SHORT CHRISTIAN READINGS SELECTED FOR FORMER JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
EDITOR'S NOTE: Although the founder of the WatchTower Cult, Charles Taze Russell, was a "Second Adventist", and he "borrowed" many of his teachings from Second Adventist predecessors, some whom promoted various versions of "soul sleep", Russell's own version of "soul sleep" is NOT actually "soul sleep". As we have fully explained in an "EDITOR'S NOTE" in one of the previous articles, Jehovah's Witnesses define a "soul" simply as a living, breathing human or animal. (Body + Spirit = Soul) When the "spirit" (an impersonal active force similar to electricity) exits a body, it dies, and what was once a "soul" simply ceases to exist. It does NOT exist in any separate form, so it can't go anywhere, nor can it "sleep".
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SHEOL - IS IT MERELY THE GRAVE?
Author Unknown
(edited)
The following is a short limited study of the meaning of the Hebrew word "sheol" as used in the Old Testament. Jehovah's Witnesses and some other Second Adventist sects maintain that "sheol" is "the common grave of mankind", and that man simply ceases to exist at death. They also deny any conscious punishment of the wicked after death.
It is this writer's conviction that the Scriptural concept of "sheol" is NOT simply the "grave". I believe that thorough study of the word "sheol" in the Scriptures reveals it to be a place of conscious existence for souls after death. Here are a few reasons why I believe this is so:
1) There exists in Hebrew a specific word for a "grave" -- a "kever". When OT writers wanted to speak of the "grave", they used the word "kever". That they did not view "kever" and "sheol" as synonymous is clear from the way these words are used throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Isa. 14:19, the king is cast out of his "kever" in order to be thrown into "sheol", where other departed spirits can rebuke him (vv.9,10). In this passage, "sheol" and "kever" clearly are not synonyms.
2) This distinction is maintained in the Septuagint as well. In the Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT), "sheol" is never translated as "mneema", which is the Greek word for "grave". It is always translated as "hades", which meant the underworld.
3) Many distinctions exist between "kever" and "sheol". While bodies or corpses in "kever" are described as being unconscious, even rotting, persons in "sheol" are described as being conscious (Isa. 14:4-7; 44:23; Ezek. 31:16; 32:21). While touching a "kever" brings ceremonial defilement (Num. 19:16), the Scriptures never speak of anyone being defiled by Sheol. While we can enter and leave a tomb or grave (2 Kings 23:16), no one is ever said in the OT to enter and then leave Sheol. Many other such distinctions can be found in the Hebrew scriptures.
4) God's revelation to OT saints about the afterlife was not complete. As such, much of the language used about "sheol" is figurative, and incomplete in descriptiveness. Nevertheless, it is clear, I believe, that the OT saints understood that "sheol" represented a place of conscious existence after death, and not merely "the common grave of mankind". It was viewed as a place where one could reunite with his ancestors, tribe, or people (Gen. 15:15; 25:8; 35:29; 37:35; 49:33; Num. 20:24, 28; 31:2; Deut. 32:50; 34:5; 2 Sam. 12:23). That is why Jacob looked forward to reuniting with Joseph in Sheol (Gen 37:35).
5) Sheol is the place where the souls of all men go at death -- good and evil. The Scriptures suggest that Sheol has different sections. There is the contrast between "the lowest part" and "the highest part" of Sheol (Deut. 32:22). This figurative language implies that there are divisions or distinctions within Sheol. While this is not clearly stated in the Old Testament, there seems to be some kind of distinction within Sheol. Later rabbinic writers clearly taught that Sheol had two sections. The righteous were in bliss in one section, while the wicked were in torment in the other. Jesus clearly described such in Luke 16.
6) The condition of those in Sheol is described in the following ways: At death man becomes a "rephaim", i.e., a "ghost, "shade," or "disembodied spirit" according to Job 26:5; Ps. 88:10; Prov. 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Isa. 14:9; 26:14,19. Instead of describing man as passing into nonexistence, the Old Testament states that man becomes a disembodied spirit. The usage of the word "rephaim" establishes this truth. Langenscheidt's Hebrew-English Dictionary to the Old Testament (p.324) defines "rephaim" as referring to the "departed spirits, Hades." Brown, Driver and Briggs (p.952) define "rephaim" as "Hades, ghosts ... name of dead in Sheol." Keil and Delitzsch define "rephaim" as referring to "those who are bodiless in the state after death." This concept is carried on into the New Testament in such places as Luke 24:37-39. A belief in "ghosts" necessarily entails a belief that man survives the death of the body. Those in Sheol are pictured as conversing with each other and even making moral judgments on the lifestyle of new arrivals (Isa. 14:9-20; 44:23; Ezek. 32:21). They are thus conscious entities while in Sheol.
