Page 5 - lesson24.vp

Lesson 24 Hope of Israel Ministries BIBLE Correspondence Course 5

“But our Jesus Christ, being crucified, and dead, Vol. IV, pp. 314, 402).
and having ascended to heaven, reigned; and by Notice that Origen does not claim to be
those things which were published in His name Christian in his belief, but a Platonist!
among all nations by the apostles, there is joy Another influential teacher at the close of
offered to those who EXPECT the immortality the second century was Tertullian of Phoenician
promised by Him" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. North Africa. Here is what this professing
I, p. 176). The EARLY Catholics KNEW they Christian descendant of Baal-worshiping
DID NOT HAVE immortality within them- Phoenician ancestors wrote: “For some things
selves! It was something they expected to are known, even by nature: the immortality of
receive. the soul, for instance, is held by many....I may
But Catholic doctrine gradually use, therefore the opinion of Plato, when he
changed. Here is what John Nelson Darby, declares: ‘EVERY SOUL IS IMMORTAL’"
leader among the “Plymouth Brethren” Church (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p. 547).
later confesses: “I cannot show from Scripture NO BIBLE QUOTATION AS PROOF
that man is naturally immortal. I can only deduce of an immortal soul -- only the opinion of Plato!
it. The idea of the immortality of the soul has no IMAGINE PLATO, THE PAGAN PHILOS-
source in the gospel; it comes, on the contrary, OPHER, SUPERSEDING THE TEACHING
from the Platonists, and it is just when the second OF YEHOVAH GOD AND THE MESSIAH!
coming of Christ was denied in the Church, or at Yet that is exactly what happened!
least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of But a few Catholic writers and teachers
the immortality of the soul came in to replace as late as the time of Constantine condemned the
that of the resurrection. This was about the time change in doctrine from YEHOVAH God to
of Origen" (from Lectures, Vol. IV). Plato. Here is the clear testimony of Arnobius
And who was Origen? A Catholic against those who were being “carried away with
teacher in Alexandria, Egypt! He joined the an extravagant opinion of themselves that souls
speculations of Plato with certain Bible are immortal....Will you lay aside your habitual
doctrines and called his philosophy NEO- arrogance, O men, who claim God as your
PLATONISM. Here is what Origen wrote Father, and maintain that you are immortal just
around 200 A.D.: “Souls are immortal, as God as He is?" (Vol. LV, p. 440).
Himself is eternal and immortal"! He professed After the time of Emperor Constantine --
to be a true “Platonist, who believed in the who forced the Catholic Church on the Roman
immortality of the soul" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Empire -- Augustine of North Africa, another
writer of Phoenician
Egyptian funerary scene. The Egyptians were the first people, this side of origin, “sanctified”
the Flood, to believe in the separation of an “immortal soul” from the body the doctrine of the
after death. immortality of the
soul in his book, The
City of God. Along
came other writers --
all under the influence
of Plato, Aristotle and
Virgil -- who domi-
nated the philosophy
of Western “Chris-
tian” theology during
the early Middle

DEATH -- Where Is Your Sting?