7 the Hebrew word Moses used for soul is nephesh. Moses’ writings and the rest of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures say that the soul can eat flesh and blood (Lev. 7:18, 20, 27 and 17:12,15); it 9 Why should we prefer Moses to those pagan Greek philosophers? 10, 11. Why is It not ridiculous that ”a soul wears hoots”? can dry away (Num. 11:6); it can touch unclean things (Num. 19:13-22); it can be torn as by a lion (Ps. 7:2); it can go into a pit or grave (Job 33:18, 22,28,30; Ps. 30:3); it can be laid in irons (Ps. 105:18, margin); it can abhor all manner of meat (Ps. 107:18; Prov. 27:7); it can be brought out of prison (Ps. 142:7); it can suffer hunger through idleness (Prov. 19: 15); it can thirst and be refreshed by cold water (Prov. 25: 25); it has blood which can be shed (Jer. 2: 34); it can shed tears (Jer. 13:17); it can be relieved with food. (Lam. 1:11,19; Hos. 9: 4) God’s Word of truth thus speaks of the human soul in such terms because the soul is the human body with its brain and organs made alive by the breath of life which God breathed into it. It would be very enlightening to our priestly critics to take a concordance of the Hebrew words of the Bible and see all it says about the human soul (nephesh).

ANIMAL SOULS

12 It is not Scripturally true, therefore, that the soul is the superior element of man’s being and that “man was but named after the superior element of his being”. Man is a human soul. Man is not a “soul incarnate”, with a separable soul living inside his flesh. Nor is the soul the breath of God or the breath of life. But when God by an invisible process like breathing infused the breath of life into the human form that he created in Eden, man became or was made into a living soul. All of us are fleshly souls, just like the lower animals, the birds, land beasts and fishes. Why, our priestly critics are obliged to admit that the lower animals are souls. They say so by saying that “sane philosojrtiy admits a vegetative soul, a sensitive animal soul” (Q. 28); but Jehovah’s witnesses say so, not on the basis of worldly philosophy, but on the basis of God’s Word of truth. In the account of creation we read:

” “And God said—Let the waters swarm with an abundance of living soul, and birds shall fly over the earth, over the face of the expanse of the heavens. And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living soul that moveth—with which the waters swarmed after their kind and every winged bird— after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply in the land. So it was evening—and it was morning, a fifth day. And God said—Let the land bring forth living soul after its kind, tame-beast and creeping thing and wild-beast of the land after its kind. And it was so.”—Gen. 1: 20-24, Rotherham’s emphasised translation.

14 After God created man in His own image and likeness, then, as we read, “God said—Lo! I have

12-14. Why do we admit that the lower animals are “souls”? given to you—every herb yielding seed which is on the face of all the land, and every tree wherein is the fruit of a tree yielding seed,—to you shall it be for food; and to every living thing of the land—and to every bird of the heavens and to every thing that moveth on the land wherein is a living soul, every green herb for food.”—Gen. 1:27-30, Rotherham.

19 Further speaking of the lower animals as living souls, God’s Word says: “And when any man smiteth the soul of any human being, he shall be surely put to death. And he that smiteth the soul of a beast shall make it good, soul for soul.” (Lev. 24:17,18, Rotherham, according to the margin’s more literal reading of the Hebrew) After the Israelites fought against the Midianites and carried off hundreds of captives, God said to Moses: “And thou shalt separate a portion to the Lord from them that fought and were in the battle, one soul of five hundred as well of persons as of oxen and asses and sheep.” (Num. 31: 28, Douay) Furthermore, Proverbs 12:10 says: “A righteous man regardeth the soul of his beast, but the compassions of the lawless are cruel.” (Rotherham, margin) Referring to marine animals, Revelation 16: 3 says: “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.” (Apoc. 16:3, Douay) Since the lower animals are souls, man’s being in the likeness and image of God is not because 'man has an immortal soul’, but is because man is endowed with the Godlike qualities of wisdom, justice, love and power and was given dominion over the lower animals. Man as a soul is no more immortal than the beasts.

