Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the body: what is the testimony of the New Testament?
What fate awaits the soul when the body dies? Does the soul cry when the body dies? Or is he glad to be freed from "slavery of the body"? Or does it die out with the body and have the same fate in death? Although the view that the soul survives the death of the body was very common in the world of ancient pagan belief, this was not the view of the early Christian church. The soul is not immortal in itself, according to the Lord Jesus Christ: "Whoever finds (keeps) his soul (ψυχὴ) will lose it, and whoever loses his soul (ψυχὴ) for me will find it." (Matthew 10:39) “He that loveth his soul (ψυχὴ) shall lose it; and he that hateth his soul (ψυχὴ) in this world shall keep it forever.” (John 12:25) Here we read that a man may lose his soul (ψυχὴ) for Jesus—probably extinguished by men: How then could he be immortal? When the soul dies, it leaves life with the body, enters a state close to the meaning of sleep, and rises at the end of the world with the body, receivi...