Biblical basis for soul leaving body at death

[homeric]

Section 997 of the CCC states:

“In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body.”

Can someone supply me with one or two passages from Sacred Scripture that ground this view?

I ask because a friend of mine is convinced that the notion of the human soul leaving the body at death is a purely Greek philosophical notion adopted by the early Church.

Thank you!

 

[Eileen_T]

Matthew 27:50* And Jesus again crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.*

Mark 15:37 And Jesus having cried out with a loud voice, gave up the ghost.

Mark 15:39 *And the centurion who stood over against him, seeing that crying out in this manner **he had given up the ghost, *said: Indeed this man was the son of God.

Luke 23:46 And Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And saying this, he gave up the ghost.

John 19:30 *Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. **And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost./**I]

Acts Of Apostles 5:5 And Ananias hearing these words*, fell down, and gave up the ghost.*** And there came great fear upon all that heard it.

Acts Of Apostles 5:10 Immediately she fell down before his feet, and gave up the ghost. And the young men coming in, found her dead: and carried her out, and buried her by her husband.

Acts Of Apostles 12:23 *And forthwith an angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not given the honour to God: **and being eaten up by worms, he gave up the ghost./**I]

 

[homeric]

Excellent, Eileen T. Thanks for that!

I have a few related questions, if you don’t mind.

When I die and give up my soul, is my soul judged immediately by God and, if accepted, queued for reunion with my body at the last judgment?

 

[Yerusalyim]

Also noteworthy, Jesus lesson of Lazarus and the Rich man, at death, Lazarus was taken to the “Bossom of Abraham” and the Rich man to hades. Further, Christ tells the Good Thief, “This Day you shall be with me in paradise”…finally, Peter tells us that Christ, while in the grave, preached to the souls imprisoned (awaiting the opening of the gates of Heaven). Further, Paul writing that to die means to be with Christ (he’s debating whether to wish for martyrdom to be with Christ or to remain alive so as to continue to preach).

 

[Verbum]

Hi Homeric,

When I die and give up my soul, is my soul judged immediately by God and, if accepted, queued for reunion with my body at the last judgment?

Yes, death is followed immediately by a particular judgment, which seals your fate for eternity. If destined to heaven, one may have to go through the purifcation that we call purgatory, then be admitted to the vision of God.

The soul is what gives us our personality. When God reconstitutes our body in a perfect and “spiritual state” it becomes once more “our” body and the unity with the soul constitutes the whole person that we are and have been.

You seem to imply that the damned will not resurrect. They too will be raised from the dead, so that they will be punished physicallly as well as spiritually.

Verbum

 

[Nita]

Section 997 of the CCC states:

I ask because a friend of mine is convinced that the notion of the human soul leaving the body at death is a purely Greek philosophical notion adopted by the early Church.

Thank you!

Here is also a quote from the Old Testament to show that it was present in Jewish thought prior to the establishment of the NT Church.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Nita

 

[homeric]

Yerusalyim, Verbum, and Nita, thank you all for your helpful replies.

Verbum,

I was not aware that a soul denied access to heaven would also be reunited with its body at the last judgment. I thought hell would be a purely spiritual torment, denying the possibility of pleasures of the flesh. Can you correct my thinking here?

Also, if you have a moment, could you assess my understanding of Jesus’ descent into hell…

Before the resurrection, there were two postmortem realms. Sheol, which means “grave” in Hebrew, was a temporary place where righteous people went. Gehenna, which means “Lake of Fire” in Hebrew, was a permanent place where evil people went. When Christ died, he descended into Sheol (not Gehenna) and awoke the sleeping souls there. When he rose from there, he defeated Sheol forever, but Gehenna remained. There is no escape from Gehenna.

On this understanding, I take it a soul denied access to heaven would be sent to Gehenna, then be reconstituted with a body in Gehenna at the last judgment.

 

[fineca]

I was also wondering about the OT idea of the human being…my liberal professor of exegetics said there was no concept of a mortal body-immortal soul division in the OT… it seems the afterlife is not very clear only in a couple of later books and passages it’s mentioned…so how could God not tell all those ppl the truth about there being heaven and hell ultimately why did he just talk about temporal things mostly and still he’s judging them eternally in the end to heaven or hell …
the passage from Ecclesiastes isn’t too convincing because it says the spirit goes to God, but in the OT nobody could go back to God heaven was closed… I would understand that to mean the person ceases to exist, God just takes back the spirit that once gave life to the body…
Appreciate any help!
Emil

 

[Nita]

I was also wondering about the OT idea of the human being…my liberal professor of exegetics said there was no concept of a mortal body-immortal soul division in the OT… it seems the afterlife is not very clear only in a couple of later books and passages it’s mentioned…so how could God not tell all those ppl the truth about there being heaven and hell ultimately why did he just talk about temporal things mostly and still he’s judging them eternally in the end to heaven or hell …
the passage from Ecclesiastes isn’t too convincing because it says the spirit goes to God, but in the OT nobody could go back to God heaven was closed… I would understand that to mean the person ceases to exist, God just takes back the spirit that once gave life to the body…
Appreciate any help!
Emil

I don’t know how well developed the concept of a mortal body-immortal soul was. Some of the Jews, Pharisees especially, believed in a final resurrection; it was one of the main issues of contention between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. (Mt. 22:23-31; Acts 23:7-8)
Any resurrection from the grave would of course be the mortal body. Yet they also seemingly believed in the ongoing presence of the spirit. One example would be Saul’s request of the medium to “bring up” the dead Samuel - who did indeed respond and speak to Saul (1 Sam 28:3-19).

