The Bible teaches

1. That man is mortal. Not merely having a mortal body but rather he is himself mortal. Job 4:17; Rom 2:7

2. Man does not have a soul, he is a soul (Gen 2:7), and that soul can live or die (Gen 2:17; Ezek 13:19;18:4). A corpse is called a dead soul. (Lev 21:11)

Soul could also be used for life in some context; eg, Gen 35:18; Deut 12:23-24.

The concept of man possessing an immortal soul, though have pervaded a large percentage of Christianity, runs contrary to the teachings of the Bible. It is unscriptural! The Bible doesn’t teach that man is a spirit being or that he has a soul that lives on after death.

Now let’s first look at the truth on this issue from the Bible, before we look at the evil and unscriptural beliefs that Satan has perpetrated through the wide spread of this pagan superstition of man possessing an immortal soul that lives on after death to keep people in bondage.

From God’s Account of Creation

Now let’s go to the Creator himself and find out from him if he made man a spirit being that can live on after physical death.

Genesis 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

According to God’s account of how he created man, he formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into man the breath that can make man live called breath of life. (Note that prior to that time, man wasn’t preexisting anywhere, he was to be formed –“let us make man,” the creator said [Gen 1:26)]). And so man became a living soul — not a spirit being. Not that he has a living soul, he himself is a living soul. The Creator made him a living soul not a spirit being.

When man dies, the life energy, the breath that makes him live, also called breath of life, which is translated spirit from the Hebrew word ruach meaning breath, is taken from him, back to God from whom it came, then man which is the living soul dies and his remains which is his body decays back to the dust from which it was taken. Man is as it were a living dust. (Note that the breath of life that makes man live is of spiritual essence and does not only combine with the body, to produce soul, it is also responsible for man’s capacity for the spiritual, but that is not to say that man is a spirit being.)

Genesis 3:23
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Ecclesiastes 12:7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 3:19-21
[19]For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
[20]All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
[21]Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Consider God’s statement in

Genesis 3:19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Here God wasn’t referring to merely man’s physical body. He tells man that he will return to the ground because from the ground He formed him. He tells him that he is dust and so will return to dust. God knows Adam can’t live on after death. When life energy (the breath of life) leaves, man which is dust ceases to live. The soul ceases to exist because the soul is a result of life in dust. God explained to man that he was not a spirit being like God is, rather he is dust. In other words, man is but living dust powered to live by a breath of life from God. He didn’t pre-exist in any spirit realm and was never brought from anywhere to live in a body. When God was to form Adam, he said “let us make man”, meaning man never existed before. That gives reason why God did not let Adam die immediately after eating the forbidden fruit, but allowed him procreate before he eventually died, because when he dies, it would be all over with him, for there was a time when he never existed and at death, he would cease to being again. It is breath of life that makes man live; when man dies it is breath that returns to God who gave it, not spirit being (Eccl 12:7). To say man can exist still as spirit being is a lie from the devil. Angels can take up flesh and put off flesh because they are spirit beings created to exist apart from flesh, but man cannot because he is a product of flesh plus life-breath. He can’t be an immortal soul apart from the body. Adam would have been an immortal being only if he had eaten of the tree of life according to Genesis 3:22-23.

Unfortunately Adam did not eat of the tree of life. The soul that sinneth it shall die (Ezek. 18:4) — so Adam died. Adam as a living soul died. His life- breath, which served as his spirit, returned to God, his dust, which served as his body returned to the earth and Adam ceased to be. Apostle Paul makes this clear in comparing Adam with Jesus who being a spirit being took on flesh as God incarnate:

1 Corinthians 15:45-47
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Adam is not a spirit being from heaven; only Jesus is a spirit being from heaven. Apostle Paul is very clear on this as seen in the Scripture above.

The biblical concept of death is not a transition to an afterlife, but rather a cessation of existence. This is why God’s warning to Adam and Eve about death is so significant. He has no place to transit to without a body.

Man cannot have his being as a spirit because he is human being not spirit being. When he dies, his reasoning perishes.

Psalms 146:2-4
While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. When man dies, he loses his being; that is why the psalmist says, in the above scripture, I will praise the Lord while I have my being.

That God said, “Let us make man….” shows man wasn’t existing in any spiritual world; he was to be made. And at death, he wasn’t going to exist in any spirit world. He was to go nonexistent as he previously had been that was why God warned him of death, and why God himself CANNOT reward the good or bad at death (Eccl. 9:5) unless he resurrects them to give them their reward of what they did in their life time (2Cor 5:10; John 5:28-29).

Whatever God doeth is forever. God intended man to be forever, but death cuts man off. That is why God came up with the concept of resurrection and the total destruction of death in the end (1Cor. 15:26).

Evil and unscriptural beliefs that Satan has perpetrated through the wide spread of the pagan superstition of man possessing an immortal soul that lives on after death

1. Ancestral worship:

Many who believe that people live on as spirit being after death, believe also that the spirits of the dead still have a hand in the happenings among the living. They believe these spirits can help, or harm the living, leading them to offer sacrifices and prayers to their ancestors and gods who were formerly human beings. This is a satanic practice to deceive people to offer prayers and sacrifice to demons.

2. Necromancy

This is the consultation of the dead on behalf of the living. Here the “spirit” of the dead person is invoked by a necromancer, who himself is possessed with a familiar spirit or a medium who would relate massages from the supposed spirit of the dead. But these are simply deceptions from familiar spirits and demons that seeks man’s worship, consultation, and ruin. They may give accurate massages to further perpetrate false beliefs against God and keep man in ignorance so that the world of demons can continue to have a hand in the affairs of mankind. God greatly condemns this practice and kill Saul for consulting a necromancer.

3. Dreams and revelations from or about the dead.

These dreams visions or revelations are not from God. They are from the devil. God no where brought a dream or vision of seeing the dead or receiving instructions from them in the Bible. Dreams about the dead represent the spirit of death, instruction from the dead comes from demons seeking to manipulate the individual.

4. Reincarnation

The demonic falsehood and deception that people after death live on somewhere in another place, or come back to relive as another person. This is Satan’s lie against God’s revealed truth about creation.

5. Fear of the dead

Fear is a tool in the hand of the devil. Through this false belief of immortality of the soul Satan succeeded in getting people to fear corpse, grave site and properties of the dead

6. Ghosts.

Human ghosts don’t exist. They are either mere figments of imagination, apparitions by familiar spirits or at best the haunting of a place by a demon supervising a spell cast on the place, or an operation of a demon who the deceased person was associated with in his life time. The demon simply disguise by masking with the appearance of the dead person. Those who go to cemetry for occultic practices simply commune with territorial demons working for the devil that seek to inhabit such places

7. People going to heaven or hell fire at death

People don’t go to heaven or hell immediately they die. That contradicts the Bible’s teaching on resurrection and judgment. The belief that man’s immortal soul goes to live in heaven with Christ at death without resurrection or bodily judgment is unscriptural.

8. Man existing as spirit being with God before creation or before birth

9. Purgatory

10. Soul sleep