The Bible uses different ways of "chopping up" a human being. Sometimes body, soul, and spirit. Sometimes heart, mind, soul , and strength. The intention of the author in these places is not to say that a human being is composed of these different parts, but that one should love God with all of one's being.

Since man became a living soul, man is a soul, and we can say that a soul can have a spirit (since man has a spirit). The word "spirit" may mean simply "breath" (the man is alive), or something else (like mind, specifically the spiritual mind).

Since a man cannot exist without a body, neither can a soul exist without a body, since the man is a soul.

Anyway I think the "body, soul and spirit" reference is analagous to the "mind, heart, soul, and strength" reference, and that neither is intended as a neat division of human parts that you can add together and get the whole.

Even the animals are referred to as souls.

So, why did Christ say that we have not to fear for those who could kill the body but could not kill the soul? What we should really fear is Him that could kill both the body and the soul in hell.

Is he promoting the immortality of the soul? The soul die not even you are killed or dead.

In His love

James S

James S,
Have you ever read Uriah Smith's "Here and Hereafter", particularly the chapter on "The words "soul" and "spirit"".
It can be read here
http://gilead.net/bibletopics/hereandhereafter/hereafterindex.html

or here http://www.biblestudy.org/maturart/hereaftr.html

Based on my study of this:
The body can be killed whether you have your life in Christ or not in Christ. But if your body is killed and you don't have your life in, "fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell". Don't fear man who can only destroy the body and not the soul or life, for he that hath the Son hath life (1 John 5:12) Nothing survives death of the body but life after death which comes only in Christ. OSISTM

James, Jesus had the resurrection in mind. He was saying not to fear those who can take away our physical, temporal life, but who can take away our eternal, spiritual life (which continues when we are resurrected, if we so choose).

Interestingly, the only one capable of killing the soul is we ourselves.

Not quite good answers, but at least, from what Jesus said here we come to know that there is no such as the soul goes alone to hell when a sinner die, because the body is in the grave, meanwhile Jesus said that a body and soul that goes to heaven. Also we know that soul can die, because the body and soul of the wicked would be destroyed by God in the fire of hell.

In is love

James S

Daryl, I don't see Ezek. as referring to the first death. If you read it in context, it speaks of individual responsibility. The sins of the father are not foisted upon the son. Each one bears the responsibility for their own sin. As far as the first death is concerned, even if you don't sin, you will still die. We die the first death because of Adam's sin, not ours. So the Ezek statement, "The soul that sins, it shall die" doesn't really apply to the first death, right?

How about this?
In Genesis we see the dead as being gathered to their people. This implies not unconsciousness, but a journey to where the fathers and ancestors of the people had gone, a place of the dead which was not the graves they were buried in. If the dead were unconscious, then this idiomatic expression has no meaning, for to be gathered to one's people who simply don't exist is nonsensical. See Gen. 25:8, 35:39, 49:29-33 for this expression. God told Abraham that he would go to his fathers in peace (Gen. 15:15). But Abraham was not buried with his fathers. His father died in Haran (Gen. 11:32), and Abraham went on his journey that God planned for him. He was buried, not with his fathers, but in a cave given to him by the Hittites for the burial of his wife Sarah. How could Abraham go to his fathers in peace, and be gathered to his people, if he was not buried with them, and they were all in a state on non-existence until the resurrection ? I must conclude from this that the earliest evidence in the Bible is that the dead were in some place of the dead, not in a state of non-existence. Is there another explanation for this ?

In His love

James S.

Yes, James, there is another explanation. The expression "gathered unto his people" always and only refers to Abraham and those of his descendants who had not entered, nor were buried, in the Promise Land. This expression is never used elsewhere in the Bible.

The biblical list of names is short - Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Aaron, and Moses. Of course, many others died outside the Promised Land but their names are not listed in the context of being "gathered" unto their people.

This expression cannot mean or imply that when someone dies they go somewhere where their deceased loved ones have been living all along. The Bible is clear that after we die we rest in the grave until the resurrection.

Genesis
25:8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years]; and was gathered to his people.
25:9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which [is] before Mamre;
25:10 The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

Genesis
35:29 And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, [being] old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Genesis
49:29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that [is] in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
49:30 In the cave that [is] in the field of Machpelah, which [is] before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.
49:31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.
49:32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that [is] therein [was] from the children of Heth.
49:33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

Numbers
20:23 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying,
20:24 Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah.

Deuteronomy
32:48 And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,
32:49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, [unto] mount Nebo, which [is] in the land of Moab, that [is] over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:
32:50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:
32:51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.
32:52 Yet thou shalt see the land before [thee]; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.