If
there is any fundamental belief that transcends most cultural and religious
boundaries, it’s the notion that human beings possess an immortal “soul” or
“spirit” that exists independently of the body and ventures off somewhere at
the moment of death. In other words, we are all immortal ghosts housed in temporary
containers of flesh. Your soul, spirit, or “ghost” is allegedly the “real you.”
This
teaching is a staple in evangelical circles, so much so that I doubt whether
many Christians have ever taken the time to really examine what the Bible has
to say about the nature of mankind. Certain passages—such as the account of Saul’s
meeting with the witch of Endor, and Moses and Elijah appearing at Jesus’ transfiguration—are
often read in light of preconceived notions and/or without full consideration
of either the immediate context or the overall context of scripture.
Additionally,
there is a strong emotional component to the conception of man as a spirit able
to survive the death of the body. Whereas the New Testament states that God
alone is immortal (1 Timothy 6:15-16) and its writers consistently stress the
hope of resurrection and entrance into the Kingdom of God upon Christ’s return,
most Christians who have suffered the loss of a loved one tend to seek comfort
in the idea that he or she is already “in a better place,” “walking the streets
of gold with Jesus,” and “not dead at all but more alive than ever.” The idea
that this might not be so is frequently met with consternation bordering on
outrage.
As
it happens, the Bible offers compelling evidence against the ghost concept,
starting at the very beginning with the Genesis account of Adam’s creation.
What is Man?
“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.” – Genesis 2:7
There
are several things to notice here:
First,
note that Adam’s physical body is called “man” even before it is given
life—“And the Lord God formed man of
the dust…” If man is actually a spirit and the body is merely the spirit’s
temporary dwelling, how much sense does it make for the Bible to refer to
Adam’s body—in its initial, lifeless, ‘uninhabited’ condition—as “man”?
Second,
note that after God created Adam, he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life.” Where in this verse do we read that God fashioned a ghost and placed it
into Adam’s body? Or that he made Adam and then placed him into a body he had prepared for him? Nothing of the kind is said or even implied here. The text simply
says that God imparted the “breath of life” to Adam. Adam then became “a living soul” (or “a living
being”). He was not given a soul; he was given breath and became a soul. The term “breath” in the phrase “the breath of life”
is translated from the Hebrew word neshamah,
which, along with the related term, ruwach,
is sometimes also translated as “spirit” or “wind” in the Bible. The term
“soul” is translated from the Hebrew word nephesh.
Adam’s lifeless body was given neshamah
and became nephesh as a result.
Interestingly
enough, Genesis also uses these same terms in reference to animals:
“And God created
great whales and every living creature [nephesh]
that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly.” – Genesis 1:21
“And out of the
ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air;
and brought them to Adam…and whatever Adam called every living creature [nephesh], that was the name of it.” –
Genesis 2:19
“All flesh that
moved on the Earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming
thing that swarms upon the Earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry
land, all in whose nostrils was the breath [neshamah]
of the spirit of life, died.” – Genesis 7:21-22
So
we have both man and animals being called nephesh
(‘souls’ or ‘living beings’) in scripture. Both were formed from the dust and both
were given life by the same neshamah.
Thus the Bible portrays human beings and animals as being no different in their
essential composition. There is no evidence that man was given a different type
of “breath” than was given to animals. Solomon underscores this for us in
Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 and 12:5 and 7:
“For the fate of
humans and the fate of animals are the same: As one dies, so dies the other; both have the same breath…Both go to
the same place, both come from the dust, and to dust both return.” (NET Bible)
“For man goes to
his eternal home while mourners go about in the street…then the dust will return to the earth as it
was, and the breath will return to God
who gave it.”
God
himself illustrates this in Genesis 3:17-19:
“And unto Adam
he said…In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, until you return unto
the ground; for out of it you were taken: for
dust you are, and unto dust you shall return.”
“Dust
you are.” Not “your body is dust,”
but “you” are dust. Why would God call Adam—the conscious, thinking, feeling,
reasoning, moral, spirit being—“dust” if humans are, in fact, immaterial spirits?
Recall here that Genesis 2:7 refers to Adam’s lifeless body as “man.” I would
be more persuaded of the view of man as a spirit if God had said something
like, “Your body will return to the dust from which it was taken, for it dust,
but you shall depart into Sheol,” or words to that effect, as this would
suggest a true dichotomy; but, no, God plainly tells Adam, “YOU are dust.”
Also
note what God says concerning man in Genesis 6:3:
“My
Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days
shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
Here,
God refers to man as “flesh.” “He is
flesh.” This is strange phraseology if man is actually a spirit encased in a
temporary housing of flesh.
We
see the essential nature of man referenced again in Ezekiel 37:1-14, the famous
“Valley of Dry Bones” passage. This passage concerns the future of Israel, illustrated
in terms of human resurrection. Ezekiel was shown a valley full of bones, and
when he prophesied to them “the bones came together…the sinews and flesh came
upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.” Ezekiel
was then instructed to prophesy to the “wind” (literally “breath”), “…and the
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet.”
