PURSUED BY LOVE

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2. Alive or Dead?

“All souls are mine”, says God (Ezekiel 18:4). We belong to God in our totality: not alone our bodies, but also our souls belong to Him. We are in no sense our own. The human body does not have life in and of itself, but receives life from the soul. We are told in Scripture: “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” (Genesis 2:7). All the functions of the body: movement, circulation, breathing along with everything else, all are animated by the soul. When the soul returns to God who gave it and leaves the body everything ceases. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). A body with no soul or spirit is a corpse. Physical death follows when the bond between body and soul is severed. Death involves the removal of the gift of life. This soul departs in disembodiment, the body becomes a corpse and is given over to corruption. Even if in death a corpse retains some of its former beauty in its face for example, it is still useless and incapable of any action. Its inclination to dissolution continues apace. On death the body does not disappear. It rots. Left unburied the body will emit the obnoxious odours of death.

What has been said about the body is similarly true of the soul. If the soul is separated from its life-giving principle, namely the Holy Spirit, it is spiritually dead. Separated from God, it is devoid of spiritual life, unable to perform any good work and is inclined to do evil.
The dead soul produces terrible effects that are fearful to behold. The utterances of such a soul are sinful even as a dead body emits only offensive odours. A corpse may be embalmed and its corruption in its unsightliness concealed. The spiritually dead in much the same way, embalm their dead souls, covering them with a shroud of self-righteousness so that hardly anything can be seen of the inner corruption. Every soul is immortal. A dead soul does not depart to annihilation or eventual dissolution but lives on even when separated from the body at physical death. It becomes instead like a perpetually rotting corpse from which poisonous gases will continue their pestilential work in hell for ever. Despite this, the human soul can by God’s grace be reanimated to new life now this side of the grave. Though severed from its life principle in God, it is still a human soul and God, who is merciful, can re-establish that bond. This quickening of the dead soul is called regeneration or the new birth.

 

NEXT REGENERATION AN ACT OF GOD

 

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