Body and Soul
Persecutors Cannot Kill the Soul
The Lord Jesus Christ says not to fear persecutors, because they can kill only the body, but cannot kill the soul. They cannot harm the soul. People who deny the existence of the soul after death claim that the soul dies together with the body, which would mean, of course, that persecutors kill not only the body but also the soul — but this contradicts the words of Christ:
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28)
“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do” (Luke. 12:4)
The Appearance on Tabor of the Soul of the Departed Prophet Moses
At the moment of the Savior’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the apostles see the appearance of the prophet Moses, who had already died, conversing with Christ about the sufferings on the Cross that lie ahead of Him. That is, although the prophet died (Deut. 34:7; Josh. 1:2) (see the comment), he did not vanish and did not lose consciousness: he communicates with Christ:
“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him” (Matt. 17:3)
“As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke. 9:29-31)
The Apostle on Life After Death
The Apostle Paul says that when the earthly tent (the body) is destroyed, we have a dwelling in heaven:
“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens... For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:1,4)
In another place, perhaps one of the most important, the apostle writes that he wishes to die as soon as possible in order to pass manifestly to life with God, calling death “gain”. But if the apostle vanishes or falls asleep after death, then he gains nothing, but only loses (consciousness). In that case there is no sense in hurrying to die and pass into inactivity. It would be more correct to live, preach, organize the Church, have communion with God, help the Church (not abandon her as long as possible — this is the main thought that opponents of the teaching on the immortal soul always ignore*), living in the earthly body. But the apostle, knowing that he will pass to life with God in heaven, wishes to be released as soon as possible from earthly life in the body:
“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you” (Phil. 1:21-24)
*Those who deny the existence of the soul after death usually ignore the argument in the comment offered and say: “the apostle will not notice how the time flies by for him in sleep, and will immediately wake up in the resurrection with Christ”. However, if the apostle does not pass to life with Christ at once, but only passes into unconscious inactivity, then there is no sense in hurrying to abandon the Church, when the apostle writes right there that remaining in the body is more needful for the Church.
Leaving the body, the apostle believes that he will be with the Lord, and so again he wishes rather to leave the body. He points out that it is important to be pleasing to God both while living in the body and while leaving it:
“knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. <...> We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Cor. 5:6,8-9)
The apostle is in the body as in a temple (man is the temple of God), but soon he will have to leave the body, go out of it:
“Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me” (2 Pet. 1:13-14)
The apostle writes that he could consciously be in heaven either in the body or out of the body:
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago — whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows — such a one was caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2)
The apostle points to the eternity of the soul:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. <...> For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16,18)
Deeds Done During Life in the Body, Not Outside the Body, Are Subject to Judgment
God will judge only the activity that was done during life in the body:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10)
Old Testament Mentions
Those who consider the death of a person to be the annihilation not only of the body but also of the soul think wrongly:
“For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. For we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air’” (Wis. 2:1-3)
Moreover:
“For perverse thoughts separate people from God, and when his power is tested, it exposes the foolish” (Wis. 1:3)
“But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace” (Wis. 3:1-3)
The Rebuke of the Sadducees, Who Deny Life After Death
Of all the Jewish parties (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.), only one believed in the disappearance of a person after death — the Sadducees (Act. 23:8). And the Lord sternly rebukes them, accusing them of error and of ignorance of the Scriptures:
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God’” (Matt. 22:29)
“He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken” (Mark. 12:27)
The Human Soul of Jesus Christ
The Lord Jesus Christ, after the death of the body, descended in His soul into Hades:
“For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10) (Act. 2:27)
“he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption” (Act. 2:31)
In Hades Christ preached to those spirits (souls) who had been there since the worldwide flood:
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (1 Pet. 3:18-20)
“They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (1 Pet. 4:5-6)
“Therefore He says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.’ (Now this, ‘He ascended’ — what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?)” (Eph. 4:8-9)
In the end, Christ is Lord over the dead and the living:
“For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:9)
The Life of the Righteous in Heaven After Death
The souls of those slain for Christ live with Him in heaven and know what is happening on earth (they have not yet been avenged):
“When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed” (Rev. 6:9-11)
The Martyrs for Christ Dwell in Heaven
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Rev. 12:11-12)
The righteous dwell in heaven, and we who live on earth already now come to the triumphant Church in heaven, to the spirits of the righteous:
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb. 12:22-23)
People who have kept their virginity always follow Christ wherever He goes:
“These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:4-5)
The dead are judged; Hades gives up the dead who were in it:
“And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works” (Rev. 20:12-13)
Criticism
Did God Raise the Prophet Moses?
