There are many times man has reached too high for his own good. He has delved into situations that are too high and beyond his abilities to grasp. “Such knowledge it too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Psalms 139:6 It is also true that “the secret things belong to God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us…” Deuteronomy 29:29 The doctrine of “inborn sin” is such a travesty.
Before it was pointed out it was known that “like begets like.” This is shown repeatedly in the first chapter of Genesis. “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the Earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25 If this had been understood by Augustine, who lived and wrote in the early part of the 4th century, we would not have been cursed with this heresy!!
When God “breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life,” Adam became-what he had not been before, “a living soul.” The same God that created the Heavens and the Earth had on this note made (asah in Hebrew-to make something after what had already existed) MAN. What God, the Holy Spirit, used in communicating this to Moses was language man could comprehend, not what was in reality an existent fact. You see, God is a Spirit, spirits are apart of a complexity that is apart but not necessarily the same thing as a soul. Spirits in short, have not bodies, spirits do not possess the bodily function of breathing. God is said to have eyes, hands, breathe, ears and many other parts of man’s anatomy only to express to mankind what in man’s language he can understand. “For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness (infantile) of preaching to save them that believe.”
What came from God was of God. The ‘breathe of life’ had been used to describe other animals in Genesis 1. Without breathe man cannot live. Breathe is not of man, from man; it became a personification of life, it later was used as a personification of the Holy Spirit. John 20:22 By the way, get some of our modern day Atheist to make a little air—put man in a complete vacuum and cause him to live without a little “breathing stuff”!! What came from God was the soul and spirit part of our make-up. If made form God, it is not God; it is merely His part in the greatest creation God ever made called MAN! Mankind has two fathers, Hebrews 12:6-9, “the father of spirits and the father of flesh.” One can tell which part is of God by seeing which part last the longest!! This is called birth. When man hears the “breathing” of the message of God, as given by the Holy Spirit, this part is from God, called Faith. When faith is obeyed, this is called believed and is baptized man is said to be “born again.” John 3:3-5, 1 Peter 1:18-23
The part of our anatomy that is of man is the body. The body has within it the mind. The mind is not the spirit or soul of man, it cannot create, intend, or obey; it is simply a sending and receiving unit. When man dies, the soul and spirit leave and go back to God-they are from God and are eternal-the body goes back to dust. As a house, the body has only a short time, if we are Christians, we get a new one!! As the poets wrote:
Tell me not in mournful numbers Death; I will have the last word of this argument.
Life is but an empty dream when you are chanting a requiem over my grave
Life is real! Life is earnest! I’m singing an exultant hymn. When you think
And the grave is not its goal. I’m under the sod, I will be with God.
Dust thou art to dust returnest the husk alone is thine; the kernel is divine!!
Was not written of the soul.
