These lengthy tirades naturally don’t get read, but they do provide an opportunity to clarify my thoughts (clarify! you say [you nonreaders] — would it were so!). But with your permission I’d like a word anyway in regard to the blood and the body.

Is the soul immortal? No! we say — “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ez 18:4, 20)

But wait a minute! Does the soul die the first death? I say no!

That death is inevitable whether or not we sin (Hb 9:27): “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”. Adam did not fall from an original state of immortality — rather he incurred a penalty which in the book of Revelation is called “the second death” (Rv 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). Adam would have to have taken of the tree of life to have obtained immortality (Gn 3:22).

Jesus said (Mt 10:28), “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Only God can kill the soul! And he does this in the second death!

We never really understood this before, did we?

We are tripartite beings — body, soul, and spirit — of which Paul said (1Th 5:23), “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Over the years I have observed that very few really understood Mr. Armstrong’s teaching on the spirit in man. Maybe that’s due in part to not having been in that year long class of his back there in ’58-59. Remember how Mr. Armstrong was so riveted to this subject?

At the time we believed that we were nothing more than a menagerie molecules which at death experiences total annihilation. But Mr. Armstrong asked this: What if God liked what he saw in you and decided to resurrect several copies — then which one of those perfect clones would really be you? Hmm, there must be something that survives the grave. But what? We had rejected the doctrine of the immortality of the soul because we knew it was not biblical (Ez 18:4, 20; etc.), yet something has to survive the grave — something which is really you and which cannot be cloned or in any way duplicated.

Well — you know the scriptures (1Cor 2, etc.) — it was the spirit in man. And this solved two problems — not only did this spirit survive the grave, it also gave us the power of intellect.

But still there was something missing. This spirit is not the man — it is only IN man. Man is NOT a spirit, he IS a soul (Gn 2:7): “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.”

And so are the animals, as is easy to see in the Hebrew of Genesis. There man is no different. We are all souls.

But now think just a minute. Man IS a soul, and therefore when man sins it is not the spirit IN him that sins, it is the man — the soul — that sins (Ez 18:4, 20). Don’t glide over this. Think! I can’t find a single scripture that says it is the spirit that sins. There are evil spirits — which are spirit beings — and they sin. But as for us — even though we can be of a wrong spirit, it is nevertheless our soul that sins, not our spirit. Why is this?

The spirit is like software — it is information, truth (or lies), understanding (or misunderstanding) — and this is the case with both our spirit and God’s Holy Spirit. Remember how even Mr. Armstrong made this observation, that our spirit is like software — like a program that God stores away when we die and then reinstalls in the hardware of our resurrected body. The spirit in man is not the man — the soul rather IS the man because it is the soul that is the seat of man’s will.

Note how different this is than a computer. A computer is an automaton which can do nothing but what the software has programed it to do. Not so us. We are a soul which is free to choose — to be governed by the spirit of God’s law or to rebel. Therefore our soul is not entirely material because inert matter does not nor can it have such power.

So do you see how we are tripartite beings? We have a body — which is like a machine — and we have software (spirit) which is our knowledge and understanding (conscious and subconscious) and we have a center of our being — a heart or soul — which is free to choose — it has “free moral agency” as no conceivable machine ever could.

And did you know that animals are just like us in this regard? They are not machines! They have bodies and they have their own spirits (instinct and the things they learn along the way), but they are also souls — animals can desire, feel, obey, love, rebel, choose. But what they do not have is the spirit in man which, as the rabbis always said, is man’s capacity for language. Your dog can express all the body language you can — you can know his moods and feelings and desires. But he cannot tell you that his grandmother came from Poland in 1976. And without the priceless gift of language you cannot explain to him the Word of God.

So you might think about it before Passover this year. When you drink that wine you are symbolizing the blood that Christ shed — not for your spirit — but for your soul (Lv 17:11): “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

I say we never really understood this before. Man cannot destroy the soul — it survives the grave and sleeps to the resurrection. Because it has sinned it awaits the second death from which — happily — it has been redeemed.

The Body
At the Passover Jesus said, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Mt 26:28; also Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20) Jesus made no such reference in regard to his body. Why? Note that when Paul repeats these words (1 Cor 11:25) he similarly mentions the new covenant in regard to the blood — but not in regard to the body. Why?

Let me suggest that — just as we always knew but they later said wasn’t so — this is because the blood and the body symbolize different aspects of Messiah’s sacrifice — his sacrifice does not constitute the single indivisible whole they said.

The New Covenant is really the “Old” made new when Israel finally chooses life. This Covenant is between God and all Israel — and through Israel all who will ever be saved. All have sinned and thus all need Messiah’s atoning blood.

Messiah’s body, however, what is it? His body was the temple of the Holy Spirit and as such it was the INSTRUMENT through which God accomplished his work (Rm 6:12-13): “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

Paul uses the plural — “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor 12:27) Before he died Jesus said (Mt 26:26), “Take, eat; this is my body.” Afterwards Paul speaks of Christ's body the Church (1 Cor 10:16-17): “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.”

How very interesting!

The body was Jesus’ literal body and now it is the Church which is composed of all our bodies collectively. When Peter speaks of Messiah’s body (1 Pt 2:24) “by whose stripes ye were healed” he says “ye” meaning that our individual healing takes place in the overall context of the larger body of Messiah. So maybe we should take account of this larger body as we stop to discern the Lord’s body — “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” (1 Cor 11:29-30)

Well one could go on and on. Personal health and our collective health, the instrument of the Gospel and the Gospel imparting life (Jn 6:63 — “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”), all Israel versus the Bride of Christ. The congregation of the elect is now Messiah’s body just as Eve was still a rib in Adam’s body before God formed her into a woman.

God’s marriage to Israel has never been rescinded — it is the Covenant of Life and the blood of that Covenant was always Messiah’s blood. But the Church of the Firstborn is destined to marry the Second Adam (2Cor 11:1-3): “Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

The marriage of the Lamb is NOT the New Covenant — nowhere does it say this! It is a marriage limited to the firstfruits of the first resurrection. Therefore Jesus did not say, “For this is my body of the new testament , which is beaten for many for the remission of sins.”

First Corinthians was written during this same time of year and so isn’t it interesting how concerned Paul is throughout that epistle with the Body of Christ. I won’t burden you nonreaders with any more — though I’m always astounded (as you long-time nonreaders know) how the imagery of Genesis is everywhere — maybe just this from Ephesians 5 —

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Eph 5:22-33)

3 April 2001 Email the author