The Orthodox, in defense of the conscious existence of the soul after death, cite the argument that although the prophet Moses died (Deut. 34:7; Josh. 1:2), he appears and communicates with Christ:
“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him” (Matt. 17:3)
Opponents of the Orthodox Church, in particular the Adventists, say in reply that this is supposedly because God took up and raised the prophet Moses. They refer not to Holy Scripture, but to the apocryphon “The Assumption of Moses” (being unable to refer directly to the words of Ellen White).
We (and they as well) do not recognize apocrypha as authoritative texts. But the point is that even in this apocryphon, at least in its surviving part, there are no words about the resurrection of the prophet Moses. On the contrary, Moses is credited there with words that he is departing to the “sleep of his fathers” (source, in Russian).
Moreover, the resurrection of the prophet contradicts Scripture, since it is precisely Christ who is the firstborn from the dead:
“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20)
We also know that no one of people (the speech is addressed to people) has ascended to heaven, none of the prophets ascended to heaven:
“No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John. 3:13)
“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. <...> For David did not ascend into the heavens” (Act. 2:29,34)
More on the fact that before Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and His Resurrection all people after their death went down to Hades:
Before Christ’s sacrifice the Old Testament righteous went down to Hades
Is the Teaching on the Life of the Soul a Belief in the Devil’s Words “You Will Not Surely Die”?
Opponents of the teaching on the soul (Adventists) accuse the Orthodox as follows: God said “you will die”, and the devil said “you will not die”, and this supposedly means that belief in the life of the soul after death is belief in the devil’s words: “you will not die”. Accordingly, those who believe in the life of the soul after the death of the body are accused by them of believing the devil’s lie.
The accusation is loud, but this idea itself has serious contradictions and problems with the context. God said not only “you will die”, but that you will die on the day of eating the fruit of the forbidden tree:
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Gen. 2:16-17)
Opponents of the teaching on the life of the soul understand the words “you will die” in the simplest and most direct way, as the death of the body and the end of all a person’s life processes, the cessation of his existence (at least, of his conscious existence).
Did such an understanding of death happen to the people on the day they ate the fruit? — No, Adam died much later, at 930 years (Gen. 5:5). What does this mean? — It means that God spoke of another death. And the devil denied the other death.
And if it is not so, then one would have to admit that God lied when He said that people would die on the day they ate the fruit, while the devil supposedly told the truth that they would not die — for indeed, a crude bodily understanding of death did not happen that same day. But we can in no way admit that God (the Way, the Truth and the Life — John. 14:6) lied, and the devil (a liar and the father of lies — John. 8:44) told the truth. Yet it is precisely to this conclusion that the interpretation of the opponents of the teaching on the soul leads.
To get out of this dead end, they will necessarily have to reinterpret part of the phrase allegorically:
to understand death itself literally,
but the day of death not literally.
The Orthodox Church has no such shortcomings in its interpretation:
the day of death is understood literally,
and death itself is understood literally, only with respect to the spiritual state of a person. However, changes also happened in the bodily state: at the very least, the people saw their nakedness.
Our first parents really did die that same day, but this death is not disappearance, but a state of falling away from God, in which all sinful people abide. Christ God Himself calls the state of life without God death:
“Then another of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead’” (Matt. 8:21-22)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John. 5:24)
“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead”’” (Rev. 3:1)
The apostles say the same. People lived as dead:
“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1-2)
“Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives” (1 Tim. 5:5-6)
That is, the state of deadness came upon Adam and Eve immediately after the fall — this is the state of inner life without God. And in this sense the devil lied when he said that they would not die. They died as God said — on that same day.
Thus the accusations are not serious, being self-contradictory and detached from the context of Holy Scripture.