New Testament and Immortality

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Tom7

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Hello

Could some please provide me with some references on where the New Testament shows that we have an immortal soul please? I always took Sheol and Hades to be figurative if rest until the resurrection of the body. I can’t seem to get my head around the idea that we exist after death and before the resurrection.

Many thanks

Tom
 
A few quick ones off the top of my head, though I don’t have chapter verses.

(1) Saul uses a medium to successfully confer with dead Samuel in 1 Sam.

(2) In 2 Maccabees Judas Maccabee receives a vision from deceased high priest Onias.

(3) The parable of Lazarus.

(4) Jesus promising the good priest that they’d be together in paradise that day.

(5) John’s vision of the saints and martyrs in heaven in Revelation.

(6) Moses and Elijah appearing at the Transfiguration.

(7) Hebrews ch 11 to 12 regarding us being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (past righteous men and women and martyrs).
 
‘And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ - Mark 9:47-48

If Hell is eternal, so is Heaven.
 
And read up on Purgatory, the Particular and the Final Judgments in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In a nutshell:

For those dying before the Parousia, we are judged (the Particular Judgment) the soul leaves the body and is judged, to enter into Purgatory, Hell, or Heaven. If in Purgatory, eventually that soul will go to heaven. If Hell, that horrible venue will be eternal. And, if heaven, the beatific vision also is eternal.

At the end of the age, when Christ returns, we receive the Final Judgment, which will free the souls in Purgatory to Heaven. Also at that time the Resurrection of the Dead occurs and all souls separated from their bodies are reunited for eternity.
 
Tom7 said:
Could some please provide me with some references on where the New Testament shows that we have an immortal soul please
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God is immortal. We , by the grace of God, have eternal souls.
 
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FOG said:
And we will be immortal in body and soul after the general resurrection.
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No, we are already living an eternal life. After the resurrection of the body, we will continue to live an eternal life. We are mortal, we can never be immortal.
 
LateranBasilica said:
No, we are already living an eternal life. After the resurrection of the body, we will continue to live an eternal life. We are mortal, we can never be immortal.
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Okay. My bad.

I guess my confusion lies in terminology…in my mind eternal life is immortality, and your first post seems to differentiate the undeniable eternal life of the soul from immortality in general, but I may have read too much into it.

Peace and all good!
 
Tom7 said:
Hello

Could some please provide me with some references on where the New Testament shows that we have an immortal soul please? I always took Sheol and Hades to be figurative if rest until the resurrection of the body. I can’t seem to get my head around the idea that we exist after death and before the resurrection.

Many thanks

Tom
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Isaiah 35
9 No lions shall molest it, no beasts of prey venture on it. Free men shall walk on it, 10 coming home again to Sion, and praising the Lord for their ransoming. Eternal happiness crowns them, joy and happiness in their grasp now, sorrow and sighing fled far away.
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Isaiah 51
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, cast them down to earth again; those heavens shall vanish like smoke, that earth be fretted away like a garment, and all who dwell on it share the same destruction; my saving power is eternal, my faithfulness inexhaustible.
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Wisdom 2
22 The secret purposes of God they might not fathom; how should they foresee that holiness is requited, how should they pass true award on a blameless life? 23 God, to be sure, framed man for an immortal destiny, the created image of his own endless being;
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Daniel 12
2 Many shall wake, that now lie sleeping in the dust of earth, some to enjoy life everlasting, some to be confronted for ever with their disgrace.
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My first post was attempting to differentiate the fact that God is Immortal. We mortals have been given eternal life by God.
God is Immortal
Humans are Mortal but eternal.

I hope I have explained it a bit better this time 🙂
 
BartholomewB said:
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Wesrock:
(4) Jesus promising the good priest that they’d be together in paradise that day.
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The good … 😲
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Whoops!

*thief
 
I believe that most posters have misunderstood you, answering the question of immortality, and ignoring the question of what it means for a soul to be without a body for any length of time:
Tom7 said:
I can’t seem to get my head around the idea that we exist after death and before the resurrection.
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You are not alone. Theologians and philosophers have wondered about this for ages. A human being is an integrated whole consisting of body and soul. The idea of a soul without a body does not make sense.
Could some please provide me with some references on where the New Testament shows that we have an immortal soul please?
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Jesus in his Bread of Life discourse (John 6) emphasizes the necessity of us eating his flesh and drinking his blood:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."
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and
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”
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See also John 14:20, 15:4-6, 17:11, and 17:20-23. These and other passages of the New Testament suggest that our souls are joined to Christ’s body during that time in between death and resurrection, and perhaps even right now, if we have worthily received the Eucharist.

I got this idea from an essay by Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:
… The word “soul” is to be found in all cultures, with basic meanings that are related but that developed in very varied fashion in individual instances. In the way it is used in the Christian tradition, it is a product of faith, impossible to conceive outside the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in fact appearing nowhere else. It expresses the particular character of the human being, as intended by the Creator: man is that creature in which spirit and material meet together and are united in a single whole. […] When many people say that a disembodied soul, between death and resurrection, is an absurdity, then obviously they have not listened carefully enough to Holy Scripture. For since the Ascension of Christ the problem of the soul’s being disembodied no longer exists: the Body of Christ is the new heaven, which is no longer closed. If we ourselves have become members of the Body of Christ, then our souls are safely held within this body, which has become their body, and thus they await the final resurrection, in which God will be all in all.
…
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Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, from an essay titled “My Joy Is to Be in Thy Presence: On the Christian Belief in Eternal Life,” in the collection God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life .
 
Any passage referencing “eternal life”, for example, from today’s reading John3:15 (and 16).
 
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