Could Jesus Have Sinned?

(Of Course Not!)

 Posted on August 26, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1673 words  |  

I first heard the question, “Could Jesus have sinned?” in the early 1990s. The leadership of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) was making the point that Jesus was never tempted to sin, but rather was tested. According to the popular usage of these words, they were absolutely right. Jesus did not endure temptation in the sense of resisting a strong urge to sin and only succeeding by the skin of his teeth. [Read More]
christology  immortal soul 

Do the Dead Know Nothing?

A look at Ecclesiastes 9:5-6

 Posted on July 20, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1675 words  |  

The Bible says “the dead know nothing,” but that doesn’t mean they’re oblivious. Yet amongst those who profess belief in Sacred Scripture, there are some who deny a conscious existence after death – and they have a favorite passage in the book of Ecclesiastes: For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. [Read More]
immortal soul 

What Will Your Resurrection Body Be Like?

 Posted on October 16, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  731 words  |  

Due to popular misconceptions, consider this a quick Catholic review of the doctrine of resurrection: Your eternal reward after this life is not for your soul to leave the body and go to heaven. Neither is it, if you die in mortal sin, for your soul to descend into the fiery pits of hell. That’s not to say heaven or hell aren’t your ultimate destinations—they are—but not without your body: the same body in which you are reading this. [Read More]
immortal soul  resurrection 

On Changing Life Forms

 Posted on August 30, 2023  |  9 minutes  |  1822 words  |  

This is a quick reply to Jeff, who commented on my guest post entitled “Bill Watson’s Doctrine of ‘Changing Life Forms’” at the Banned by HWA blog. I had taken issue with Bill (a Church of God International minister and proponent of “soul sleep”), who claims that people who believe in the immortality of the human soul don’t really believe people die, but instead merely “change life forms.” (If you’re interested in this reply, read the original post and his comments first. [Read More]
immortal soul  resurrection 

The Bible Says Death Is Like Sleep - Heres Why

 Posted on August 8, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  641 words  |  

Funerals are sobering because each one is a “wake-up” call to remind us we will all “fall asleep.” And that sleep will fall upon us sooner than we tend to think. Most people understand perfectly well what we mean by “falling asleep in death.” And when the Bible describes death in terms of “sleep,” most people don’t read too much into it. But some do. “Soul sleep” For close to 30 years in Armstongism, I was taught that the reason the Bible frequently describes death as “sleep” is to indicate that our souls will be utterly out of commission, turned off and tuned out, devoid of all awareness. [Read More]
immortal soul 

Does God Alone Have Immortality? (A Failed Prooftext)

 Posted on August 4, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  886 words  |  

Does the Bible explicitly deny that human beings were created with immortal souls? The COGs teach what some call “soul sleep,” an accurate label but one generally not embraced by COGs themselves. They teach that when we sleep in death, the soul dies along with the body so that we have no conscious interaction with reality. The “spirit in man” experiences absolutely nothing, utter darkness, until the resurrection. They believe both body and soul are mortal. [Read More]
immortal soul