Immortality: The Mortal Quest

Let's get it straight, the human soul is not immortal!

Man is not an immortal soul and neither does he possess an immortal soul! The soul is simply a living, flesh-and-blood oxygen-breathing being. Oxygen enlivens – gives life – to the blood which in turn imparts life to the body, the “living creature/soul” [Heb. nephesh]. These “living souls” are animal and human. Living souls are not immortal – they die.

This truth is attested to from Genesis to Revelation. Let’s read it: Gen 1:21, “God created … every living soul [nephesh].” [Stated so in NKJV; Literal Translation; Darby; Dutch SV, “LEVENDE WREMELENDE ZIEL”.] Rev 16:3 “And …and every living soul died in the sea.” [KJV, KJV 1611, Literal, Young’s Literal, Apostolic Bible Polyglot, etc.]

A “living soul” is, therefore, mere animal and human life which is subject to death. Living souls die, precisely because they are not immortal.

The life of the soul is in the blood, not in some immortal element. “… flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof …” [Gen 9:4].

Therefore “the soul (the living, breathing human being) that sins it [that soul] shall die [Ez 18:4]. Hence, no human has immortality. All humans are simply finite, temporal, corruptible, and mortal [Gr. thnetos, subject to death].

Paul explains in 1 Cor 15:53-54 that to obtain immortality, the “… corruptible [soul] must put on incorruption, and this mortal [soul] must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Once this “putting on” of the immortality process is completed, then, and only then, will man have obtained immortality. It’s simple English and deductive reasoning: If you have to “put on” your coat it means you do not have it on, yet. As your coat is somewhere else when you don’t have it on so your immortality is somewhere else and you still have to “put [it] on”.

Paul explained elsewhere that immortality is something that we strive after. If we have to strive after it, it plainly means we don’t have it, yet.

“To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious [arguing about the truth], and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath” [Rom 2:7-8].

By parsing the text we obtain greater clarity about the salvific process unto immortality. [To avoid confusion we highlight the text.] Limiting ourselves to this text, the process entails, inter alia:

1. “Patient continuance”: Positive and joyful endurance. KABOOM!! There goes once-save-always-saved deceptiveness! What do you have to endure patiently and strive for if you are irrevocably assured of absolute salvation!?

2. “Well doing”: The Greek is: agathos ergon – literally, good works! Titus 3:8: “Be very careful and thoughtful to maintain good works.” Another nail in the coffin of the “salvation-without-works” and the “grace-and-grace-alone” deception.

3. “Seek”: Endeavouring, striving to obtain …

4. “Glory”: Praise! Yes, God’s people seek praise – not from men but from their heavenly Father! “Well done good and faithful servant…” [Mt 25:21, 23].

5. “Honour”: Literally, money paid; reward for services rendered to a professional for which there is no set fee, thus the “honorarium”. There is no set fee or reward or honor for any true believer and diligent, constantly working child of God. The rewards packages are unlimited because the Father has UNLIMITED AND ETERNAL RESOURCES. There’s no pay packet ceiling for anybody! This honour intimates esteem of the highest order. As his children, God wants us to achieve the greatest possible success in His kingdom economy. And to us, if we strive according to the process, he will give the greatest reward possible, which is,

6. “Immortality, eternal life”: That is the ultimate reward and honor – unending existence, perpetual life, in an incorruptible, PUT ON, resurrected body. Paul was inspired to doubly emphasize this rewarding aspect. He emphasized the future gift of immortality by adding “eternal life”. He doubly emphasized the fact that even true Christians do not have immortality, now -- they still have to be given immortality as a gift after vigorously competing and successfully completing the race towards that great prize of life eternal, life immortal!

7. “Obey [not] the truth, but obey unrighteousness”: Directly linked to the quest for immortality and eternal glory and honor is obedience to the law of God. Reflect on Romans 2:8 again. According to Paul’s statement, truth is the moral equivalent of righteousness which, in turn, is obedience to the law. [So stated also in Ps 119:142 and Rom 8:4.]

In 1 Cor 9:24b-26 Paul urges Christians by personal example to: “So run that you may obtain” [immortality!]. “And,” Paul continues, “every man that strives for the mastery [Gr.: struggles and competes for the prize] is temperate [exercise self-restraint] in all things …”

“I, therefore,” says Paul, “so run, not as uncertainly” [know where you are running to and why! Have the end goal clearly in sight!]; “so fight I, not as one that beats the air...”

The Christian does not shadow box because the spiritual struggle towards the ultimate kingdom prize – immortality – is a real-life battle “against principalities” [superhuman spiritual potentates], “against powers” [delegated demonic forces] against the rulers [kosmokrator, the cosmic ruler, Satan] of the darkness of this world, against spiritual [supernatural religious] wickedness [depraved plots] in high places [celestial realms] [Eph 6:12].

Presently some disturbing social issues are being intensely discussed in open forums via social media. To list a few:

Firstly, child sex trafficking, infanticide, and pedophilia as exposed by the movie Sound Of Freedom. There may also be human sacrificing and cannibalism associated with such circles of depravity. In certain secret society cabals a Human sacrifice is required annually.

Secondly, the shocking but not surprising revelations via Congressional hearings on the long concealed UFO secrets which entail reverse engineering of the extra-terrestrial crafts, telepathic communication with the aliens, and the murderous secrecy surrounding the superior antigravity technology to protect the established oil-based monopolies. The intensely dark criminality undergirding the decades-long conniving plots against humanity that could benefit from unlimited clean environment-saving energy virtually gratis if it were not for the colluding greed-saturated lust of a few self-appointed elites.

Thirdly, the Congressional Subcommittees inquiring into the monstrously perverse transgender onslaught against the youth by confused minds, sick psychos, and an avaricious, calloused cabal of demonically debauched, morally moribund, mentally misshapen, psychologically perverted medical professionals, surgeons, and depraved psychiatrists, seeking to create an androgynous, neutered, or sexually altered humans.

These are but a few issues illustrative of the forces of darkness working towards the permanent entrenchment of a ferociously hell-bent anti-God world order under full Satanic hegemony in their undeniably insane race towards Armageddon – and their war against the Almighty himself! (This is clearly stated in Revelation 17:14 and 19:19.)

Having segued distantly from our main motif, let’s return to our central theme of eternal life ["immortality"] with a definitive statement from Paul in 1 Tim 6:12: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life…”

Immortality is something to be seized because we don’t have it!

Can it be any clearer? Nobody – Christians included – has immortality in this life! No human is or has an immortal soul!

However, the great consoling truth is that all of us may obtain " immortality" – if we submit to the predetermined process designed to grant us the right to the tree of eternal life. The process is revealed, inter alia, in Revelation 22:14-15 and 2:7.

“Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs [an euphemism for sexual perverts] and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loves and makes a li. [But], to him that overcomes [conquers all the sins enumerated above] will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”

"Immortality" – eternal life – is a future inheritance, not a present possession.

I have this confidence in the mercy of Yehovah, that finally, through Christ, Satan and his mentally mangled minions – human and demonic – will be vanquished and the victors, those who live by His holy Ten Commandments and who connect to the character quiddity of the Eternal, will be granted eternal life to eternally enjoy the fruit of the tree of eternal life!

Finally, the anguish of the human soul will have ended through a resurrection from the dead into the kingdom of His everlasting Son. The mortal quest for eternal life will end with Yehovah’s gracious and glorious gift of immortality.(*)

Lay hold of it!

(*) For a technical clarification of "immortality" our Blog "Eternity in Man" is a must-read.