life
THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF LIFE
by Ray Shelton
INTRODUCTION
What is life? In the Biblical view of life, there are three kinds of life: physical life, spiritual life, and eternal life. According to the Biblical view of man, man was created with physical and spiritual life.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SOLUTION
What is life? Life is not a “thing,” but is a person — Jesus. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is the life.
“Jesus said unto to him [Thomas], ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.'” (John 14:6).
And to know Him personally is to have eternal life. Jesus said as He prayed,
“This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
Knowledge is a relationship between the knower and that which is known; it is not a nature nor the property of a nature. Since Jesus is the life and the way to God the Father, to know Him personally is to have Him and eternal life.
“11And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life.” (I John 5:11-12)
If we have God’s Son who is the life, we are alive to God; we have eternal life; and we have been raised from the dead spiritually.
“4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, …” (Eph. 2:4-6)
And if we have been raised from the dead, we have life and we have passed from death to life. Jesus said:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)
Death is more than just the end of physical life, the dissolution of the body, the cessation of physiological functions of this organism. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body. In this state of physical death, man awaits the judgment (Heb. 9:27). But death is more than the physical separation of man’s spirit from his body. It is also the spiritual separation, the alienation of man from God; this is spiritual death. It is the opposite of spiritual life which is fellowship and communion with God, a personal relationship with God. Spiritual life is to know God personally as a living reality ( John 17:3); spiritual death is the absence of this spiritual life. In this state, man thinks and acts as if God doesn’t exist, that God is dead. But it is not that God is dead; it is that man himself is dead.
Spiritual death is the present reign of death which separates, alienates and isolates man from God. The reign of King Death is not only exercised in the inevitable physical death of man; King Death rules every moment of man’s existence before the event of physical death. Just as man does not choose physical death, that is, whether he is going to die inevitably or not, so he does not choose spiritual death. Man is born into this world already spiritually dead. He is automatically under the reign of death. He has no choice about it. According to Romans 5:12, we receive death from our first parents, Adam and Eve.
“Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned:–” (Rom. 5:12 ERS)
When Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually as well as physically. God said to Adam, when he gave him the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that in the day that they ate of it they would surely die (or literally, “dying, you will die”, Gen. 2:17). Since they did not die physically on that day, they must have died spiritually on that day. And this is clearly what happened because they hid themselves from the presence of God (Gen. 3:8). Their fellowship or communion with God was broken and this is spiritual death. Later, after they were driven out of the garden away from the tree of life, lest they eat of it and live forever (Gen. 3:22-24), they eventually died physically (Gen. 5:5). And this death, both spiritual and physical, was passed onto the whole race of Adam’s descendants, you and me. Because of Adam’s sin, “death reigns over all men through that one man” (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14).
Unless man is delivered from spiritual death, after physical death and the judgment, he will be eternally separated from God. This is eternal death, the second death (Rev. 20:14; 21:6-8; Matt. 7:21-23).
But God has done something about this reign of death over the human race. In His love for us, God the Father sent His Son to enter into our death so that He might deliver us from the reign of death. On the cross, Jesus died not only physically but spiritually.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)
He was forsaken for us; He died for us. He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). But God raised Him from the dead. That is why He died; Jesus died so that He might be raised from the dead. He entered into our death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive with Him ( Eph. 2:5). Christ’s death was our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection. We who have received Him are made alive with Him and in Him; we have passed from death into life ( John 5:24); we have been raised from the dead spiritually. Jesus said:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25)
God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves; He has made us who were dead spiritually alive. Jesus Christ as our representative has acted on our behalf and for our sakes.
“14For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, hat if one died for [huper, on the behalf of] all, then all have died.
15And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sakes died and was raised.”
(II Cor. 5:14-15).
All have died in Christ, who represents all. Adam acting as a representative brought the old creation under the reign of death. But Christ acting as our representative brought a new creation in which those “who have received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life” (Rom. 5:17).
“21For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:21-22).
“Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.”
(II Cor. 5:17 ERS).Jesus said, “Because I live ye shall live also.” (John 14:19)
And if we have passed from death to life, we have entered into fellowship with God.
“1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — 2the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us — 3that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
(I John 1:1-3).
And if we have fellowship with God, we are reconciled to God; and we are saved. And since salvation is basically from death to life ( John 5:24), then Reconciliation is salvation from death to life. Acting through our representative, God has reconciled us to Himself in and through Christ.