18 In recognition that lower animals are souls like us humans wise Solomon wrote, at Ecclesiastes 3:18-21: “I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God would prove them, and shew them to be like beasts. Therefore the death of man, and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dieth, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man hath nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity. And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together. Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?” (Douay) Note here that the inspired Solomon speaks of the “spirit of the beasts”. However, our priestly critics, in answering the question, “Do the words spirit and soul mean the same thing?” (Q. 20), say: “The word spirit acquired a transferred sense, becoming a substitute for the word soul. . . . The soul, therefore, is the living principle which makes the difference between a living man and a corpse, and spirit and soul in this sense mean the same thing. . . . The soul 15 Ie man above beasts and like God in having an immortal soul? 16, IT. In this matter, does apirft substitute for aotdP And why? is a spirit, and is called the breath of God merely because caused or created by God in its spiritual or breath-like nature.” (Q. 31) However, our priestly critics should know that in Latin anima is not the same as spiritus; and in Greek pneuma is not the came as psyche; and in Hebrew ruach is not the same as nephesh. In the Holy Scriptures spirit is not used to mean a human soul, for when God breathed into man’s face the breath of life, the man of flesh and bones did not become a living spirit. He “became a living soul”.

” Instead of making spirit and soul the same in meaning, God’s Word of truth distinguishes between spirit and soul. The apostle Paul, in proof, says: “The first man Adam was made into a living soul; the last Adam into a quickening spirit.” (1 Cor. 15: 45, Douay) Paul also says: “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow.” (Heb. 4:12, Douay) And when writing to the whole church at Thessalonica Paul pronounced this blessing: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”—1 Thess. 5:23, Douay.

18 It is therefore manifest that the human soul is not meant when God’s Word says concerning man’s death, at Ecclesiastes 12:7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” The human soul was never up in heaven with God and so could not return to him; neither do wicked human souls go up to heaven at death. In harmony with the rest of the Holy Bible, the spirit that returns to God at man’s death is the invisible active force or energy from God that animates or enlivens man and causes his various mental and physical functions to operate. That same spirit animates the lower animals; and so Ecclesiastes 3:19 says: “For as regardeth the destiny of the sons of men and the destiny of beasts one fate have they, as dieth the one so dieth the other, and one spirit have they all.”—Rotherham.

MAN NOT CREATED FOR HEAVEN NOR IMMORTAL

18 We still have on file a letter dated April 30,1930, written on the letterhead of Catholic University, Washington, D.C., Caldwell Hall. In it one Rev. A— E. B— writes: “Regarding the questions you sent to the National Council of Catholic Men, and which lack of time prevented Dr. Sheen’s answering, Catholic theologians teach as follows: 1) that Adam and Eve originally enjoyed the gift of immortality of body, and that this privilege was lost by their

18. Therefore, according to Ecclesiastes 12:7, what returns to God ’ 19, 20. With what does the Catholic letter say God made Adam and Eve? sin; 2) if they had never sinned they would never have died, in the sense in which we understand death ; 3) if they had never sinned, they would have been immediately transferred to heavenly blessedness, without the violent separation of soul and body which they after sinning experienced, and which we now experience, in death.”

20 Note that this official Catholic letter states that God created Adam and Eve immortal in both body and soul, and that they continued immortal in soul although they lost “immortality of body”; and that if they had not sinned, their immortal soul would not have been separated from their immortal body, but their immortal body of flesh, bones, and blood would have been transferred to heaven for all eternity. These teachings deserve comparison with God’s Word of truth, and in making the comparison here we follow the apostolic rule, at Romans 3:4: “God must be found true, and ‘every man a liar’.”—The Westminster Version (Roman Catholic).

