CHAPTER ELEVEN
HISTORICAL PROOF
OF THE CHANGING OF THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE
The heathenizing of the church in the medieval dark age: The Bible teaching were changed by bringing into the church the doctrines of Purgatory, the sale of indulgences, an immortal soul, Hell, going to Heaven or Hell at death without the judgment, worship of Mary and saints, Nether World, Holy Water, forbidding eating of meat on Friday, candle-burning, and many other teachings.
CHURCH FATHERS
The early so-called church fathers, Clement of Rome (said to be a companion of Paul), Ignatius (killed 107), Theophilus (died 181), Justin Martyr (killed 166), Tatian, Irenaeus, and others of the second century writers believed in conditional immortality. It was not unto the end the third century that the doctrine of an immortal soul gained a foothold in the church. The immortal soul doctrine is not in the writings of the first centuries. Tertullian near the end of the third century is the first to say anything about it, and then he made it clear that his opinion was that of Plate, and it was not the opinion of Christ
J. A. BEETH summed it up very well. "The phrase, the soul immortal, so frequent and conspicuous in the writings of Plato, we have not found in pre-Christian literature outside the influence of Greek philosophy; nor have we found it in Christian literature until the latter part of the second century. We have noticed that all the earliest Christian writers who use this phrase were familiar with the teaching of Plato; that one of these, Tertullian, expressly refers both the phrase and doctrine to him; and that the early Christian writers never support this doctrine by appeals to the Bible, but only by arguments similar to those of Plato...We have failed to find any trace of this doctrine in the Bible...It is altogether alien, both in phrase and thought, to the teaching of Christ and His apostles" Immortality Of The Soul, pages 53, 54. Tertullian is truthful about where his belief came from and said he based it on Plato, not the Bible. He said, "For some things are known even by nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many...I may use, therefore, the opinion of a Plato, when he declares, 'Every soul is immortal'" Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 1916.
JUSTIN MARTYR: Killed about A. D. 166. The Greek doctrine of an immortal soul was believed by some in his time and opposed by him and others of the Church Fathers. He said, "For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this...who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians." The First Apology Of Justin, Edinburgh Edition, page 480. He is saying those who believe the dead are alive any place before the resurrection do not believe in the resurrection, and because they do not believe in the resurrection they are not Christians even if they think they are.
IRENAEUS MARTYR: Died about A. D. 202, a pupil of Polycarp, Martyr A. D. 147 said, “Some who are reckoned among the orthodox to beyond the prearranged plan for the exaltation of the just, and are ignorant of the methods by which they are disciplined beforehand for incorruption; they entertain heretical opinions. For the heretics…affirm that immediately upon their death they shall pass above to heavens. Those persons, therefore, who reject a resurrection affecting the whole man, and do their best to remove it from the Christian scheme, know nothing as to the plan of resurrection” Ante-Nicene Fathers, Erdmann Publishing, Volume one, page 560. "It is the Father of all who impart continuance forever and ever to those who are saved. For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed on him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days forever and ever, But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created and has not recognized Him who bestowed the gift upon him, deprives himself of continuance forever and ever. And for this reason the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: 'If you have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?’–indicating that those who in this brief temporal life have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from him length of days forever and ever." Edinburgh Edition, Volume 1, page 252. “Continuance forever and ever” should have been translated “continuance ages and ages.”
ORIGEN Died A. D. 235: Mosheim said, "The foundation of all his faults was, that he fully believed nothing to be more true and certain than what the philosophy he received from Ammonius taught him respecting God, the world, souls, demons, etc. and therefore he in a measure recast and remolded the doctrines of Christ after the pattern of that philosophy" Historical Commentaries, Volume 2, page 159.