Note
the similarity to Adam’s creation: lifeless bodies united with “breath” from
God become living beings. Further, note that Ezekiel is not told to prophesy to
individual spirits, or to heaven or Sheol to release the dead, or any other
thing that might fit with popular conceptions of life after death; instead, he
is told to prophesy to one “breath”
of life for all of these individuals that come to life.
For
a last example, consider Revelation 11:1-11. Two end-time prophets are killed
in Jerusalem and lie dead in the streets for three days, after which “the
breath of life from God entered them, and they stood upon their feet.” No
spirits return from heaven or any such thing here; rather, a singular breath of life from God enters both
men and restores them to life. This reference to a singular breath of life
hearkens back to Ecclesiastes 12:7, where Solomon notes that man’s breath “returns
to God who gave it.” The “breath” is not something that is inherently man’s or
a part of man; it comes from God, and returns to him at the time of death.
Scriptural Problems
with the “Ghost” Theory
Popular
teachings in regard to the nature of man as a spirit that is able to exist in a
disembodied “afterlife” state prior to the resurrection also create awkward
exegetical problems.
For
one, the Bible states repeatedly that the dead are “asleep” (Daniel 12:2, 1
Kings 1:21, Job 14:12, John 11:11-13, Matthew 27:52, Luke 8:52-53, 1
Corinthians 15:51). Ecclesiastes tells us that “the dead know nothing” (9:5), that
there is “no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol,” the realm
of the dead (9:10). Psalm 6:5 says that there is no praise of God in Sheol, while
146:4 adds that, when a man dies, even “his thoughts perish.” None of these
passages are compatible with traditional views of the afterlife or alleged
near-death experiences in which persons who temporarily died supposedly
interacted with deceased loved ones.
Even
various scripture passages that supposedly show disembodied spirits are in
conflict with other passages. A prime example of this is the story of the Rich
Man and Lazarus, which many Bible teachers claim is an accurate glimpse of the
afterlife given by Jesus himself. In the story, we’re told that the rich man finds
himself in agony in the flames of Hades, and desires that Lazarus be sent to
him to cool his tongue with water. Yet, this imagery conflicts with what Jesus
had to say about the nature of spirits in Luke 24:43, when he first appeared to
his disciples following his resurrection:
“While
they were telling these things, He [Jesus] Himself stood in their midst and said,
‘Peace be to you.’ But they were startled and frightened and thought they were
seeing a spirit. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts
arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me
and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’
And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still
could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, ‘Have
you anything here to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took
it and ate it before them.”
In
this passage, Jesus indicates that spirits do not have physical substance, and
he demonstrates that he is not a spirit by inviting his disciples to touch him
and by eating a piece of a fish. This leads me to ask: If the story of the Rich
Man and Lazarus depicts disembodied spirits in the afterlife, how is it that
the rich man could be tormented by fire or comforted by water? Why are he and
Lazarus described as having physical characteristics (eyes, fingers, and a
tongue)? How could Lazarus touch the rich man, as the rich man desired him to
do?
Defenders
of the traditional view of the afterlife have tried to explain these
discrepancies away by resorting to speculation about “spirit bodies” and “spiritual
fire” (concepts that are nowhere found in scripture), but I feel it is more
sensible to approach the Rich Man and Lazarus as the final parable in a long
series of parables aimed at the Pharisees—a story full of illustrative symbolism,
rather than a glimpse into the afterlife. Both Matthew and Mark tell us that
that Jesus taught the crowds in parables, “and did not speak to them without a
parable” (Matthew 13:34, Mark 4:34), whereas he explained things clearly to his
disciples in private. Again, the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus comes at the
end of a series of parables, which Luke clearly tells us Jesus taught in public:
“Now
all the tax-collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.
Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives
sinners and eats with them.’” – Luke 15:1-2
This was a public place, and the Pharisees were present. Jesus was teaching in parables at the time, as he habitually did when in public.
The
united witness of scripture strongly suggests that man is not a spirit encased
in flesh, but rather, a being of flesh who, upon death, returns to the dust
from which he was formed. Man was created when God united his breath with the
physical form he had fashioned from the ground, and death is essentially the
reversal of the creation process; man’s components separate and return to their
point of origin: his body returns to the dust, while his “breath returns to God
who gave it.” Man is not inherently immortal. Immortality is a gift that God
will give to the righteous following the return of Christ:
“Now
I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;
nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery;
we shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on
the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, and then will
come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death,
where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is
sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 15:50-57
In
this passage, Paul tells us that neither the dead nor the living are able to
inherit the kingdom of God without “putting on” “immortality” and “the
imperishable,” which necessarily means that neither is immortal or imperishable
at present. Traditionalists will stress that Paul is referring only to physical
bodies here, rather than to the immortal spirit of man, which they insist is
able to exist independently of the body and exhibit and experience all manner
of what we think of as physical actions and sensations: sight, sound, touch, speech,
pain, comfort, etc. If this is so, then the body of man seems superfluous, even
detrimental, because it somehow hinders the superior spirit it houses.