21 Never could Adam and Eve have gone to heaven, no matter how long they refrained from sinning against God. They were both of flesh and blood, and the apostle Paul states it as an unchangeable rule: “Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God: neither shall corruption possess incorruption.” (1 Cor. 15:50, Douay) They were of the earth, earthy, and their everlasting destiny was, not heaven, but a paradise earth, if they remained faithful. God did not give them a single heavenly promise. He set before them an eternity on earth as a reward for faithfulness, saying: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.” (Gen. 1: 28, Douay) If they had not sinned, the Son of God would not have come down to earth as a man and died as a ransom sacrifice. Furthermore, Jesus Christ the Son of God showed the way by which his followers gain access to heaven, saying: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. . . . Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3: 3, 5) It is necessary to die as human creatures in faithfulness to God in order to inherit heavenly life with the Son of God, for he said to his followers: “Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life.” (Apoc. 2:10, Douay) No opportunity was extended to Adam and Eve to be born again, of water and of the spirit; nor was there any reason for it for this perfect human pair.

22 There was no need for Adam and Eve to die in order to prove their faithfulness to the limit. Death was mentioned to them, not as a thing to test their self-sacrificing faithfulness to God, but as a penalty

21. Why could Adam and Eve never have gone to heaven?

22. What proven God gave Adam and Eve no immortality at all? for unfaithfulness and disobedience. God did not appoint man to die once until Adam had proved unfaithful and sinned. (Heb. 9: 27, 28) Hence it was that first of all God commanded Adam: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.” (Gen. 2:16,17, Douay) This proves that Adam and Eve did not originally enjoy the gift of “immortality of body”, for, if God had given them this, he would not have given such a command to Adam. Neither would he have given such a command if he had endowed Adam with an immortal nature, an immortal soul. God’s command showed that just because he created Adam it did not give Adam the right to exist forever. In saying this, we cling to God’s Word, and not to religious theologians. Our Catholic critics say in answer to the question, “Why should the fact of our being born give us the right to exist forever?” (Q. 45): “It is not the mere fact of being born, but of being born with such a nature. The soul is fitted by its very nature to live on forever, for a spiritual entity cannot disintegrate and die.... God had the right to create indestructible souls if He wished. He did so. And our right to live on is vested in His will to endow us with an immortal nature.” But God’s Word does not agree with that.

” Catholics and Protestants will agree that Satan the Devil is a “spiritual entity”. Yet, in the Apocalypse the apostle John says Satan the Devil will be cast into the “pool of fire and brimstone” at the end of Christ’s thousand-year reign, and that this “pool of fire” “is the second death”. (Apoc. 20:9,14 and 21:8, Douay) Hence the spiritual entity Satan the Devil will be destroyed and die, and will be no more. God’s own Word says so, at Hebrews 2:14 and Ezekiel 28:12-19. The reason for the destruction of this spiritual entity Satan the Devil is that he rebelled against God in Eden and slandered him, to make God appear a liar. Since man is made a little lower than the angels and since Satan the Devil is not immortal and indestructible, then certainly lesser man could not be an immortal, indestructible soul. It was Satan the Devil that led Eve to eat the forbidden fruit by telling her: “No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day ■soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.”—Gen. 3:4, 5, Douay.

21 Here the Devil, “that old serpent,” was persuading Eve to believe she and Adam possessed “immortality of body” as well as immortality of soul and that Jehovah God could not destroy the soul. Because the Devil brought about the death of Adam and Eve, Jesus said the Devil was a “murderer from the

22, 24. What proves spiritual entitles can die, and why also man’ beginning” and “speaketh a lie, . . . for he is a liar, and the father thereof”. (John 8:44, Douay) Any sensible man, who accepts God as true, can see that Adam and Eve never had immortality, and that God did not create them "indestructible souls”, and that God did not “endow us with an immortal nature”, because we were born from sinner Adam. For sinning willfully, God pronounced the sentence of death upon the human soul Adam. About 930 years later God destroyed the soul Adam.

