DIAGRAMStudying the scriptures, we become aware that there are
Down through the ages, there have been many theories about some kind of pre-existence of a person's soul. These theories hold that a person's soul exists in some state before the person's physical conception and birth. Some theories have ideas about past lives. Some beliefs describe a storehouse of souls kept in waiting. The Bible does not teach
There are also theories about when God gives a soul to the child conceived in the womb --whether at conception or some time later? There is a belief, for example, that "the quickening" (a baby's first strong movement in the womb) is the sign that a soul has just entered the baby. It is widely held today that a separate human life begins not when a woman conceives, but later. So from conception there exists, for a time, just one or more cells that still belong to the mother's body. It is believed that she is free at this stage to destroy the cell or "foetal tissue" because it is not yet "a child" or "a babe". These ideas have no
If we follow the Bible, we will take the safe view that a child with a soul exists when it is "conceived in the womb",
When Adam and Eve were created, God forbade them to eat of a certain tree. When they disobeyed that command, they of course sinned. That's why God had warned them, "In the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die"
Some people say, "but they began to die physically the day they sinned". God said nothing about beginning to die. He said, "In the day you eat... you shall surely die".
The result of every first sin is spiritual death. In the day of our first sin, we each were cut off from the life of God and
Paul said, "I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died"
Once we have entered into death in sin, we cannot go back to being innocent. However, we can be forgiven and "justified" through Jesus Christ
There is only one way to do this, only one way to get out of death in sin and be made alive again. That one way is through Jesus. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"
We must believe in Jesus
The "apostate" is one who, having been forgiven and having entered into the state of spiritual life, quits and falls back reverting to the state of condemnation and spiritual death
Physical death is the portal through which we pass from this world into the unseen world of the dead (Hades) to await the judgment day. The body dies, but the soul passes on back into the hands of God
For those who die in a state of grace and spiritual life, death of the body is only a portal through which the soul passes on its journey toward heaven. Paul teaches that the body will be raised immortal just as a seed planted dies but a beautiful plant rises up
In the unseen world of the dead, many await Judgment day in the assurance that they have been counted righteous and worthy of heaven in Christ. This is the blessed state of those who have died in the Lord whether innocent or forgiven
Also in the unseen world of the dead many await the day of Judgment without any hope of heaven because they do not know Christ. This is the doomed state of all unbelieving and disobedient who have died physically without being prepared through faith and obedience to Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ "will judge the living and the dead at his appearing"
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