DOES 2 PETER 1:13 SUPPORT THE TEACHING OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL THAT SURVIVES THE DEATH OF THE BODY?
2 PETER 1:13
I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of my body , since I know that it will soon be laid aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me....since I know that it will soon be laid aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
In an attempt to squeeze the square peg of the teaching of the immortality of the soul into the round hole of clear bible teaching to the contrary, some resort to taking metaphor and euphemism literally. Both Peter and Paul likened their body to a "
tent" and refered to laying it aside (an obvious euphemism for their death), but does this mean they were implying that they had a an immortal soul inside their bodies?
Firstly it is clear biblically that the word SOUL (not mentoned in any of these scriptures) refers to the whole flesh and blood physical being and applies to both humans and animals. Further notice Paul's words using the same metaphor
2 CORINTHIANS 5:1
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
Here far from depicting something released and floating up to heaven, Paul contrasts the "earthly tent" (physical body) to a heavenly "house"
built by God. So he implies that his hope is not to have no body, but to have an alternative more permanent one built by God.
While some would argue that the person's SOUL is transferred from his physical body to a spiritual one, and others believe that the word SPIRIT refers to the essence of the person and is a word interchangeable with SOUL, both views are unbiblical.* A person's SPIRIT refers simply to the life force that animates their body and does not represent or carry their personality. So if a PERSON is the body + life (B+L=P) what is transferred from the physical to the spiritual and how?
*
Is a SOUL and a(the) SPIRIT the same thing in the bible?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 029#971029
MOVING ON UP:"ME", "MYSELF"AND *I*
- Looking back at Peter's words we note he didn't say his SOUL or even his SPIRIT lives in his body he said "...as I live in the tent of my body". *I*, as in me, the person, the individual made up of thoughts, feelings, memories, devotion, weaknesses and strength. So Peter (and Paul) meant they entertained the hope that they THE PERSON would, by means of a resurrection, move on to heavenly life in heavenly bodies (see 1 Cor 15).
LIVING IN ONES BODY
- Distinguishing between ones body and one's life as a person doesn't mean we have an immortal soul any more than someone saying "My feet are killing ME" mean you live inside your feet.
To illustrate: While many disagree with the concept of "being born in the wrong body", the transgender idea is generally understood to be a figure of speech conveying that a person is psychologically discontent with ones physicality and longs for change, it is not taken to be proof they believe they can exist without a body.
Paul and the Apostle Peter compared their earthly existence to a tent, clothes, a prison, not to convey they had an immortal component that would survive their physical death but to convey the idea that they await a resurrection where God would give them back their lives as individuals but this time in spirit bodies that would be immortal and free from the limitations of a physical existence and more in line with their spiritual desires.
2 Corinthians 5:4
So while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.
MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS
- Many find the idea that humans are purely physical difficult to accept because clearly humans display divine qualities. The truth of this however, lies not in an invisible part off us inside our bodies but in the miracle of God having made physical beings that were more than the sum of their parts. When the brain (a physical mass of cells) functions, physical as it is, it is capable of divine thought, spirituality, creativity, love, the person exists in a higher level than any of the animals. In short we may be only physical but we are in God's image and that means we all have a spark of the divine in us. Unfortunately, when our bodies breakdown and cease to function that spark dies too.
Our hope lies, not it in pagan teachings of surviving our physical death, but in a resurrection whether in spirit bodies with heavenly life in view or in new physical ones to enjoy life on a paradise earth.
JW
SO CALLED IMMORTAL SOUL "PROOF TEXTS" DEBUNKED