The early non-inspired writers used Bible statements, which are used by both sides. Two examples:
1. An example: When an early writer quoted Matthew 10:28, "God is able to destroy...soul (psukee)," it is used today by the unconditional immoralists to prove the church fathers believed God will not destroy the soul (psukee), and by the conditional immoralists to prove the church fathers did believe God can and will destroy the soul (psukee). Both sides assume that the early non-inspired writers understood the word "soul" (psukee) and other words just as they do. Therefore, both sides have many of the same quotations from the early writers. The first and second century writers used Greek, and the word they used was "psukee" not the English word "soul"
1st. Unconditional immoralists translate “psukee” into "soul" and then apply today's English meaning, an undying part of a person to "psukee."
2nd. Conditional immoralists read the same writers and say the early writers used "psukee" as the Hebrew word "nehphesh" is used in Genesis, a "living creature."
2. Another example: When Matthew 5:22 is quoted by the church father, they wrote in Greek and used "Gehenna" just as Christ did. Some English translations of the church fathers change Gehenna into Hell. They change one proper noun, the name if a particular place (Gehenna) into another proper noun, the name of another particular place (Hell) just as the King James Version did. Whether the early writer used “Gehenna” or whether Gehenna is changed into “Hell” makes them say what the translator wanted them to say; by changing the Creek word “Gehenna” into the English word “Hell, what was said is changed from being one place, Gehenna, to being Hell, a completely different place; both the place and the location of the place are changed.
The view of the church fathers on death according to Henry Constable in "The Duration And Nature Of Future Punishment," 1871.
From the above, it is clear that it was not unto near the end of the second century that "the wages of sin is eternal life with torment" was first believed. By teaching the resurrection, both the Bible and most of the early Church Fathers denied emphatically the unconditional immortally of the soul.
JOHN H. OGWYN: "The story of the Christian church between Pentecost of 31 a. d. and the council of Nicea in 325 a. d., almost 300 years later, is an amazing story. It is the story of how yesterday's orthodoxy became today's heresy and how old heresies came to be considered orthodox Christian doctrine. It is the story of how church tradition and the teaching of the bishops came to supersede the word of God as a source of doctrine. It is a story that is stranger then fiction, yet is historically verifiable." "God's Church Through The Ages."
HENRY CONSTABLE: “Educated in Platonism, they (church fathers) did not like to renounce it, and flattered themselves that they might, with great advantage to the cause of Christianity, bring at least a portion of their old learning into its service. Some brought less, some more, according as they were more or less thoroughly acquainted with Christianity. But on one point they were substantially agreed. All of them, with Tertullian, adopted in the sense of Plato Plato’s sentiment—‘Every soul is immortal.’ On this point Plato took rank, not among prophets and apostles, but above all prophets and apostles. A doctrine which neither Old Testament nor New taught directly or indirectly, nay, which was contrary to a great part of the teaching of both, these Fathers brought in with them into the Church, and thus gave to the old Sage of the Academy a greater authority and a wider influence by far than he had ever attained or ever dreamed of attaining. It was in effect Plato teaching in the Church, under the supposed authority of Christ and his Apostles, doctrine subversive of, and contrary to, the doctrine, which they had one and all maintained. This dogma of Plato was made the rigid rule for the interpretation of Scripture. No Scripture, no matter what its language, could be interpreted in a sense inconsistent with Plato’s theory. Christ, and Paul, and John, all were forced to Platonise. The deduction of reason, half doubted by Plato himself, was by these Platonising Fathers palmed off on men’s minds as the teaching of revelation” Duration And Nature Of future Punishment, 1871.
W. ENFIELD: "Very soon after the rise of Christianity, many persons, who had been educated in the schools of the philosophers, becoming converts to the Christian faith, the doctrines of the Grecian sects, and especially Platonism, were interwoven with the simple truths of pure religion. As the Eclectic philosophy spread, Heathen and Christian doctrines were still more intimately blended, till, at last, both were almost entirely lost in the thick clouds of ignorance and barbarism which covered the earth." "The History Of Philosophy."
