The Bible and the Immortal Soul
By R. L. Daniels
The Bible should be our only standard of faith, for its teachings cannot fail to lead us in the right way. If we will follow its teaching and if we are children of God we shall be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Yes thoroughly furnished; for the Bible says so, and who will doubt it? I will not. If then, man has an immortal soul or spirit that can exist without a body, we shall be thoroughly furnished with proof from the word of inspiration; and if not, we shall have proof enough to show that. But some one may say he has an immortal soul, and bring Rev. xxii. 9 to prove it. He says that this proves plainly that he has an immortal soul; but if it proves any such thing I fail to see it. I know when John was about to fall at the feet of the Angel to worship, he says, "See that thou do it not; for I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the prophets." It seems from the reading of the passage that the Angel was John's servant and had been a servant of the prophets. He did not say that he was the immortal soul of one of the prophets that had died and gone to heaven as it would have to read if it favored the immortality of the soul. Verse 2 says that he was about to fall before the feet of the Angel. Now I would ask if an immortal soul has feet. It seems that the angel had, but some say that a new body was given it after it went to heaven; but we can find no proof of any such thing in the Bible, consequently we do not believe it. I think the text referred to, fails to prove the immortality of the soul. I think the Bible teaches us that we have no immortality in our present condition; and we are commanded to seek for it by patient continuance in well doing. Rom. ii, 7. Again the Psalmist says, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish." Then if he is immortal, he is destitute of thoughts; "for his thoughts perish." Again, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence;" so the most holy departed soul does not praise the Lord, if he has gone to heaven. Psalms cxv. 17; cxli. 3, 4. Many more texts could be brought to prove that we have not got immortality, but I think this is sufficient for the present. R. L. DANIELS. Ulysses, Pa., Sept. 28th 1857.