“18But all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. 19that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning their trespasses against them, and placing in us the message of reconciliation. 20On behalf of Christ therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ beseaching through us: We beg you on the behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.” (II Cor. 5:18-20; ERS see also Rom. 5:10-11; I Cor. 1:9)
We are reconciled to God when we receive the gift of life in Christ Jesus. For Christ is life (John 14:6) and we are saved when we receive Him. And we are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8), since salvation is the gift of God’s grace which is received by faith. Salvation by the grace of God is first of all from death to life. And when we receive the gift of life in Christ Jesus, we are made alive with Christ, and we become new creatures in Christ and are born again into God’s family.
In Eph. 2:8-9, Paul contrasts this salvation by grace with salvation by works.
“8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, 9not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
What is salvation by works? Salvation by works is a salvation that is earned; it is merited.
“4Now to the one who works his wages is not reckoned according to grace [as a gift] but according to debt [something owed since it was earned] 5But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:4-5 ERS).
The works that are supposed to earn salvation are more than just good works (good deeds or acts); they are meritorious works; they are good deeds that earn salvation. Each good work is regarded as having a certain quantity of merit attached to it; when the good work is done, the merit is imputed or reckoned to the account of the person performing the act. Correspondingly, each evil or bad work is regarded as having a certain quantity of demerit or negative merit (penalty) attached to it so that the demerit is reckoned to the account of the person doing the evil work (sin). At the final judgment each person’s account is balanced — the merits and demerits are weighed against each other. If the merit outweighs the demerit, that person is saved — he has earned eternal life. If the demerit outweighs the merit, that person is condemned — he is punished eternally for his sins. This merit scheme underlies and is implied by all teaching that salvation is by works. The Bible very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works ( Eph. 2:8-9);
“4But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for man appeared, 5He saved us, not on the basis of works which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6whom He poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 ERS).
Salvation is the gift of God, given by His grace and received through faith. Man cannot be saved by his meritorious good works; he cannot earn salvation by his works. This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
Now, if we ask why man cannot be saved by his works, that is, what is the reason man cannot earn salvation by his meritorious works, the usual answer given to this question is that man apart from God’s grace is not able to do good works by which he can earn salvation. Man, it is usually said, is not only not able to do good works, but he is able only to sin apart from the grace of God.
Now, the curious implication of this answer is that if a man were able to do good works — able not sin — then he could earn salvation and be saved by his meritorious works. This implication is made explicit in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church since the time of Augustine in the early fifth century, that by the grace of God, which is infused into a man at his baptism, and renewed by the sacraments, he is able to do good works by which salvation (eternal life) may be earned. Accordingly, salvation is ultimately and fundamentally by works even though the grace of God makes possible the meritorious works.
It was this teaching that the Protestant Reformers opposed. They rejected the idea that grace was something infused into man to make it possible for him to earn salvation. Grace, said the Reformers, is God’s unmerited favor, and salvation (eternal life) was a gift to be received by faith. But, they said, that eternal life was earned by the active obedience of Christ during his life on earth. This “merits of Christ” is imputed to the believer’s account when he first believes in Christ. Thus salvation is still ultimately and fundamentally by meritorious works. It is true that they said that it was not by our works and it was a gift received by faith. But salvation was still by works — not by our works but by the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. Christ by his active obedience has earned for us eternal life. It is a vicarious salvation by works. This explanation of salvation like the earlier Roman Catholic explanation mixes grace and works, which Paul says that cannot be done or grace will no longer be grace ( Rom. 11:6). And as it turned out in the history of Protestantism, the strong dynamic concept of God’s grace as God’s love in action is reduced to the weak idea of grace as unmerited favor.
Salvation is not by meritorious works, not because a man is not able to do them, but because God does not deal with mankind on the basis of the merit scheme. As Jesus made clear in his parable of the householder (Matt. 20:1-16), God does not act toward us on the basis of our merit but on the basis of His generosity. And because God does not treat mankind according to their desserts, but according to His love, He often puts the least deserving before the more deserving. “The last will be first and the first last.” (Matt. 20:16; 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30)
The Apostle Paul in opposing salvation by works refers to meritorious works as “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 10:5; Phil. 3:6, 9) and as “the works of the law” (Rom. 3:20; 4:2-5; Gal. 3:2, 5, 10). The law was legalistically considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. This is a distortion of the Mosaic law and is a characteristic of legalism.
The doctrine of the sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine in the early fifth century A.D. to explain why man can not save himself by his meritorious works. Instead of denying that salvation has anything to do with meritorious works, Augustine assumed that salvation is by meritorious works and he taught that since the fall, because of his inherited corrupt or sinful nature, man cannot do meritorious works to earn salvation apart from the grace of God. The grace of God which is infused into man’s will by the sacraments enables him to earn eternal life. But Augustine’s assumption is wrong. According to the Scriptures ( Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 4:4-5), salvation is not by meritorious works, eternal life is not earned by meritorious works, and the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to deny that man can save himself. According to the Scriptures, man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death nor from sin, neither can the law produce life or righteousness.
“Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
There is no salvation by the law. The sinful nature is not needed to explain why man cannot save himself, because the law was not given by God for salvation. God gave the law, not for salvation from sin, but for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:19); that is, to show what should be man’s right personal relationship to God and to his fellow men (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37-40). This knowledge does not save man but only shows man what he ought to be but it cannot make him to be that. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, not by the law and not by human self-effort (the flesh) to earn it. Man is spiritually dead and the law cannot make him alive ( Gal. 3:21). But the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes alive those who are spritually dead when they receive by faith the risen Jesus Christ as their Lord and their God. Jesus Christ is Life, and they who have Him have life and are alive to God.
“11And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life.” (I John 5:11-12)
One of the implications of Augustine’s doctrine of the sinful or corrupt nature of man is that salvation is entirely the work of God (monergism), since man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to do good works in order to earn salvation by them. According to Augustine, not only is the grace of God the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith” ( Eph. 2:8). According to Augustine, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. This monergism totally eliminates the human will from any part or place in salvation. Augustine understood the human will, not as a choice between sin and righteousness, but choice according to one’s nature: the choice of sin if one’s nature is sinful, the choice of righteousness if one’s nature is good. So accordingly all men’s choices are sin because their nature is sinful. And the grace of God must enable the will of man if he is going to do meritorious works to earn his salvation. This efficient grace is received through the sacraments. Thus salvation is a monergism, where God does all that is needed to earn salvation, not a synergism, where God’s act of grace enables the will of man to earn salvation, as was taught by the later Roman Church.
Furthermore, in Augustine’s teaching, grace is reduced to something that enables the human will to do good works so that it can earn salvation. These views of Augustine concerning salvation follow from his view of human nature as sinful or corrupt. The Calvinist Reformers denied this view of grace and sees the grace of God as the unmerited favor of God in which God gives to the elect the righteousness or merits earned for them by Christ’s active obedience. That is, God in Christ has earned for them the salvation that they themselves cannot earn because of their sinful nature. But the Calvinist is wrong; righteousness is not merits but is a right personal relationship to God through faith ( Rom. 4:4-5). And God puts man into this right personal relationship to Himself by His grace, not by vicarious meritorious works that was earned for them by another. The grace of God is not just the unmerited favor of God, but it is the love of God in action to save man from death to life.
“4But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our failures, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).
Calvinism’s view of salvation like Augustine’s is monergistic, that is, God alone is active in salvation, because it believes that since man’s nature is sinful and man does what his nature is, then all the acts of man are sinful and he cannot do any righteous act to earn salvation. Therefore, God alone must earn it for him. Calvinism, denying the Augustinian view that man does these meritorious acts by the grace of God that man receives from God through the sacraments, asserts that God alone does these meritorious acts through the active obedience of Christ; Christ has earned salvation for us. God alone is active in man’s salvation. Not only is the grace of God the work of God but so also is faith, since salvation is “by grace through faith” ( Eph. 2:8). According to Calvinism, the faith that receives the gift of God is also the work of God. The Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace teaches that God gives the elect a new nature by which they can believe and thus be saved. Thus not only is salvation by grace as a gift but so also is faith the gift of God. But the phrase in Eph. 2:8, “and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God”, refers not to faith but to salvation. In the Greek of this verse, the demonstrative pronoun translated “that” agrees in gender (masculine) with the verbal participle translated “have been saved”, and not with the noun translated “faith” which is feminine. Salvation is the gift which God has given and is received by man’s faith. And this faith does not earn this salvation by meritorious works. For faith is not a meritorious work.
“8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that [salvation] is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as the result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS)
According to the Biblical view of reality, man is a created personal being in a created physical world and is as such a union of spirit (person or self) and body (physiological organism).
“Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul [nephesh]” (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
When God breathed into the nostrils of the body of man the breath of life, He created man’s spirit and man became a living soul. The soul of man is the union of this created spirit and the body formed from the dust of the ground. Thus man is a dipartite being having two parts, spirit and body; the soul is not a third part of man but is the union of man’s created spirit and his body. Man’s soul as the union of spirit and body is the expression of the human spirit or person in and through the body. Thus, man is neither a dipartite being having two parts of a body and soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor a tripartite being having three parts of a body, soul, and spirit; but man is a dipartite being having a body and spirit with the soul, both the rational and animal soul, as the union of the spirit and the body. The spirit of man is his person, his self.
