What Is A Christian? Part III
To pick up from Part II we will look at body, soul, spirit, and formed, made,
created.
In the beginning (whenever that was) man was formed, made, and created.
The Hebrew word for "formed" is yatsar, "fashioned out of something that
was already in existence." God formed man out of the dust of the ground. The
word "man" in Hebrew is adam, meaning "red earth".
Our next word, "soul", is the Hebrew word nephesh. What is soul? The
soul in man is that which gives the body its life, its vitality. It is "breath
life".
God put life into Adam; He made man a living soul. The word "made" is the
Hebrew word asah, "a substance required of which the thing made
consists." Sometimes it is called "the spirit of man". It has nothing to do
with whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian.
This record in Acts refers to Paul and Luke's ship sailing to Rome. Except for
Paul and Luke, the ship was full of non-Christians. "Souls" merely means "alive
people"; those having breath-life.
Soul is not spirit. Soul is not eternal nor is it immortal. The modern church
has been illogical on this truth because it usually teaches that the soul is
eternal life spirit and goes back to God; but then they deny that a cow, having
a soul, must go back to God.
The word "life" is the Hebrew word nephesh, "soul". Every living beast
has a living soul, just as every living man and woman have a living soul.
Where is the soul life of man and beast?
The soul life is in the blood and is passed on when the sperm impregnates the
egg at the time of fertilization.
What ultimately happens to the soul? As the body goes back to dust, the soul is
passed on from one person to his progeny. If a person has no offspring, his
soul is gone when he dies; it is no more. When a man takes his last breath, his
soul terminates -- since it is not immortal.
After briefly studying "formed" and "made", we must now consider the Biblical
usage of the word "created".