Indeed,
if immortality is the criterion for inheriting the kingdom, why does the immortal
spirit not qualify on its own, since it is able to do and experience virtually everything
the body can do and experience? Why must the immortal spirit be joined to an
immortal physical body before it can inherit the kingdom of a God who is
himself “spirit” (John 4:24)? If the immortal spirit—the supposed “real person”—never
dies but is really “more alive than ever” when apart from the body, then why is
death only overcome when the physical body rises? The person never died, after all; only their fleshly housing died.
Why,
for that matter, did Jesus come to pay the penalty for sin in the flesh?
“For
what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He
condemned sin in the flesh.” – Romans 8:3
If
the body is merely a housing for a spirit, a ghost—the “real person”—why is it
the flesh that is sinful? Why did
Christ have to come and die in the flesh if it is really the spirit within the
flesh that sins and the body is merely a helpless tool used to carry out the
spirit’s wishes? Why is it the flesh that dies and not the spirit? Some will
answer with an appeal to what theologians refer to as “spiritual death,” but if
the spirit dies—‘spiritually speaking,’ that is, since it supposedly cannot
actually die—why, again, was the price for redeeming man’s spirit’s paid in flesh?
If the primary death man suffers is “spiritual,” why is death not said to be “swallowed
up in victory” until the body rises? If it is “spiritual death” that Christ
contended against, why is the rising of man’s cast-off physical body not said
to be a formality rather than the quintessential moment of victory?
If,
on the other hand, man really is what God called him way back in Genesis: nephesh, conscious, breathing “flesh,” then
the problems I’ve outlined above disappear entirely. Christ came and paid the
penalty for sin in the flesh because man is
flesh, and when flesh that has died rises from the dust, unable to die again,
then death is defeated indeed.
And
for one last exegetical issue, there is the matter of how unrighteous spirits
can be suffering torment without the judgment having taken place yet. I’ve
heard traditionalists refer to Hades (usually just termed “hell”) as a “holding
cell for judgment day,” but their teaching clearly indicates that they see it
as much more than that. Essentially, they view it as a torture chamber, a place
of active punishment. Yet, how is it that the unrighteous spirits consigned
there are being punished without having had their day in court, without “the
books” having been opened against them (Revelation 2011-13)? This flies in the
face, not only of Christ’s kingdom parables and much other New Testament
teaching (such as Hebrews 9:27), but also of the Old Testament precedents that
God himself set under the Law of Moses.
Additional
Considerations
The
“ghost” doctrine also raises other questions even apart from purely scriptural
considerations, such as the matter of how spirit beings are propagated by
physical union. Can spirits procreate? Do men and women somehow combine in
their spirits as well as their DNA when they conceive children, with the result
that a new human spirit is generated along with a new body? Or does God create
a new person each time sperm and egg successfully join, and then implant that
spirit in the reproducing cells of the embryo? If a new soul is created each time, then why we are so often like our physical relatives (even those we've never met) in our personalities? The question is certainly interesting,
if not rather bizarre.
Conclusion
Serious
Bible students need to re-examine this issue of the immortal soul/spirit/ghost,
and along with it the various common inferences drawn from scripture where the
nature of death and the subject of an afterlife are concerned. I would argue
that our concept of the human soul or spirit has been more heavily influenced
by Platonism and popular culture (including reports of near-death experiences)
than what the Bible actually reveals about the nature of man and the divine
“breath” that gives us life. This is a dangerous state of affairs, particularly
in light of the Bible’s warnings that deception will be rampant in the last
days. If Christians believe that their dead friends and relatives continue to
live on in some ethereal, ghostly state—rather than being well and truly dead
until the time of resurrection, as the Bible actually teaches—then they are
likely to be open to still greater deceptions. Already, some Christian teachers
are promoting the idea that spirits of the dead can interact with the living
and even provide them with guidance, pointing to the examples of how C.S. Lewis
and J.B. Philips were supposedly influenced by “godly ghosts.”
The
danger here should be self-evident, but I fear that many Christians are simply too invested in this theological dogma to see it. The popularity of books such as Heaven is for Real and 13
Minutes in Hell have captivated their imaginations and encouraged them to
place more faith in alleged spiritual experiences than in the authority of the
Bible itself. Even occultists will testify that spirits often lie and
misrepresent themselves. Christians would do well to rethink these matters,
avoid sensational claims, and heed the Apostle John’s advice:
“Beloved,
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from
God…” – 1 John 4:1
For
a detailed look at alleged ghosts of the Bible, see this article: Do
the Dead return to visit the Living?
For
discussions of the Rich Man and Lazarus, see the following resources:
Related
resources:
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