What is a person? A person may be defined as a being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. Now within the self, existence is known in the act of decision. To exist is to decide. This is particularly apparent in those momentous passionate decisions of a crisis. In fact, every act of decision, whether in a great crisis or not, is the place where existence can be found. The act of decision itself is also an act of existence. That is, to be is to choose. This was partially apprehended in Descartes’ phrase: cognito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. Descartes saw that the act of thinking or even doubting is to exist. For one to think or doubt he had to exist. However, since he sought to fit this into an Greek philosophical scheme of thought, Descartes did not recognize that thinking and doubting are basically acts of decision. Not only to think or doubt but to decide is to exist. Any act of decision is an act of existence: decerno ergo sum, I choose, therefore I am. A person therefore should be defined as a being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an “it,” which is a being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom, no free will, no ability to choose. Thus the existence of a person is found in his ability to choose, to make decisions.
“I choose, therefore, I am”, not, “I think, therefore, I am”. To be is to choose, not just to think or to preceive. Man’s reason is a function and an expression of his will. This freedom of decision of man, not his reason, is what distinguishes man from the rest of creation; this is what gives to man his existence as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character.
Now a careful analysis of decision reveals that every act of decision involves three elements:
(a) the agent making the decision,
(b) the alternatives to be decided between, and
(c) a criterion to decide by.
This third element of every decision, the criterion by which the choice is made, means that every human decision involves a reference to a criterion in or beyond the self. In other words, behind every human decision as to what a person should do or think, there must be a reason. That is, the choice between the altenatives is made with reference to some criterion of choice, and choice cannot be made without this reference.
Now the criterion of a choice must be also chosen, and that choice is made with reference to an ultimate criterion, an ultimate reason for the choice of the criterion. That is, the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person’s god. In this sense, every man must have a god, that is, an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his freedom-of-decision, man shows that he is such a being that must necessarily appeal to an ultimate criterion, a god. In fact, his every uncoerced decision implies this ultimate criterion. Since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god.
According to the Greek thinkers, Reason, the universal and necessary, is the divine or God. The divine, according to the Greek conception of reality, is that which is not subject to change, decay or death; the gods in Homer are “immortals.” The divine, therefore, cannot be known through the senses because that which is known through the senses is a world characterized by change, decay or death. But since the objects of reason are always and everywhere the same, the divine can be known through reason. This eternal, unchanging realm of the Ideas, the Universals, the objects of Reason, are the divine. Both Plato and Aristotle held reason to be divine. God is the divine or eternal realm of the Ideas in Plato’s philosophy, or he is a self-thinking thought of Aristotle’s philosophy. But since the concepts of God and man are correlatives, the Greek concept of man reflects the image of this god. Since reason is god, man viewed in the light of this god, is a rational animal. Reason is the divine part of man. This view of man is the underlying assumption in the all of the historical attempts to relate the human to the divine in Christ. This Greek view of man is the cause of the problem of the nature of Christ.
This is not the Bibical view of man or of God. God is not Reason, the universal and necessary. And Ultimate reality is not the universal and the necessary. That is, Reason is not God. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; it is not the universal ideas in God’s mind that determine how or why God will create man and the world, but His unlimited sovereign will (Rev. 4:11). Since reason is a function of the will, God is rational and His reason is a function of His will. Thus the world that God has chosen to create is rational.
Man is also a person (or more accurately, a spirit [person] in a body – see Gen. 2:7), whose existence is also to be found, not in his reason, but in his limited free will and decision. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion in or beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god. Reason is not the divine part in man but is a function of the will of the person. To be is to choose, not to think or to know. Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real. It is upon decision that any knowledge finally depends.
The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, used their freedom of choice to disobey God and choose a false god, wisdom and knowledge; that is, Reason. The basic sin is turning from the true God and to faith in a false god of some kind; it is idolatry. Sin is any choice contrary to ultimate allegiance or faith in the true God (Rom. 14:23). The consequence of Adam’s sin was death (Gen. 2:16-17): physical death (the separation of their spirits from their bodies) and spiritual death (the separation of their spirits from God). In other words, they lost their fellowship with God and with each other (Gen. 3:7-8) and their dominion over creation. But even though they have fallen from the image of God, they still are persons and still have the freedom of choice.
The descendants of Adam are born not in the image of God but in the image of Adam, the man of dust, the old man, and as such are subject to death, physical and spiritual. Death has been inherited by all men (Rom. 5:12). And since they have been born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing personally the true God, and since they must have a god, an ultimate criterion of decision, they choose a false god as their God and thereby sin (Gal. 4:8). The creation, man himself, contains a knowledge about the true God which leaves them without excuse for the sin of idolatry (Rom. 1:19-20). But this knowledge is about the true God and is not a personal knowledge of the true God which comes from an encounter and fellowship with God.