THE HUMAN SOUL MORTAL, DESTRUCTIBLE

25 In answer to the question {687), "Is it revealed doctrine that the soul of man is immortal?” our priestly critics say: “Yes. . . . Both Old and New Testaments insist upon the immortality of the soul.” We have already shown (page 339 UH 3, 4) that in the Roman Catholic “Old Testament” the words immortal{ity) and incorruption occur in only the two apocryphal books, The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus. The occurrences of these words in the so-called “New Testament” we shall examine in paragraphs to follow. Like the pagan philosophers Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato, our priestly critics speak of the human soul as immortal and say “the body is naturally mortal; the soul by its very nature immortal”. But in answer to the question {34), “What indications ‘ have you that the soul is immortal?" our religious critics write six paragraphs of a total of thirty-two lengthy lines but do not produce a single inspired scripture from God’s Word. As for ourselves, to prove that the human soul is mortal and destructible and that the inspired Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Greek Scriptures do not “insist upon the immortality of the soul”, we shall herewith produce scriptures from God’s written Word and thus let him be true, but men liars.

26 Since the religionists cannot produce one scripture to say that the human soul is immortal, it ought to be enough if we produce just one scripture to prove that the human soul is subject to death and destruction. First, we take this one necessary scripture from Ezechiel 18: 4, 20, 27 {Douay). We quote:

27 “Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die. The soul that sinneth, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment, and justice: he shall save his soul alive.”

28 Notice that repeated statement, “the soul that

25. Do "both Old and New Testaments” insi&t upon human Immortality? 20, 27. why does one scripture suffice to prox e soul death'3

28. How do our critics dodge the truth of Ezekiel lb -4, 20’’ sinneth, the same shall die.” Showing that the soul is not the same as the spirit, the inspired Scriptures nowhere say that the spirit dies, but they repeatedly say that the soul dies. When confronted with this plain scripture, our priestly critics say (Q. 694): "The word soul here does not refer exclusively to the immortal part of man’s nature.” To what part, then, does it refer? Where do the inspired Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to Ezekiel say anything about an immortal part of man’s nature? Ezekiel wrote the words, “the soul that sinneth, the same shall die,” before ever Pythagoras the pagan philosopher began to write and teach and before the deutero-canonical or apocryphal books were written. If Ezekiel did not mean what he wrote, then why did he not say: ‘The man that sinneth, his body shall die’? However, God is true in what he says. By his spirit he inspired Ezekiel to write the truth, and no dodging by religious clergymen can disprove it.

“When we accept the Bible for what God says in it, then the truth becomes simple. Adam became a living soul when God breathed the breath of life into his human form. Consequently when the sinner Adam died, the human soul died. It ceased to exist. God nowhere threatened to torture Adam’s soul in fire and brimstone after his death. God did not thus threaten, Adam, because God knew that the human soul Adam was not immortal and indestructible. Instead of eternal torment of the soul, the apostle Paul says: “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23) There is no life everlasting for the wicked: “The Lord keepeth all them that love him; but all the wicked he will destroy.” (Ps. 144:20, Douay) To observe the unchanging insistence of “both Old and New Testaments” upon the mortality and destructibleness of the human soul, note the following inspired scriptures in the Catholic Douay Version (Murphy edition):

80 “Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them.” (Num. 23:10) “His soul fainted away, and was wearied even until death. He said: Let my soul die with the Philistines.” (Judg. 16:16,30, marginal reading) “Deliver our souls from death.” (Josh. 2:13) “Their soul shall die in a storm, and their life among the effeminate.” (Job 36:14) “He spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death.” (Ps. 77:50)“ “To deliver their souls from death; and feed them in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord.” (Ps. 32:19, 20)* “Turn, O my soul, into thy rest: for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee. For he hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling.” (Ps. 114: 7, 8)* “He hath delivered his

•In the King James Version Psalms 78:50; 33:19, 20; 116:7, 8.

20. 30. How does our sou! die? And wbat scriptures Insist upon this? soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked.” (Isa. 53:12) “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” (Matt. 26:38) “He who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death.” (Jas. 5:20) “And the third part of those creatures died, which had life [psyche] in the sea.” “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and there came blood as it were of a dead man; and every living soul [psyche] died in the sea.” —Apoc. 8: 9 and 16: 3, Douay.

