How can Christ ‘make us alive’ from death if death is life somewhere else?
This is another you-tube response from someone thinking that Jesus didn’t actually die and that the ‘immortality of the soul’ is a true doctrine. Again, I use these comments in order to bring out specific truths.
I will begin with my detractor’s comment and then my response. I also include an email response from my friend and brother in Christ, Matt Fisher, regarding this topic.
First, my detractor insists that Jesus and the thief went to heaven before resurrection. The reference is Luke 23:43. Well, John 20:17, as pointed out by my friend and fellow Hoosier Greg Davis, makes that impossible: How can Jesus of been in heaven while He was entombed when He says to Mary that He hasn’t yet ascended to His Father. Is His Father not in heaven?
17 “Rabboni!” which is the term for “Teacher.” Jesus is saying to her, “Do not touch Me, for not as yet have I ascended to My Father. Now go to My brethren, and say to them that I said, ‘Lo! I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” -John 20:17
…and another thing. Jesus said on the cross, “Father, into Thy hands am I committing My spirit.” Now, saying this, He expires. -Luke 23:46
So, what do we know? We know that Jesus did not ascend to his father because He tells Miriam that word for word in John 20:17. However, before His death, Jesus commits His spirit to God. So at death, Christ’s spirit does go to God. How could this be if He didn’t ascend to the father at this time (John 20:17)?
You see, Christ’s spirit did go to God at His death but at the same time HE DID NOT ascend to the Father. This is because His body died, His spirit went to God as God is Spirit…and His soul went to the unseen, ceased to exist. Jesus Christ was dead and had no conscious experience in His death while God held His spirit until resurrection.
This is perfectly consistent with how death is described in scripture and explains how Jesus did not ascend to His Father and yet His spirit did. These verses make it impossible for Jesus to have been conscious in heaven in any form whatsoever.
Also, since Jesus committed His Spirit to God at death, this disproves the myth that He spoke to spirits in prison while dead in Peter’s epistle. Christ went to these spirits after the resurrection, after He was vivified.
What FAITH this took for our Lord and Savior! He had perfect faith to trust His God and Father to raise Him from the dead. Jesus Christ’s spirit was in God and He knew that if God did not raise Him, then He would be dead forever. This was our fate, Jesus went into it. God Delivered.
Every way you look at it, Jesus was dead and had no conscious existence while in the tomb for three days.
Now, when God raises Jesus from the dead the doors of immortality are blown open for all humanity. The greatest event in human history!
My detractor’s comment:
I don’t think your comment that the Bible nowhere mentions the immortality of the soul is completely accurate. Immortality is mentioned in a few scriptures (Romans 2:7, 1 Corinthians 15:53-54, 2 Timothy 1:10). But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:39). The phrase “immortality of the soul” isn’t written verbatim in the Bible, but the implication is there in Hebrews 10:39. A soul is saved, so has eternal life, and by necessary implication will never die.
My response:
The ‘immortality of the soul’ is a Christian doctrine that teaches the soul never dies. Paul speaks of the immortality and incorruption that we put on in Christ, but he does not teach that man never dies. In Romans 2:7, in fact, in Romans chapter 1 through 3, Paul is explaining the effects of law and operation of law which is replaced by Christ’s faith, apart from law. Either way, Paul does not say that the incorruption and life eonian in Romans 2:7 comes without a person experiencing death.
1 Corinthians 15:53:54 actually proves that man will die, unless snatched away. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 states:
For since, in fact, through a man came death (not life somewhere else), through a man, also, comes the resurrection of the dead. For even as, in Adam, all are dying, thus also, in Christ, shall all be vivified.
Through Adam comes death, however, through Christ, all shall be vivified. The Greek word used in this verse is ‘zoopoieo,’ Strong’s word 2227. This word has a literal definition of ‘to make alive.’ How can Christ ‘make alive’ someone who is living in some other place and is not dead? This is the immortality that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15: 53-54 and he says we must put on this immortality. He does not say that we never die. In fact, Paul says that by putting on this immortality is how death is swallowed up in victory. Death is swallowed up in victory because Christ has ‘made alive’ the dead. You want to make immortality a transference from one life to another, where Paul teaches that immortality is being ‘made alive’ from death. We have immortality, but just like Christ, it is through death.
In 2 Timothy 1:10 Paul is speaking of the grace given to us in Christ before times aionion, before time began. Were we immortal before time began? Before we were created? Of course not. God chose who would believe before they were born, so that they will have aionion life. This does not mean that they have an immortal soul.
These verses simply do not say what you want them to say. Again, Hebrews 10:39 does not mean that we procure our soul and never die. What do you think resurrection is for? You think people are in heaven now and will be whisked out of heaven to their bodies at resurrection?
God chooses some to believe and receive the grace to have a special salvation before the rest. These people are ‘saved’ and will have immortality during the 1000 years, the new heaven and new earth age, where others will not. This is the glory of the resurrection from death, to be ‘made alive’ beyond the possibility of ever dying again. It is not life transferred from another life.
Let’s all think of what Christ had to do to get this immortality for us. Yet, the ‘immortality of the soul’ believers think that immortality comes without Christ’s work.
Matthew Fisher:
The following is an email response from Matt Fisher debunking the teaching of the ‘immortality of the soul.’
“Please remove me from the prayer chain. I think that you should strongly consider removing the phrase “for repose of soul”. In addition revisit what death actually means. You die. God takes back your spirit your body returns to the soil and your soul returns to the unseen. In Hebrew the unseen is Shoel and in Greek it is Hades. Think of it as a status of nonexistence rather than a place. Unfortunately early on the Bible translators chose to call Shoel, Hades, Purgatory, Gehenna, Tartarus all hell. So no matter where specifically scripture was sending you the translators were sending you to hell. The prayers for “repose of a soul” is wrong. It is an old idea that is not biblically correct. Souls do not go to hell or purgatory. Souls do not wander the earth. Souls do not go to heaven. Souls are not judged.
Souls are not tormented. Souls are not immortal.
Resurrection is what we are waiting for while repose. When we are resurrected We will have our spirit given back to join our body and our soul will be seen. The body we get will be celestial and immortal. It is consoling to know that the dead in Christ shall be rising first then the living shall be snatched away with them to meet the Lord Christ in the air. Vivified, celestial, we will be. At the end of the eons death will be abolished, Christ abdicates to the father and God will be All in All.”
Grace and peace to you all.
Saved ignoble 
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