As Christianity spread thoughout the Roman world, the Biblical view of reality came into conflict with the Greek view of reality. The difference between these two views of reality is most clearly seen in their views of man. Attempts were made to resolve this conflict and the difference in their views of man by trying to synthesize these two views of reality.
| Hebrew-Christian | Medieval Synthesis | Greek-Roman | |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Creator | Supernatural – Grace | The rational |
| World | Created | Natural – Nature | The non-rational |
| Man | spirit (person) & body | spirit (moral) & soul (rational) & body (animal) | mind (rational) & body (non-rational) |
Ultimate reality is not the universal and necessary and this Reason is not man’s ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This basic incompatibility between the Greek and Biblical view of God and man explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood.
And this is what happened in the early church as it sought to explain the relationship of the divine and human in the God-man Jesus Christ. They misunderstood the rational soul of man as the third part of man, the spirit and body being the other two parts. But the rational soul of man is not the third part of man, but is the expression of man’s spirit or person in and through his body (see Gen. 2:7). Thus the Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of a spirit and the body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a dipartite being having two parts of a body and rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis of man as a tripartite being having three parts of a body, a soul, and a spirit, where the soul is considered the animal soul and the spirit was considered to be the mind, the rational soul of the Greek view. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of his spirit or person in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
In the incarnation, the divine Word, the Son of God, took the place, not of the human soul (psuche), but of the human spirit (pneuma) in the man Jesus. His human soul is the union of His divine spirit (His Person) and His human body. Thus Jesus is one person with two natures; His divine nature is the divine Word, the Son of God, and His human nature is His human soul and His human body where His human soul is the expression of His one divine spirit or person in and through His human body.
This view of the incarnation is not the Word-Flesh Christology of Apollinarianism. In the late A.D. 300, an Alexandrian, named Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, tried to explain how the Word of God became flesh, a human being. He assumed that man was a dipartite being having two parts, a body and a rational soul. Now in the incarnation, the Word of God took on a human body, and thus Christ had a human body, but the divine Logos took the place of the human rational soul. Apollinaris wrote,
“The Word became flesh without assuming a human mind; a human mind is subject to change and is the captive of filthy imaginations; but He was a divine mind, changeless and heavenly.” [1]
Theodore of Mopsuestia, the great leader of the theologians at Antioch, accused Appollinars of contradicting Scrpture. The New Testament describes Christ as “afraid” and “growing in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). Now these statements apply to Christ’s mind: “It is obvious that the body did not grow in wisdom.” Therefore, unless the Apollinarians claimed that during Jesus’ boyhood the divine Logos grew in wisdom — a view which “not even these men are so impudent as to maintain in their wickedness” [2] — they must acknowledge that Christ had a human mind, not just a human body.
Apollinaris offered a compromise. The human mind, he explained, is composed of parts. Its lower elements feel fears and emotions, while reason dwells in its highest part. Christ had not only a human body but also the lower parts of the human mind; the divine Logos replaced only the human reason. Theodore responded that the real problem concerned salvation, and there this compromise did not help. Since Christ saved humanity by uniting it with divinity, only those parts of us which have been united with divinity in Christ will be saved. Therefore, if Christ lacked a human reason, then human reason has not been united with divintity in Christ and will not be saved. In the words of Gregory of Nazianzus,
“If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.” [3]
Appollinars’ theory of the Person of Christ clearly assumes the Platonic tripartite distinction between body (soma), animal soul (psuche), and rational soul or mind (nous), as three distinct element in man, Thus he viewed Christ as having a human body and an animal soul, but not a human rational soul, as the seat of rationality and intelligence, Accordingly, instead of a human rational soul, the divine Word of God took its place and was the divine nature in Christ. Thus Christ was not completely human.
This is not the Biblical understanding of man presented here. The Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of a spirit and the body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a dipartite being having two parts of a body and rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis of man as a tripartite being having three parts of a body, rational soul, and spirit. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of man’s spirit in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
In the incarnation, the divine Word, the Son of God, took the place, not of the human soul (psuche), but of the human spirit (pneuma) in the man Jesus. His human soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the union of His divine spirit and His human body. Thus Jesus is one person with two natures; His divine nature is the divine Word, the Son of God, and His human nature is His human soul and His human body where His human soul is the expression of His one divine spirit or person through His human body.
Did Jesus have a human spirit? The answer is “No” and “Yes”. No, the divine Word of God took the place the human created spirit in the God-man Jesus. And yes, the Word of God took upon Himself the limitations of a created human spirit. As Paul indicates in Phil. 2:5-8:
“5Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. 8And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
That is, in Jesus, the Word of God took the place of the created human spirit, but he took upon Himself the limitations of that human spirit; “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being in the likeness of man.” Thus Jesus was the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), that is, a divine person or spirit in a human body with all its limitations, but without sin.
The purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God is salvation. Since salvation is basically from death to life, Christ on the cross entered into our death, both spiritually and physically, in order that man can be made alive with Christ in His resurrection. By faith, we can then say: His death is my death and His resurrection is my resurrection. On the cross, Christ died both spiritually and physically. His body died physically on the cross when He gave up His spirit (Matt. 27:50; John 19:30). His spirit was separated from His body. But before He died physically, He died spiritually.
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’-ni?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'” (Matt. 27:46)
This cry was misunderstood by the bystanders as a calling upon Elijah (Matt. 27:47-49). But it was not a calling on Elijah, but it was His spirit as the Son of God calling upon God His Father. He had entered into our spiritual death inherited from Adam and His spirit was separated from God His Father. This spiritual death was not a non-existence of His spirit, but was a separation between His spirit as the Son of God from God His Father. This is only time in all eternity that He as the Son of God was separated from God His Father. It happened because He had entered on the cross into our spiritual death inherited from Adam (Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). This raises the problem of how is this possible. As it was expressed by those who mocked Him, saying
“He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliever him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” (Matt. 27:42)
How can God die? The obvious answer is “No, God cannot die.” Then how could the Son of God die? And if Jesus dies, then how can he be the Son of God? As Greeks understood the divine, the gods are immortal; they never die. Then how could the Son of God die? Now their understanding of God as immortal was based on their understanding of God as unchanging in His being, therefore He could not change by dying. And they argued that God does not change because He is timeless. But Biblical God does not change because He is timeless, but because He keeps His promises. The prophet Malachi says for God,
“‘6For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. 7From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 3:6-7 NAS)
If Israel turns from their sins and returns to the Lord, then they will not be consumed because the Lord God is unchanging in keeping His promises not to destroy them if they will return to Him. Thus the Biblical God is unchanging, not because He is a timeless unchanging super-It, but because the Biblical God, who keeps His promises, is three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are without beginning or end. The Biblical God has time, but His time has no beginning nor end. His time is an absolute time, not like our created time which has a beginning.
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” (Gen. 1:1) The beginning of the heaven and earth was also the beginning of created time. When God created the heaven and earth, God created our time. But God’s time was not created; it never started nor will it end; it is absolute without beginning or end. God created the heavens and earth by an act of His will. As those in heaven sang,
“Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they exist and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
God is three Persons by whose will all things were created and do exist. Now an act of the will, a choice, involves time: the time before the choice, the now of the choice, and the time after of the choice. Since God as three persons makes choices, and since an act of the will, a choice, involves time, then God must have time in which They exercises His will.
Thus this will of God means that God has time, but it is not a created time with a beginning, but absolute time without beginning or end; it is eternal. In this absolute time, God makes decisions and changes do occur. Thus God is both changing and unchanging. So the Greek philosophical distinction between what is God and what is not-God is false that God is unchanging in contrast to what is not-God is changing. Biblically, God is distinguished from what is not-God by His act of Creation by which He as the Creator made decision to create all things, and by His will “they exist and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
And in eternity God also made the decision for the Son of God to become a man and to die on the cross for the salvation of men. So this once in all eternity, at the cross, the Son of God died spiritually by being separated from God the Father. He did not cease to exist, but He entered into our spiritual death and His personal relationship to God His Father was broken and He was temporarily separated personally from God His Father. And He died physically when His spirit was separated from His body.
“Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46; compare Mark 15:37)
Or as the Gospel of John said, “When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished’; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30)
Or as the Gospel of Mathew said, “And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” (Matt. 27:50)
His spirit did not cease to exist, but was released from His body when His body died physically; Jesus “yielded up his spirit” to His Father into whose hands He had commited His spirit. As He died physically, His spirit was separated from His body, but His spirit did not cease to exist. But He did not remain in this spiritual and physical death; God the Father raised the Son of God from the dead, not only physically from the dead, but also spiritually from the dead. And thus God provided for us salvation from death to life, both spiritually and physically.
The historical views on man’s life, after physical death and before the final resurrection, may be summarized as follows: [4]
A. Romanist:
1. The wicked descend to hell fire (Mark 9:47, 48), haides (Matt. 11:23).
2. The righteous may have one of the following happen to them:
a. The O.T. righteous went to the “limbus patrum” (fringe of hell), but were released and taken to heaven at Christ’s descent into hell. This is based upon the Medieval doctrine that heaven was not opened up until Christ made His propitiation.
b. The N.T. righteous and the martyrs go directly to heaven, if their lives are free from the stain of sin.
c. Purgatory exists for the saved, but who must yet be purged from the guilt of venial sins (II Macc. 12:45; Mal. 3:2).
B. Traditional Protestant:
1. Hell is real (Luke 16:23; Num. 16:30; Amos 9:2).
2. O.T. believers at physical death went directly to God and to glory (Eccl. 12:7; Psa. 73:24), and N.T. believers have the identical hope (II Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23).