31 Jesus Christ is authority for it that Almighty God is able to destroy the human soul and does so. Hear Jesus as he says: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matt. 10: 28, Douay) In the original Greek text the word for hell here is not Hades, but is Gehenna. Hence the word does not mean the Hades to which Jesus’ soul went at death. (Ps. 15:10, Douay; Acts 2:24-31) Confronted with this full saying of Jesus Christ, our priestly critics reply: “But God cannot only destroy the body; He can condemn the soul to an eternal existence which is destruction indeed—the wreckage of all one’s hopes and desires. It is simply a living death forever.” (Q. 695) Where, please, does God’s Word speak of a “living death forever”? To the contrary of everlasting living for the souls that are destroyed in Gehenna, the truthful apostle Paul says: “The wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6: 23, Douay) The souls destroyed in Gehenna do not enjoy that “grace of God, life everlasting”. They are dead as sinners, out of existence.

32 It is a dodging of the facts to say that death means everlasting life in misery and torment. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the difference between death and everlasting life is happiness, and that death means life without happiness. God’s Word of truth does not present such a contradiction of terms. Jesus said: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will shew you whom you shall fear: fear ye him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell [Gehenna, Greek].” (Luke 12:4,5, Douay) After men have killed our bodies and so put us to death, they cannot prevent our resurrection from the dead, from Hades, at Christ’s second coming. But when God destroys the human soul by casting it into Gehenna (pictured by the “pool of fire and brimstone”), it means there will be no future life for such soul. There will be no resurrection from the dead for it. It is blotted out of existence. No destroyed souls are resurrected from Gehenna, for it means “second death”.—Rev. 20:14,15; 21:8.

83 Hear God’s own word that he can destroy and

31. How do our critics explain Matthew 10:28, but unscriptuially? 32, 33. How does God destroy soul? What other texts prove It? does destroy souls: "Every soul that is not afflicted on this day, shall perish from among his people: and every soul that shall do any work, the same will I destroy from among his people.” (Lev. 23:29,30, Douay) “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren: . . . And it shall be, that every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.” (Acts 3:22,23, Douay; Deut. 18:18,19) Other scriptures which speak of the destroying of souls are Joshua 10: 35, 37; Proverbs 6: 32; Psalm 40:14; and Ezekiel 13:19; 22:27.

ILLUSTRATION

84 The Bible speaks of dead souls, at Leviticus 19: 28; 21:11, and Numbers 5: 2; 6: 6,11; 9: 6, 7,10, in the original Hebrew text. And at Aggeus 2:14 (Douay) it is written: “If one that is unclean by occasion of a soul touch any of all these things, shall it be defiled?” The Roman Catholic footnote on this verse reads: "By occasion of a soul. That is, by having touched the dead.”—Murphy edition.

35 At Psalm 104: 29, 30 we are told how a soul dies and is brought to life again: “When thou hidest thy face, they are worried; when thou takest away their breath they die, and turn again into dust. When thou sendest forth thy breath, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth.” (An Amer. Trans.; also Moffatt; Ps. 103:29,30, Douay) At Psalm 145:2-4 (Douay) we also read: “Put not your trust in princes: in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish.” Further, as to the unconsciousness of dead souls we read: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing more, neither have they a reward any more: for the memory of them is forgotten. Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly: for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in hell, whither thou art hastening.”—Eccl. 9:5,10, Douay; also Ps. 6:5,6.

36 However, the pagan doctrine of immortality of the soul presupposes consciousness after death. In that case, the soul should be conscious when the body is under chloroform or when it is knocked senseless in an accident. To this argument our priestly critics say (Q. 43): “The soul whilst in a state of union with the body operates by using the faculties of the body. If the sense instruments are incapacitated, the soul can no longer operate adequately whilst united to the body. But once released from the body, its intelligence and will and power to love at once assert themselves. Hydrogen and oxygen unite to form a drop of water. They can operate as water only whilst united. Hydrogen is there, but it cannot operate as

34, 33. Are there dead souls, and what is their state?

36, 37. How does the illustration on soul survival proTC false* hydrogen until released from the union. Soul and body make one human being. And both elements must be fit to co-operate in the activities of a bodily human being. The soul cannot operate separately as a distinct unit whilst still united. But once released, it can operate independently every bit as much as hydrogen when released from its essential union with oxygen to form water.”