As to God’s judging, remember He takes into account the person’s knowledge. (Luke 12:47-48)

Nita

 

[Verbum]

Hi Homeric,

I was not aware that a soul denied access to heaven would also be reunited with its body at the last judgment. I thought hell would be a purely spiritual torment, denying the possibility of pleasures of the flesh. Can you correct my thinking here?

Also, if you have a moment, could you assess my understanding of Jesus’ descent into hell…

Look at Matthew 25,31ff

When the Son of Man comes in His glory (…) he will sit on His throne of glory. Before Him, all the nations of the world will be assembled. (…) He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on his left.

All men will be present at the Last Judgment. The Gospel make no difference in the way they are present. They are all present body and soul, but with very different destinies.

Read also John 5, 29

Those who will have done good will resurrect for life and those who have done evil will resurrect for damnation.

About Jesus’ descent into Hell. As you say, we are talking here abvout the Jewish Sheol. Going down to sheol is just another way of saying “die”. The first and most important meaning of this article of our faith is that Jesus really died, so that his resurrrection was really a miracle that He predicted. This is very important, because the miracle of the resurrection is the basis of our faith.

It is often said that Jesus on his “trip” to the nether world “freed” the souls who were “waiting”. From various passages in the Bible, we know that there was a special contact between Jesus and the just who had died. St. Peter, I believe says that he “preached” to them. But when we say that they were “waiting” for him, we speak as humans living in time and space. In the other world, there is no time and space. Abraham, when he died, went to Heaven. He was not put in some vague limbo “waiting” to be rescued by Jesus. Just like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was freed from original sin through the merits of Jesus to come, so the people who died before Jesus received their just reward immediately after their death.

Does this answer your concerns?

Verbum

 

[mdgspencer]

I am not sure what all your questions are. However, at least, no one in Old Testament times went to heaven–that only occurred through Jesus. So God could not have very told the people about going to heaven then. However, the later books of the Old Testament told about the resurrection and eternal life (and sometimes earlier books too–as in some of the psalms), but in the future tense, as something that would happen in the future. And too the Jews didn’t think of they ceased to exist when they died–but they believed in an afterlife, which they called sheol and which they speak of in the Old Testament repeatedly.
??is they didn’t believe the soul could be separate, how could one of the book of Kings show the ghost of Saul? Or how could they even believe that such a thing as a ghost could exist? This is just something that I can think of offhand about this.

I was also wondering about the OT idea of the human being…my liberal professor of exegetics said there was no concept of a mortal body-immortal soul division in the OT… it seems the afterlife is not very clear only in a couple of later books and passages it’s mentioned…so how could God not tell all those ppl the truth about there being heaven and hell ultimately why did he just talk about temporal things mostly and still he’s judging them eternally in the end to heaven or hell …
the passage from Ecclesiastes isn’t too convincing because it says the spirit goes to God, but in the OT nobody could go back to God heaven was closed… I would understand that to mean the person ceases to exist, God just takes back the spirit that once gave life to the body…
Appreciate any help!
Emil

 

[homeric]

Verbum,

Very much so. Thanks for taking the time to write your reply.

Looking at Matthew’s “all the nations of the world will be assembled” made me think of the Creed: “He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Are the dead who were denied access to heaven when they died judged a second time at the last judgment? This time, in body? If so, would they have a chance to escape damnation at this point?

 

[Verbum]

Hi Homeric,

There is no “appeal” to the court of the Last Judgment. The two judgments have a different purpose, that of the Last Judgment being to celebrate the final victory of Christ over evil (as predicted in Revelation) and to make us understand how everything that happened in the world happened for a purpose in the mind of God.

Verbum

 

[homeric]

Hi Homeric,

There is no “appeal” to the court of the Last Judgment. The two judgments have a different purpose, that of the Last Judgment being to celebrate the final victory of Christ over evil (as predicted in Revelation) and to make us understand how everything that happened in the world happened for a purpose in the mind of God.

Verbum

Thanks again for your insightful reply.

If it’s not asking too much, I’d like to make sure I understand all your replies collectively:

When a person dies in the post-resurrection phase of history, his soul is judged by God immediately (there is no Sheol). By this judgment, the soul is immediately directed to one of three positions: heaven, purgatory, or hell (Gehenna).

At the last judgment, saved souls and damned souls will all be reunited with bodies and in these bodies will all (saved and damned) be assembled together in front of the Lord. If I am correct in the preceding bold portion, it means that after this assembly in front of the Lord, the saved will now keep their bodies in this kingdom of heaven, but the damned will return to hell, this time with bodies.

 

[Nita]

Thanks again for your insightful reply.

If it’s not asking too much, I’d like to make sure I understand all your replies collectively:

When a person dies in the post-resurrection phase of history, his soul is judged by God immediately (there is no Sheol). By this judgment, the soul is immediately directed to one of three positions: heaven, purgatory, or hell (Gehenna).

At the last judgment, saved souls and damned souls will all be reunited with bodies and in these bodies will all (saved and damned) be assembled together in front of the Lord. If I am correct in the preceding bold portion, it means that after this assembly in front of the Lord, the saved will now keep their bodies in this kingdom of heaven, but the damned will return to hell, this time with bodies.

Correct.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

Paul hoped at death to depart and be with Christ for “that is far better” for him than to continue to remain in this life, according to Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+

PS: I know that Justin Martyr taught that both the righteous and the unrighteous would rise in immortal bodies and that the unrighteous (the wicked) would be cast into hell in their undying bodies to be punished IN their bodies for the sins they committed WITH their bodies.