"The doctrine of hell evolved long after the core doctrines of the historic Christian faith were established. The views of the early Church fathers about hell were far from unanimous. It took the Christian community hundreds of years to come up with a consensus on the issue. The majority view– that hell is a place of eternal fiery torment– emerged only after a long debate within the Church. By the Middle Ages, the concept of a fiery underworld had become a dominant element in people's minds" www.inplainsite.org
The doctrine of Hell has been strongly opposed from the time is was first brought into the church by the church fathers, but in the last fifty years the opposition is rapidly growing in the Protestants churches and particularly in the church of Christ. As a result of the rapid growth in opposition to the God slandering doctrine of Hell two books by those who believe in Hell have been written. "Hell of Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment" by Robert A. Peterson, and "Hell Under Fire" by ten orthodox Protestant authors. The names they give to their books shows the doctrine of Hell is being strongly opposed and rejected by many.
The Egyptians might have been the first to believe in the dual nature of a person. They believed that death was a door to a new form of life, which may be higher or lower, depending on how good or bad a person was. They believed the body was evil and a prison to the soul. They built the pyramids and other tombs and put the things in them they thought would be needed in the next life. Death was a friend to them that freed the soul of the evil body; but it was the Greeks (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato) who adopted this Egyptian belief of the dual nature of a person and developed the philosophy of the immortal soul. Many church fathers were schooled in and believed in this Greek philosophy, and were only partly converted. They, after greatly expanding on the teaching of Plato, brought the Greek philosophy into the church in the apostasy. Unconditional immortality is the foundation of the doctrine of Hell. If a person had an unseen immortal part that could not die, there had to be a place to put the "souls" which were evil but could not die. The "souls" of the saved had to be put somewhere; therefore, the doctrine of a person going to Heaven or Hell immediately after death without a resurrection or a judgment came into being, and the New Testament teaching of the resurrection of the dead became unneeded and of little or no importance.
In the Greek philosophy a person never dies; only the body dies, freeing the soul to a higher life. Christ taught the resurrection of man, not the Greek "immaterial, invisible part of man" (W. E. Vine) that never dies. The Greeks did not believe in or need a resurrection, or a savior, or redeemer; these would not fit into their belief. They believed in an immortal soul; therefore, there could be no death. The Greek philosophy of an immortal soul was opposed and opposite to the teaching of Christ on the resurrection. The immortal soul doctrine was believed by most pagan religions in the time of Paul, and when he was before Agrippa, he asked, "Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8 New American Standard Version). To Plato and Agrippa, the resurrection of the dead would have been a step backward. It would put the soul that was freed from its prison of a body back into the prison it had been freed from.
The Greek and heathen belief that the immortal soul is indestructible, demands that the soul cannot die, but must be alive forever somewhere. The resurrection as taught by Christ demands that a person be dead, if not, there cannot be a resurrection. The resurrection is a calling back to life the whole person God created, not a calling back to life some part of the person that is not dead. If the Greek doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die, which is believed by many today were true, then the resurrection of Christ and our resurrection would be pointless even if it were possible to raise from the dead a soul that was not dead.
PLATO and SOCRATES -- versus -- CHRIST
Immortality --------- versus - Life and Resurrection
Death a friend ------ versus - Death is "the last enemy"
Plato: The soul is | If there is no resurrection
Immortal, therefore only | death is the end of
"It" is alive after death| all life 1 Corinthians 15:14-23
Plato: Only the body dies| "Then they also that are
Freeing soul to a higher | fallen asleep in Christ
Life without a body | have perished"
Only some inter part of | A person (who in Christ) will be
A person is immortal | immortal, not just part of a person
All the dead are alive | Christ is "the first born from the dead"
Plato's immortal soul and Christ's resurrection are not compatible, both cannot be. One can be true, but not both at the same time; they are alien to each other.