37 The priests do not produce a single Bible text for this religious argument, but the force of it is this: Seat a man at a piano, and he can play piano; take the piano away from the man, and he can and does still play piano and produces better piano music than before, when he had the piano. Silly! you say; and just as silly is the attempt to illustrate by the use of water. Hydrogen and oxygen indeed unite chemically to produce water. But if we separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, the hydrogen cannot operate as water and by itself it does not have the properties of water. You cannot drink gaseous hydrogen; you cannot wash with hydrogen or swim in it; you cannot extinguish a fire with hydrogen. If you apply hydrogen to a flame, you produce an explosion. In the explosion the hydrogen unites with oxygen and produces water. When hydrogen is separated from the oxygen, the water ceases to be and the hydrogen and oxygen do not retain the properties of water.

38 Rather than show that the soul survives after death, this illustration well pictures soul death. The combining of the human body with the breath of life by God’s power produces the human soul. Man thus becomes a living soul. But if the spirit or breath of life is separated from the human body, the living soul ceases to be. The soul ceases to live; it dies, just as God’s Word everywhere says. The breath of life does not retain the properties of the living human soul. Neither does the dead human body, for it cannot see, hear, feel, taste, smell, think, love, hate, or work. It is nonsensical, hence unscriptural, to say that a soul inside man’s body operates by man’s organs and sense faculties while in his body, but, when it is separated from those organs and faculties at death, such independent soul can still carry on those same operations.

HOW BROUGHT TO LIGHT

39 We have by no means exhausted all the Bible proof, but enough has been produced in the above paragraphs to prove that Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato did not bring life and immortality to the light of men, for their teachings about immortality of the human soul are false. Satan the Devil did not bring light upon the subject when he lyingly said to Eve

38. How does the illustration rather picture soul death*

39, 40. (a) When and how was light thrown upon life? (b) Wd and how upon incorruptibility? in Eden: “No, you shall not die the death.” (Gen. 3: 4, Douay) What the apostle Paul states at 2 Timothy 1:10 remains standing as the unshakable truth, namely: “Our Saviour Christ Jesus, who indeed hath abolished death, and hath thrown light upon life and incorruptibility through means of the glad-message.” [Rotherham) Not before Christ Jesus died as a human sacrifice, and was resurrected, and ascended to God’s presence to present the value of his sacrifice for us, was there any basis for eternal life for any of Adam’s offspring. By accepting the benefits of his sacrifice “men of good will” may gain eternal life on this earth perfected under God’s kingdom; and even the human dead will be resurrected to this gracious opportunity,_The prophet Moses brought in a “ministration of death”, for by the Ten Commandments and all the rest of the law of God Moses carried on a “ministration of condemnation” so that all mankind, Jew and Gentile, stood condemned before Jehovah God.—2 Cor. 3:7-9, Douay.

40 On the other hand, Christ Jesus as Mediator of a new covenant performed a “ministration of justice”, a ministry by which righteousness is gained through faith in his sacrifice, and thus freedom from divine condemnation. Hence his is a ministry of everlasting life for mankind in general, to be gained under his kingdom for blessing all the families of the earth. Moreover, Christ Jesus made it possible for his faithful body of footstep followers to enter heaven and there be rewarded with immortality, incorruptibility, indestructibility. No creature from earth ever entered or could enter heaven before the resurrected Christ Jesus. As the forerunner of his body of 144,000 faithful followers he was first to enter heaven: “where the forerunner Jesus is entered for us, made a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.” (Heb. 6:20, Douay) At his resurrection from the dead Christ Jesus was the first of God’s creatures to be clothed upon with immortality, deathlessness, so that now he is an immortal spirit person. The resurrected Jesus himself stated this for us to the apostle John, when he said: “I was dead, and behold, I am living forevermore; and I have the keys of death and of hell [hades].” (Apoc. 1:18, Cath. Confrat.) “Because Christ also died once for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Put to death indeed in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit.”—1 Pet. 3:18, Cath. Confrat.