7) God's judgment upon the wicked does not cease when the wicked die in their sins. Thus some of the spirits in Sheol experience the following:
a. God's anger (Deut. 32:22): According to Moses, the wicked experience the fire of YHWH's anger in the "lowest part of Sheol." This passage would make no sense if the wicked are nonexistent, and Sheol merely is the grave.
b. Distress (Ps. 116:3): The Hebrew word "matzar" refers to the distress that is felt when in the straits of a difficulty. It is found in this sense in Ps. 118:5. Also, the word "chevel", which is the poetic parallel for "matzar", means "cords of distress" (2 Sam. 22:6; Ps. 18:6).
c. Writhing in pain (Job 26:5): The Hebrew word "chool" means to twist and turn in pain like a woman giving birth. It is obvious that nonexistence can hardly experience anger, distress, or the like.
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Ecclesiastes 9:5 and "Soul Sleep"
By Tom McGovern
(edited)
One of the courses I took with Moody Bible Institute spent a good deal of time talking about misinterpretations of scripture caused by taking texts out of context. I could probably go on all night about that. I was a Jehovah's Witness for nearly 30 years, and their use of scripture is often like a textbook case for taking the text out of its context.
One prime example that springs to mind is Ecclesiastes 9:5,6, which the [Jehovah's] Witnesses take out of context to teach their doctrines of "soul sleep" (they don't call it that) and annihilation of the wicked. These verses read: "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun."
(Incidentally, I don't mean to pick on just the [Jehovah's] Witnesses here. There are a number of other groups, including Seventh-day Adventists, Christadelphians, offshoots of the Herbert W. Armstrong Churches of God, etc. [all "Second Adventists" offshoots] who teach the same/similar doctrine. I use the [Jehovah's Witnesses] as an example because it is the most familiar to me.)
The [Jehovah's] Witnesses refer to the first part of the verse, which says "the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing." They insist that this scripture proves that the dead are unconscious, awaiting a future resurrection by God. However, even a brief consideration of the context quickly reveals that the text is speaking of appearances from a human point of view. No [Jehovah's] Witness would ever agree that one who dies will "have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten." They would quickly be forced to agree that this part of the text is speaking from man's viewpoint, not God's. They do believe that faithful [Jehovah's] Witnesses will receive a resurrection and reward from God in the future. They insist that those who die continue to exist in God's memory and that he will restore them to life in the "new world".
For the same reason, the [Jehovah's] Witness would be forced to admit that it is not true in the absolute sense, but only as it appears to man, that "never again will they [the dead] have a part in anything that happens under the sun." They firmly believe that the vast majority of mankind will be resurrected to earthly life again and given a chance to obey God (i.e., "qualify for" their salvation).
So the immediate context refutes the official position of Jehovah's Witnesses on that verse. In a similar way, the context of the whole book also demonstrates at many points that the book is written from a human viewpoint. The writer is not revealing ultimate spiritual truths so much as he is describing how man sees things and describing the nature of life apart from God. From a human point of view, separated from God, it may well be true that "everything is meaningless", (Ecclesiastes 1:2) but that is certainly not how God intended human life to be. Life is meaningless only apart from God -- from the human, material point of view.
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After posting the above material on a blog ... , a Jehovah's Witness wrote to me to ask, "How do you get around 'the soul that is sinning will die?'" The following was my response:
I guess I have to "get around" it by reading it in context and considering what the text is really talking about rather than extracting a few words from a single verse and building a doctrine around them or using them as a proof-text for what I already believe.
It's no secret that, even in English, we use the word "soul" in different ways. We can at times refer to a soul as a whole person, as with the classic example of a ship going down with "all souls lost". Or, a soul can mean the spiritual part of the person as opposed to the body, as it is more often used in common English. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that both usages also appear in the Bible. It appears that the text you are referring to is Ezekiel 18:1-4, which reads:
The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: "The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?" As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD , you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son-both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die."
Now, what is the point of this passage? Is it trying to explain the meaning of the term "soul" from a theological perspective? Or is it talking about something completely different? When we read the verses in context, we find that there was a teaching among the Israelites of a sort of "inherited guilt" -- that sons would be punished for the sins of their fathers. God, through Ezekiel, is making the point that such would not be the case -- each person -- each "soul" -- would face the penalty for his own sins, not those of someone else.