C. Liberal:
Those of this persuasion hold no common belief, but the Biblical teachings are represented as follows:
1. The Hebrews borrowed the pagan concept of sh’ol, which means “asking” or “hallow.” Sheol is
a. an underground space (Prov. 7:27);
b. for good or bad (Job 30:23);
c. dreary, with no rewards (Eccl. 9:10); but
d. Jews may escape (?) (Isa. 26:19).
2. The N.T. then adopted the intertestamental developments on rewards and punishements after physical death.
1. This position follows the view, that all go to Hades (Sheol), “the place of spirits.” Scofield includes N.T. saints here too.
2. It follows the Romanist view of compartments: hades (hell) proper for the lost, and for the saved paradise or Abraham’s bosom, “the part reserved for the blessed,” (cf. Luke 16:19-31).
3. “Paradise is now, since the resurrection of Christ, removed from and located [in] the 3rd heaven,” (Compare II Cor. 12:1-4 with Eph. 4:8-10; Scofield does not use I Pet. 3:19 in this connection).
These four positions may be evaluated briefly as follows:
A. The Romanists resort to Papal tradition and to a questionable exegesis of “descent into hell” passages (Acts 2:27; Eph. 4:8; I Pet. 3:19; 4:6). Other passages on limbo and purgatory are either twisted or non-canonical.
B. The Liberals do not accept the Bible as God’s words; they consider the Bible as human guesses.
1. So their exegesis is hopelessly biased.
a. There is no regard for contradictions that may be produced by the exegesis: the principle of the “Analogia Scriptuae” is rejected; and clear verses in either O.T. and N.T. (such as, for example, on the fact that sin is punished after death) are not considered to be determinative.
b. The O.T. is thus made to conform to contemporary thought patterms of the pagan world and to an assumed evolutionary progress. It contains actually no valid revelation on life after death.
2. Specifically, however, the liberal theory of the “abode of shades” fail to account for:
a. The fact of punishment in sheol.
b. The fact that sheol is held up as a warning to the wicked (Psa. 49:14; 55:15).
c. The hope of the righteous in death (Prov. 14:32) to be delivered from Sheol and received by God (Psa. 49:15; cf. Heb. 11:6).
C. Traditional Protestantism maintains the validity of all the O.T. statements on Sheol and at the same time the unity of the Biblical revelation on life after death in both the O.T. and N.T. This position necessitates a recognition of the different uses of the term “sheol.” The O.T. mentions Sheol 65 times.
1. The local meaning, “Grave,” occurs 20 times. For example: Job 17:13, 14, parallel to the place of the worm, corrupt; Psa. 88:3, parallel to one’s going down into the pit: Psa. 49:14; where the form is consumed (cf. Gen. 42:38; I Sam. 2:6; I Kings 2:6). The “grave” concept thus explains all passages in which the righteous are said to “go down” into sheol (local) though such meaning is denied by both liberals and dispensationalists.
2. The local meaning, “HELL” (Psa. 55:15) occurs 24 times. Cf. Num. 16:30, “to go down alive into hell”; Prov. 15:11, sheol-abaddon; Prov. 15:24, what the righteous man escapes. This sense is applied to the saved only in Psa. 86:13 and Prov. 15:24, and then as escape from it.
3. The abstract meaning, “DEATH” occurs 21 times. Psa. 89:48, parallel to death; so Psa. 16:10 (Acts 2:27). All men, good and bad, suffer this “sheol.” It should be noted, however, that many Hebrews did have the pagan concept, cf. I Sam. 28:11, “Bring him up.”
D. The Dispensational theory seeks on Biblical grounds to disprove the view of one testament (plan of redemption) in its two stages of growth and to replace this view by the view of Hebrew history divided into five dispensations of testing in which Israel failed; and thus dispensationalism treats the O.T. as substandard.
Click here for a discussion of the seven dispensations and then click here for an evaluation of dispensationalism.
Conclusion: [5] In the Hebrew Old Testament, the Hebrew Sheol is the equivalent for Hades, and it refers to the subterranean abode of all of the dead until the judgment. It was divided into two compartments, paradise or Abraham’s bosom for the good, and Gehenna or hell for the bad. Jacob, at his death, went down into Sheol (Gen. 37:35), but so did the wicked Korah and Dathan (Num. 16:30). Such teaching led to the view that Sheol has two compartments – an upper and lower level. It is thought that Christ delivered the righteous in the upper level at time of His resurrection (I Pet. 3:19; Eph. 4:9-10). Those who reject this two-compartment view of Sheol generally hold that Sheol had a double meaning. The word originally meant simply “the grave.” Later it was more specialized and was used to refer to hell. The Greek word hades parallels the Hebrew Sheol. In the LXX, which is the Greek translation of the O.T., “Hades” usually appears as the translation of “Sheol.”
