Bible Study 20

The Nature of Man

  1. How was man made?
    Genesis 2:7
    What part was made of dust?
    The Body.
    What was added to the body?
    The breath of life.
    What resulted?
    The living soul.
    ‘The expression, ‘living soul,’ as used in Genesis, is often taken to indicate an order of being superior to the brute, and is the text of many an argument to prove the immortality of the soul. The incorrectness of this assumption will be readily seen by referring to Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, and elsewhere, in which passages the words translated ‘living soul’ are applied also to the entire lower creation. They are used indifferently of man and beast to express animal life in general; and it is in this light the apostle use them (1 Corinthians 15:45), as the very course of his argument shows. Adam is spoken of as a living soul, not to prove his immortality, but rather his mortality.’ – Dr J P Lange’s ‘Commentary ‘ on 1 Corinthians 15:45.
  2. What three parts make up the entire man?
    1 Thessalonians 5:23
  3. To what did man become subject as a consequence of sin?
    Genesis 2:16-17
    Romans 5:12
    Ezekiel 18:4
  4. With this death waiting for each, what is man’s nature?
    Mortal man – Job 4:17
    Mortal body – Romans 6:12
    Mortal flesh – 2 Corinthians 4:11
    Now ‘we want to know if this ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ is immortal. The Hebrew and Greek words from which they are translated occur in the Bible… seventeen hundred times. Surely, once at least, in that long list, we shall be told that the soul is immortal, if this is its high prerogative. Seventeen hundred times we inquire if the soul is once said to be immortal or the spirit deathless. And the invariable and overwhelming response we meet is, NOT ONCE! Nowhere, though used so many hundred times, is the soul said to be ‘undying’ in its nature, or the spirit’ deathless’. Strange and unaccountable fact, if immortality is an inseparable attribute of the soul an spirit!’ – Uriah Smith in ‘Here and Hereafter.’
  5. To what is this mortal life compared?
    A vapour – James 4:14
    A wind that cometh not again – Psalms 78:39
    A shadow – Job 14:2
  6. How only can mortals have immortal life?
    2 Timothy 1:10
    John 10:10
  7. What then ought we to seek?
    Romans 2:7
  8. When will immortality be given?
    1 Corinthians 15:51-54
    Herodotus, a Greek historian, born 484 BC, regarded as the first and one of the most reliable of profane historians, says: ‘The Egyptians also were the first who asserted the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal.’
  9. When does the trumpet sound that raises the dead and changes the living?
    1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

The State of the Dead

  1. What do all the living know?
    Ecclesiastes 9:5
    Hebrews 9:27
  2. What change takes place at death?
    Psalms 146:4
    Ecclesiastes 9;5-6
    Ecclesiastes 12:7
  3. What can the living do?
    Psalms 146:2
    What cannot the dead do?
    Psalms 115:17
    Isaiah 38:18-19
  4. In what state did Jesus say the dead are?
    John 11:11-14
  5. What is death called in Psalms 13:3?
    ‘With very few exceptions indeed, the dead sleep in utter insensibility till the day of judgment. As to purgatory itself, I do not agree with the sophists in thinking it a determinate place. Who will venture to give an assured opinion on the subject? On what authority can it be said that the souls of the dead may not sleep out the interval between the earth and heaven or hell, or purgatory, in the same way that the living pass in profound slumber the interval between their down-lying at night and their up-rising in the morning? – M Luther, cited in Michelet’s ‘Life of Luther.’
  6. Until what time will the individual sleep?
    Compare Job 14:10-12, 15
    Psalms 17:15
    with Acts 13:36
    John 5:28:29