An assumption you are making with regard to these verses is that the word "die" means an absence of consciousness. That isn't necessarily the case. Adam was told that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit, he would die. He didn't lose consciousness on that day, but he was separated from God by his sin. Death in the Bible often refers to a separation of one sort or another, and one such usage is in reference to the separation of the soul from the body. For example, refer to Genesis 35:17-19:
When she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, "Do not fear, for now you have another son." It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
Another example is 1 Kings 17:21-23:
And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, "O Lord my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him. Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, 'See, your son lives!'"
Even Jesus spoke of soul and body as two separate things at Matthew 10:28:
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
At Philippians 1:21-24, Paul spoke of "departing from the flesh" and being with Christ:
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.
Notice that "departing" is contrasted with "remaining in the flesh" -- obviously Paul expected to be with Christ in a state that was not "in the flesh".
At 2 Corinthians 5:6-9, Paul also wrote:
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
And at Revelation 6:9, 10 we read about souls in heaven:
And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony that they held, and they were crying with a great voice, saying, "Till when, O Master, the Holy and the True, dost Thou not judge and take vengeance of our blood from those dwelling upon the land?"
Now, it's easy to understand the usage of "soul" in Ezekiel 18:4 with reference to all these other verses. What I have to ask is how you "get around" all these plain statements that plainly show the soul to be distinct from the body?
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Jehovah's Witnesses and the Immortal Soul
By Jason Barker
(edited)
Jehovah's Witnesses have long argued against the existence of an immortal soul. For example, the Watchtower states:
"[Most churches] hold to the unscriptural doctrine that man has an immortal soul. 'Is that teaching so bad?' some may wonder. Do not forget that Satan's first lie was that sin would not bring death.the teaching that man has an immortal soul tends to further Satan's lie. It has led millions of persons into fearful dealings with demons who pose as the souls of the dead. And the doctrine makes the Bible truth about a coming resurrection meaningless."1
The charge that the doctrine of the soul is an unscriptural lie of Satan is significant, because the doctrine is central to Christian soteriology and eschatology. Is the Watchtower Society right? And, if there is no immortal soul, what would be the future of humanity?
What Happens to Us When We Die?
The Society attempts to answer the second of the above questions in their new booklet, What Happens to Us When We Die (henceforth referred to as What Happens)? The Society explains, "The word 'soul' as used in the Bible refers to a person or an animal or to the life that a person or an animal enjoys."2
Because the soul is simply life of a being, the soul ceases to exist after death.3 The majority of faithful Jehovah's Witnesses, however, will be resurrected after Armageddon; they will then be given a soul, or life, that exactly duplicates their personality in a new body that will live forever on earth.4 Only 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses will go to heaven.5
"What Happens" attempts to refute the doctrine of the soul using two approaches: historic and hermeneutic.
The Historical Argument
The first half of the booklet allegedly traces the historic development of the concept of an eternal soul in the world religions. There are several critical weaknesses in this section. First, the majority of the sources are out-of-date, having been written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a substantial amount of more recent and authoritative scholarship has been published on the subject. Second, the Society does not objectively analyze the significance of the universality of the concept of immortality. It instead simply shows that all world religions have a concept of the afterlife,implying that the "kaleidoscope of beliefs" proves that the Christian doctrine of an eternal soul is therefore inherently unreliable and unbiblical.6
Third, using a tactic that many Christians have noted in the earlier Watchtower booklet, Should You Believe in the Trinity, the Society makes unsubstantiated claims. One such claim is that the concept of an immortal soul can be traced to the worship of Nimrod at the tower of Babel.7
The Hermeneutic Argument
The Society's hermeneutic argument against the doctrine of the soul constitutes its most significant challenge to orthodox Christianity. The Society, through an analysis of the Hebrew word ne'phesh and the Greek word psykhe' in selective biblical passages, attempts to prove that the Bible does not teach that humans have an immortal soul.
An example of the Society's argument using the Old Testament is Genesis 2:7, which states, "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 [ne'phesh]." The Society comments, "Note that Adam did not have a soul; he was a soul - just as someone who becomes a doctor is a doctor. The word 'soul,' then, can describe a whole person."8 The booklet then cites the use of ne'phesh in Leviticus 5:1 and22:30, Deuteronomy 24:7, Judges 16:16, and Job 19:2 to show that "there is no indication in these passages that the soul is some shadowy entity that lives on after death."9 As this article will later show, however, these passages do not disprove that the soul is immortal.
The Society uses a similar argument with the word psy khe' in the New Testament. Quoting Acts 2:43 ("And fear came upon every soul"),John 12:27, Romans 13:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:14, and 1 Peter 3:20, What Happens claims that the word psy khe', like ne'phesh, refers to the whole person.10 Interestingly, the Society makes a critical mistake in its attempt to use an outside source as proof for its interpretation. The booklet quotes Nigel Turner as saying that psy khe' "signifies what is characteristically God's ruah [spirit] breathed into it. The emphasis is on the whole self."11 That the Society is using Turner out of context can be seen from his using the word ruah, the Hebrew word for spirit. If Turner were addressing the New Testament presentation of God breathing His Spirit into a soul, he would have used the Greek word pneuma for Spirit (terms used by the Society elsewhere in the booklet12). Excluding this obvious error, the numerous New Testament comments on the afterlife easily disprove the Society's teaching.