Paul and Plato used the same Greek words, but not in the same way. Immortal, immortality, indestructible, never dying was used by Plato, and are used by many today to describe the soul, but in the Old or New Testament these words are never used referring to any lost person, or to any part of a person after death. The expression "immortal soul" is very common in the writing of the pagan philosophers and today's preachers, but is not found in the Bible.
PAUL USED |PLATO AND MANY TODAY SAY THE SOUL
Die |cannot die
Death |no death
Destroyed |cannot be destroyed
Corruption |is incorruptible
Mortal |is immortal
Perish |cannot perish
HENRY CONSTABLE: "In the very terms in which the punishment of the wicked is asserted in the New Testament. Where the latter says the soul shall die, Plato says it shall not die; where the latter says it shall be destroyed, Plato says it shall not be destroyed; where the latter says it shall perish and suffer corruption, Plato says it shall not perish and is incorruptible. The phrases are the very same, only that what Plato denies of all souls alike, the New Testament asserts of some of the souls of men. But the discussion of the question was not confined to the school of Plato or to his times. Every school of philosophy took it up, whether to confirm Plato's view, or to deny it, or to heap ridicule upon it. All the phrases we have been discussing from the New Testament had been explained, turned over and over, handled with all the power of the masters of language, presented in every phase, so that of their sense there could be no doubt, nor could there be any one ignorant of their sense before Jesus spoke, or an Evangelist or Apostle wrote. The subject had not died out before the days of Christ. It never could and never will die out. In every city of the Roman world were schools of Grecian thought in the days of the Apostles. In every school the question before us was discussed in the phrases and language of the New Testament" "Duration and Nature of Future Punishment," 1871.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: "Plato established the basic Western tradition on this topic by defining the soul as the spiritual part of the human that survived death" 1991.
Some believe that in the afterlife we will be nothing more than a collection of disembodied spirits or souls that will be just as alive and just the same from the day of birth as these souls will ever be. Death and the resurrection are out of step with the belief of Plato.
A part of a person being deathless is a philosophy of man that Paul warned about (Colossians 2:8). An immortal soul was copied from heathen philosophy and superstition. Note: Those who believe we now have "an immortal soul" get their belief from Greek philosophy, but are inconstant and self-contradicting; they say the soul cannot die, but it needs a Savior anyway. If we were born with an immortal soul, it would have no need for Christ to save it from the death it cannot die. Christianity did not destroy the pagan doctrine of Egypt and Greece; by the Dark Age it had adopted it.
Death is the enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). It is the destruction of the life given by God. It is not the liberator of an immortal soul, as Plato believed it to be. It is death, which must be conquered by the resurrection. When we understand that death is really death, not another kind of life for an immortal something that is in a person that has no substance, the resurrection is all-important. Without a resurrection we can do what we want for this life is all there is (1 Corinthians 15:32). Our only hope is the resurrection, and without it there will be no life of any kind for us after death. Plato's immortal soul needs no resurrection. "Set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:12). It is at the resurrection that we "shall receive the crown of glory that fades not away" (1 Peter 5:4).
1. "Be patient; therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord" (James 4:7-8). As the farmer is patient unto the harvest to receive his reward, the believers are to be patient unto the coming of Christ to receive their reward.
2. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:43). It is not the spiritual body living in the natural body that will go to Heaven at the death of the natural body. "We (not a soul) shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible" (1 Corinthians 15:52).
3. "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" (1 John 3:2).
4. The wrath of God will be "in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Romans 2:5), not wrath at death before that day, and not eternal wrath or after the Judgment Day is over. On that day, it will be rendered "to them that by patience in well doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life" (Romans 2:8), not to the souls of all on the day of their death. The judgment will be "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men" (Romans 2:16), not at death. It is the Judgment Day when "we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God" (Romans 14:10). It is the day that the Lord will judge all, "Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts" (1 Corinthians 4:5, also, Ephesians 4:30).