The word “hades” does not occur in the English Bible (KJV), either as a general or proper name, but it is found several times in the original Greek New Testament (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14; I Cor. 15:55, but in the last passage the true reading is thanator, death.). Hades is used in the Greek N.T. to refer to the underworld, the region of the departed. It defines the intermediate state between physical death and the future resurrection. Of the eleven times the word occurs in the N.T., it is rendered as “hell” in the KJV with one exception (I Cor. 15:55, where “grave” appears). Hades seems to be the gathering place of all souls (see Acts 2:27, 31, where it is the Greek translation of “Sheol” in Psa. 16:10). In Luke 16:23-26, all of the dead are located in the underworld, but the word “Hades” itself is used only of the place where the wicked are punished.
Gehenna, from the Greek geenna, is the eternal abode of the wicked. Whereas Hades is an intermediate state, Gehenna is eternal hell. Wherever it is used in N.T., Gehenna always means the place of eternal damnation.
According to Paul’s testimony that absent from the body is to be present with Christ (II Cor. 5:8). Those who die in the Lord in this age go immediately into the presence of the Lord. Those who die without Christ go to Hades, where there is torment (Luke 16:19-31). They will later be brought from Hades to appear before the great white throne of judgment after which they will all be cast into the lake of fire and experience eternal damnation (Rev. 20:11-15).
In the New Testament, as seen above, [6] the term Hades is of comparatively rare occurrence; in our Lord’s own discourses; it is found only three times, and on two of the occasions by way of contrast to the region of life and blessing. Luke 16:19-31, which sets forth the account of the Rich Man and Lazarus (and strictly speaking it is not a parable), indicates a difference in Hades that was changed after the ascension of Christ. Before this far-reaching event, it seems clear that Hades was in two compartments, the domicile respectively of saved and of unsaved spirits. “Paradise” and “Abraham’s bosom,” both common Jewish terms of the day, were adopted by Christ in Luke 16:22; 23:43, to designate the condition of the righteous in the intermediate state. The blessed dead being with Abraham were conscious and “comforted” (Luke 16:25). The dying thief on the cross was on that very day to be with Christ in “Paradise” (Luke 23:42-43). The unsaved were separated from the saved by a “great gulf fixed” (Luke 16:26). The rich man, who is evidently still in Hades, is a representative case and describes the unjudged condition in the intermediate state of the wicked. As to his spirit, he was alive, fully conscious and in the exercise of his mental faculties and also tormented. It is thus apparent that insofar as the unsaved dead are concerned, no change in their abode or state is revealed in connection with the ascension of Christ. At the sinner’s judgment of the Great White Throne, Hades will surrender the wicked. They will be judged and cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:13, 14). However, with regard to the state of the righteous and the location of Paradise, Christ’s ascension has evidently worked a drastic change. The Apostle Paul was “caught up to the third heaven … into Paradise” (II Cor. 12:1-4). Paradise, therefore, now denotes the immediate presence of God. When Christ “ascended up on high”, He “led a multitude of captives” (Eph. 4:8-10). When it was immediately added that Christ “descended first to the lower parts of the earth”, evidently to the Paradise division of Hades, He set free the saved spirit denizens of the underworld. Thus during the current Church age, the redeemed who die, that is, fall asleep, are “absent from the body; at home with the Lord.” (II Cor. 5:8). The wicked by contrast are in Hades. But both are awaiting resurrection, one the resurrection of life and the other the resurrection to condemnation, the Lake of Fire.
ENDNOTES
[1] Apollinaris, Letter to the Bishops Exiled at Diocaesarea 2;
quoted by G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics
(London: S.P.C.K., 1948), p. 111.
This and next two footnotes are taken from
William C. Placher, A History of Christian Theology, an introduction
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), p. 87,
footnotes 24, 25, and 26, respectively.
[2] Quoted in R. A. Norris, Manhood and Christ
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 204.
[3] Gregpry of Nazianzus, Letter 101, to Cledonius the priest,
against Apollinaris, translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, in
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. 7
(Christian Literature Co., 1894), p. 440.
The text of this and the previous paragraph is taken from
William C. Placher, A History of Christian Theology, an introduction
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), pp. 80-81,
[4] The text of the following paragraphs is taken from
J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), pp. 527-529.
[5] The text of the following paragraph is taken from the article on Hell by Robert P. Lightner in
Walter A. Elwell, Editor, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1986), p. 506.
[6] The text of the following paragraph is taken from the article on Ha’des by Merrill F. Unger in
Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Bible Dictionary
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1957, 1961, 1966), pp. 437-438.