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Amazing Facts

Death and Soul

Joe Crews

01 Death and Soul

Multitudes believe that life continues in a higher form for those who die.

If this is true, then there is no death at all.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about the soul 5 minutes after death.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

I suppose almost every home has experienced the death of some loved 1, and because of it, the heart cry of millions all over the world is, where are our dead?

In purgatory, limbo, or some other place?

Are our departed ones asleep, or are they dead?

What's been done with the millions of dead?

You know, friends, only as we get the whole story from the Book of God can we know the whole truth on this very vital subject.

Grabbing a text here and plucking a text from over there and founding an entire doctrine on that text is 1 of the most dangerous things a person can do, and it might cost an individual his eternal salvation.

Whole doctrines are based on just 1 verse of the Bible.

Did you ever hear the story of the 4 blind men and the elephant?

These 4 blind men were supposed to go and examine the elephant and then they were to report on its size, shape, and so forth.

So the first 1 went over to the elephant and, groping around, caught hold of the elephant's tail.

Afterwards, he said, My opinion is that the elephant is very much like a rope.

When the next blind man had his opportunity, he happened to take hold of the elephant's leg, so he said, My opinion is the elephant is much like a log or a tree trunk.

The third 1 had his opportunity, and he happened to lay hold of 1 of the elephant's ears, and he said, I believe the elephant is flat and limp, much like a pancake.

And the last 1 took hold of 1 of the elephant's tusks, and he believed the elephant was hard as smooch, as like a rock.

Now it's methods just like these that cause the differences of opinion among scholars when it has to do with the Bible doctrine.

Men taking 1 little item here and 1 little item there and making up a whole doctrine to fit it, or settling a whole doctrine on just 1 Scripture, 1 little 0.1 little viewpoint, and leaving out everything else the Bible has to say about it.

Now that's where people get into trouble, and that's why so much confusion exists and why there are so many different opinions in regard to Bible doctrine in this world of ours.

Today we want to examine the whole truth of God on this very vital subject and get a complete picture.

Now the first question we'll ask is this, and it's the 1 that Job asked in Job 14, 14.

Now there's a question that's haunted men for generations.

That's 1 of the oldest questions that's ever been asked.

You remember in 1 Corinthians 15, 16 to 22, how clearly God presents it when He says that the day will come when the trump of God will sound and the dead shall be raised?

For if the dead rise not, we read, then is not Christ raised.

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.

Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Now really it tells us here in essence that Christ was risen from the dead, and this guarantees that all Christians who die could follow him and be raised also from the dead.

You know, we ought to thank God right now that Christ's tomb is an empty tomb.

The grave of Confucius is not an empty grave.

Buddha, in fact the bones of Buddha, have been enshrined all over the Orient in various and sundry places, but the tomb of Christ is an empty tomb.

And then he adds this, that since Jesus had been raised, Satan's prison house was opened so that all the redeemed who have gone to sleep in Jesus will also be raised again.

And so the question, if a man dies, shall he live again, has been forever settled on the authority of the Scriptures, and God's plain unqualified answer is yes.

What happens to man between the time he dies and the time he is raised from the dead?

I'll read now from Ecclesiastes 12, verse 7.

This is a statement made by the wise man Solomon.

He's making a general statement here about death in verse 7.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Now notice there are 2 things that this text nails down.

Point number 1, the body will return to the dust and the dust to the earth.

Point number 2, the spirit, whatever that is, will return to God.

Now those 2 things are made clear in the passage.

The Spirit that goes back to God when a man dies.

I'd like to read a New Testament scripture now and then an Old Testament text after that.

First James 2 26, For as the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Now according to this scripture, the spirit is the thing that keeps the body alive.

In translating the Bible, the translators were not sure just how some of those words should be placed in the text.

And there are several meanings of some words, and if they're not sure, they put 1 word in the text and the other word in the margin of the Bible.

Now the word in the margin of this text makes it much clearer to us, because it says, OR BREATH.

In other words, besides the word SPIRIT, it says or breath.

So according to this text, the spirit that goes back to God is the thing that keeps the person alive, and it's also called the breath.

Let's see if the Old Testament writers agree with this.

We turn to Job 27.3, all the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils.

And the margin says here, by the Spirit of God, the breath which God gave him.

Now I want you to notice what this text proves, friends.

It proves that this breath which goes back to God is in man's nostrils, and the margin says it's the breath which God gave him.

So this Spirit which returns to God when man dies is simply the breath of life, the very same thing God put in him in the beginning.

Now perhaps you would like to ask, can we be absolutely sure of this?

Can we be positive that the Spirit that goes back to God when a man dies is the very breath of life?

Well, let's establish and re-establish it, friends.

We must remember that God in the beginning placed this spirit, or breath, in man's nostrils.

In order to see just what it was that God did place in man's nostrils, let's go back to Genesis 2, verse 7.