5. "And to wait for his Son from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Death will not take anyone to Heaven without waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
6. When the Lord shall descend from Heaven, them that have fallen asleep in Jesus, "the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Their hope is to be raised from their sleep at the coming of Christ, not come back from living in Heaven or Abraham's bosom.
7. Paul says he will receive a "crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:8).
The Bible teaching, "The wages of sin is death" leaves no lost souls alive after the judgment and second death to be put anywhere. The teaching of Christ, that life (everlasting life or immortality) will be given only to those who obey Him, makes Hell impossible. Unless Christ gives eternal life (immortality) to the lost, they cannot live forever anywhere. The Greek teaching of an immortal soul must be made to stand, and the teaching of Christ that He will give life only to those who come to Him must be removed, or there cannot be a Hell.
Socrates drinks hemlock and died with a smile on his face because he thought he was freeing his soul to live with the gods. Christ "sweats as it was great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44). Death is the enemy of man. It destroys him, and only the resurrection frees us from death, and gives us back the life death takes. In death there is no life in Heaven or life in any other place for us before the resurrection. The resurrection is not just a coming back from Heaven to be judged and then going back to Heaven, it is our only hope of life after our death. Without the resurrection "then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Corinthians 15:18). The Greek philosophy that found its way into the Church says they have not perished, but are freed to live with God in Heaven without the need of a resurrection. As the results of the pagan immortal soul doctrine came Hellfire, Purgatory, worship of Mary and saints, etc. The Protestant Reformation was largely a reaction to medieval superstitious beliefs and Purgatory, an intermediate state of temporal punishment where souls that were not good enough to go to Heaven, and not bad enough to go to Hell; in the Church in the Dark Age, this was almost all people. The priests would have the loved ones pay for him to pray to shorten his or her time in Purgatory. Selling indulgences and paying to reduce the time the souls of departed loved spent ones in Purgatory was rejected by the Reformation, as was many other superstitious beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church; but the Greek dual nature of a person and Hell was retained. Calvin believed the soul did not sleep, but went to Heaven or Hell at death. The Westminster Confession says, "The souls of the righteous...are received unto the highest heavens...the soul of the wicked are cast into Hell." The doctrine of an immortal soul replaced the resurrection, and made it useless and impossible.
Unconditional immortality is the pagan transmigration of souls. Augustine and other partly converted "church fathers" that knew more of the teaching of Plato than of Christ and rewrote reincarnation to fit Christianity.
Transmigration of souls
Reincarnation
Ancient Egyptian belief was that the soul had a gloomy existence in the underworld (transmigration). The Greeks and Romans believed about the same with some changes. Oriental and Pythagorean philosophy, Buddhists, Hindus, and Grand Lama all believed in some form reincarnation. All believed the "soul" of the evil had some punishment, but not all believed the same punishment. With most the punishment was only some kind of gloomy existence in the underworld, not endless torment as it is taught today. With most, the more evil a person was the lower his soul would have the capability to reincarnate. Some would come back as a person, the more evil as a plant or insect. This punishment was believed to be under or down in the earth by most. Hell was and is still believed by some to be under the earth. This is the nearest thing to today's Hell in heathen philosophy, and in any writing unto after the New Testament. The "church fathers" borrowed from the heathens (mostly Greek and Romans), and invented unto by the time of the Dark Age they had invented Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, worship of Mary and saints, the Pope declared to be God in the flesh, and much more. God was made into a cruel and sadistic being. Those who worshiped him truly became like the god they invented. Millions who believed the world was round, or in any way did not believe all the Church taught, were put to death as heretics. It put some to death for having the Bible in their own language-not in Latin. It was one of the bloodiest times of history, and continued into the Protestant Reformation (The Crusades, bloody Mary, witch-hunts, and much more). Some of the cruelest ways of torment the world has ever known were invented and used, and all in the name of their god; after Calvin burned Servetus to death he wrote a book with a long title, “A Faithful Account Of The Errors Of Servetus