“WHO ALONE HAS IMMORTALITY”

41 The apostle Paul blesses Jehovah God the Father with the words: “Now unto the King of the ages, incorruptible [aph'thartos], invisible, alone God be honour and glory unto the ages of ages.” (1 Tim. 1:17, Rotherham; also Young) Because this 41. To Timothy how does Paul describe God and then Jesus Christ? incorruptible God the Father bestowed the prize of immortality in heaven first upon his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the apostle in the same epistle to Timothy say's the following about the Son of God: “Keep the commandment without stain, blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This coming he in his own time will make manifest, who is the Blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords; who alone has immortality [atha-nasia] and dwells in light inaccessible, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting dominion. Amen.”—1 Tim. 6:14-16, Cath. Conf rat.

42 The resurrected Christ Jesus is the “image of the invisible God”. (Col. 1:15) As such, Christ Jesus dwells in light that is unapproachable for human creatures, and no man has seen him in such heavenly glory, nor can any man see him thus. Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus saw only the reflected glory of Christ by means of a miracle, as if Saul had been born from the dead in the first resurrection. (Acts 9:1-7; 1 Cor. 15: 8) On the isle of Patmos the apostle John saw only a symbolical representation of the glorified Christ in an apocalyptic vision. Hence John later wrote to fellow Christians: “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as,he is.” (Rev. 1:10-18; 1 John 3: 2) John also speaks of the glorified Jesus as “King of kings, and Lord of lords”. (Rev. 19:16 and 17:14) Paul says that Christ Jesus in his own time makes manifest his second coming, to reign as King of kings; and it is at that time that Jehovah God confers upon him honor and everlasting dominion. (Dan. 7:13,14) As a Potentate or Mighty One he exercises Kingdom power, acting as the chief representative of the great universal Sovereign, Jehovah.

43 In the first century, when the apostle Paul wrote Timothy, none of Christ’s footstep followers that had fallen asleep in death had yet been resurrected to life in the spirit in heaven. Correctly, then, Paul wrote of our Lord Jesus Christ as being at that time the One “who alone has immortality”. In now having the prize of immortality Jesus Christ was especially like his heavenly Father, who is “the incorruptible [aph'thartos], invisible, only wise God”. (1 Tim. 1:17, Young) His “immortality” cannot be explained away to mean just “everlasting happiness” or a “happy immortality”, as opposed to a miserable immortality. Our priestly critics argue so (Q. 697); but that would mean that the faithful holy angels of heaven were not then also enjoying everlasting happiness. According to the Scriptures of truth, however, Christ’s immortality means his deathlessness, unable to be “hurt by second death” and unable 42. Why has no man seen the glorified Jesus Christ?

43. Why-did Paul say Jesus Christ “alone has immortality”?

to be destroyed by any other creature. (Apoc. 2:8,11, Cath. Conf rat.) From his resurrection onward he is immortal.

OTHER SOULS THAT GAIN IMMORTALITY

** Our Lord Jesus Christ does not remain alone in possessing the prize of immortality from his heavenly Father. That prize is also held before his body of 144,000 faithful followers, his “bride”. For this reason it is written to them, at Romans 2:5-7: “The righteous judgment of God, who will render unto each one according to his works:—unto them on the one hand who by way of endurance in good work are seeking glory, honour and incorruption [aph'tharsia], life age-abiding.” (Rotherham) The fact that these are spoken of here as seeking glory, honor and incorruptibility proves that not even faithful Christians possess immortality on earth. If they did, they could not die, “faithful unto death.” Certainly what a person possesses and has, he does not seek to gain. But now the true Christians have been begotten again by God’s incorruptible Word and they have an “incorruptible inheritance” in heaven set before them and yet to be gained.—1 Pet. 1:4,23, Cath. Conf rat.

45 After proving their faithfulness to death on earth these genuine followers of Christ enter into immortality and incorruptibility with him in heaven only at his second coming, when Jehovah God sets up the Kingdom with him on the throne. At that time the King Christ Jesus raises his faithful followers from the dead. Thus it is only by a resurrection from death to life as spirit creatures in heaven that these faithful ones enter into immortality and

…