The Society uses a similar hermeneutic strategy to prove that, since the soul is merely a person's life, the soul is extinguished at death. A particularly notable example, one which also exemplifies the errors in the Watchtower's New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, is the booklet's analysis of Mark 3:4. The NWT quotes Jesus as asking, "Is it lawful on the sabbath to do a good deed or to do a bad deed, to save or to kill a soul?" The Society concludes, "The death of the soul simply means the death of the person."13 The problem is that the word soul (psy khe') does not appear in this verse. Instead, Jesus asks whether it is permissible to save or take a life (psuche). Psuche, which literally means "breath," is different from the Greek words for the immortal soul (psy khe') or for the vitality of life (zoe). The Society has deliberately inserted a different word into its Bible in order to support its doctrine.
What the Bible Really Teaches About the Soul
It is clear at this point that the Watchtower cannot be relied upon to accurately teach what the Bible teaches about the soul. Nonetheless, the existence of this booklet requires a thoughtful Christian response.
The Society is correct that the Old Testament is not explicit in its teaching about the immortal soul. Eerdmans Bible Dictionary notes,"As with other terms such as 'body,' 'heart,' and 'spirit,' 'soul' does not designate a part of a human being, but rather the whole person considered from one particular aspect of functioning. As such, it represents primarily the life force of the body or the inner life of the person, encompassing desires and emotions."14
This does not settle the matter, however, because Christian doctrine is not formed solely upon one section of the Bible. The most effective interpreter of Scripture is Scripture; all Scripture is inspired by God,who does not contradict Himself.15 The Old Testament passages about the soul must be therefore understood in context with the New Testament.
In reference to the patriarchs of the Old Testament, Jesus said that Moses' reference to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shows that Jehovah is God of the living;16 the patriarchs are therefore alive with God, and thus their souls are immortal. The appearance of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration also proves this point17 - God would be cruel to temporarily resurrect the prophets for that moment,only to kill them again.
The Society frequently quotes Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 to prove that the soul is extinguished at death, "The dead know not any thing, for there is no work, nor device, no knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." The problem for the Society is that this passage does not necessarily teach the annihilation of the soul. Because Ecclesiastes contrasts two opposing perspectives of the world - the human perspective, and the perspective given through God's revelation - many Christian scholars understand this passage to be stating that, from a fatalistic human perspective, the dead are conscious of nothing.18 Other Christian scholars understand the passage to mean that the dead are conscious of nothing in that continues to happen in the physical realm.19
Support for the conclusions of Christian scholars about Ecclesiastes can be found in the New Testament, which teaches that believers who have died currently experience unsurpassable joy,20 while unbelievers suffer conscious torment.21 These passages clarify the statement that "there is no work, nor device" in the grave. Ecclesiastes 9, when taken in context with New Testament passages describing the judgment of Christ,22 show that there is nothing that can be done to improve the morality or spirituality of actions after death, for humans live only once and then face judgment.23
Conclusion
The answer to the question asked by the Watchtower Society's new booklet, What Happens to Us When We Die, is not the answer given by the Society. While the Bible does use the word soul to refer to the mortal life, it also clearly refers to that part of humans that exists eternally. This understanding is crucial, because the ultimate state of a person's eternal soul depends on whether one has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
1 Happiness - How to Find It, Brooklyn,NY: The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1980, p. 171.
2 What Happens to Us When We Die?, Brooklyn, NY: The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1998, p. 20.
3 Ibid., p. 22.
4 Ibid., pp. 26-28.
5 Ibid., p. 27.
6 Ibid., p. 17.
7 Ibid., p. 7.
8 Ibid., p. 19.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., pp. 19-20.
11 Ibid., p. 20. Insertion and ellipses in original.
12 Ibid., p. 24.
13 Ibid., p. 22.
14 The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, s.v. "soul."
15 2 Timothy 3:15-16; 2 Peter 1:21.
16 Luke 20:37-38.
17 Matthew 17:3.
18 Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Eugene, Or: Harvest House, 1993, pp. 321-22.
19 Ibid., p. 323.
20 Philippians 1:23.
21 Luke 16:22, 23; Mark 9:47, 48; Revelation19:20.
22 See Matthew 25.
23 Hebrews 9:27.