Now remember, whatever this Spirit is, God gave it in the beginning and He put it in man's nostrils and then later on it was to return to God after death.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Now do you see how clear and plain it is, friends?

The Scripture plainly shows that the Spirit that returns to God when a man dies is the breath of life that God placed in his nostrils in the beginning when man was created.

Now that's exactly what David also taught in the Psalms.

In Psalm 146, verse 4, speaking of death, David wrote, "...his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.

You see, there is perfect agreement here among the Bible writers.

Now, before we go further, there are several things we ought to establish in regard to the Spirit, and then we'll go on to another topic.

Point number 1, the spirit or the breath of every person that dies, whether that person is good or evil, returns to God.

A lot of people have taken that scripture and they've said, Now, here's proof that something goes off to God from the righteous people when they die.

But that isn't what the text says at all.

It has to do with all people, not just the righteous people.

So this Spirit, the Breath of Life, goes back to God when any person dies, whether that man is good or evil.

Men have the same spirit or breath as animals do.

02 Death and Soul

The human body is actually composed of the common elements of the earth.

Even the proportion of each element has been determined by scientists.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the amazing facts broadcast facts which affect you In our last broadcast we introduced the intriguing subject of life after death, or what is a soul?

What happens to an individual when death comes?

This is a question that has perplexed people right down through the ages.

We are going back to Genesis 2, verse 7, to get God's definition of a soul.

We may not know and understand it all, but he certainly has the answer for us.

Notice this text, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Let no man think that he can improve on it.

We might put it in a little formula like this, body plus breath equals soul.

A body plus the breath of life, and we have no longer a body and a breath, but we have a combination known as a soul.

That is the first and general definition in the Bible concerning a soul.

A living, walking, talking, living human being is a soul.

Now the word soul is used to mean 2 other things also in the Scripture, at least 2.

It's used in some cases to mean life itself.

1 example of this is Job 12, 10, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing.

Well, of course, that's talking about life itself.

And then the third definition is the mind or the intellect.

An example of soul being used this way is found in Psalm 139, 14, And that my soul knoweth right well.

They've overlapped till there is really very little difference.

It's easy to tell what's meant by the context.

A few verses before, a few verses after, and you can easily see which of the meanings is required.

Now some people might say, oh my, that really confuses me.

But you know, friends, we don't need to be confused with it at all.

It's a very common thing in the English language for a word to mean more than 1 thing.

It can mean what we're breathing right now, that kind of air.

We say he had a haughty air, all these 3 things.

But we know what it means by how it's used in the sentence or paragraph.

Now it's the same way with these 3 meanings of the word soul.

But it doesn't make any difference which definition you use.

It takes a combination of 2 things to make that soul.

You have to have both of them or you'll never have a soul, regardless of which definition you want to use.

It doesn't make any difference about that.

If it means life, you must have body plus breath.

If it means intellect, you must have body plus breath, or you don't have a soul.

The general usage in the Bible is a person, a personal being.

Now let me ask you a question, and I really want you to answer to your own heart.

If a body plus the breath makes a living soul, then what happens to that soul if the breath is taken away?

Well it would die, that's surely correct.

Now, I know that many folks will almost start up in horror and say, a soul die?

Yes, friends, I've heard the same thing in my life as well, but let's see what God says about it.

It's not what man thinks, it's what God says.

Listen to this in Ezekiel 18.20, "...the soul that sinneth it shall die." That is D.I.E., friends.

Now if the soul was naturally immortal, it could never die.

But God Himself says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

So on the authority of God's Word, souls do die after all.

We've covered some of this very quickly, and I want to be sure we're together on it.

Point number 1, the spirit that returns to God when a man dies is the breath of life.

Point number 2, the breath or spirit of every person who dies, whether he's evil or good, returns to God.

And point number 3, body plus breath equals a living soul.

But I know you have a question and I know what it is.

You're saying, I don't understand where the soul goes.

Suppose I have some boards here and some nails, 2 things.

Then I take these boards and with a hammer I drive the nails in and make a box.

Now in the same way we have a body, and we take the breath and put into that body and we get a soul.

Now listen, friends, supposing I didn't want the box any longer, so I took a hammer, pulled the nails out, and put them in a little stack, and put the boards back down on the other side.

It takes a combination of those 2 things to make a box.

When you take the 2 things apart, you don't have a box any longer.

You have a body, you put in the breath, and you get the soul.

But suppose you take the breath away and just leave the body.

My friends, you don't have the soul anymore, just as you didn't have the box any longer.

Now we could illustrate it the same way with a light bulb.

If I push the button, the electricity flows into that light bulb and you have a light as a result.

Now if I subtract the electricity, I have only a bulb.

It works the same way once again with the soul.

Breath and body, a combination of the 2 things, makes a soul.

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