Scripture teaches that man is mortal. From the beginning, Adam was made of the dust of the earth — flesh and blood, fragile as grass that grows and then withers. He was not created immortal. Man became a living soul (nephesh) when Jesus breathed into him the breath of life. As such, man must breathe air, drink water, and eat food in order to live. Without these, the soul perishes.
When Adam sinned, JHVH or actually we know Jesus declared:
“Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever — therefore JHVH God sent him out from the garden of Eden…”
(Genesis 3:22–23)
Adam was removed so that he would not gain endless life. This raises the hard question: What would have happened to Adam if he had eaten from the Tree of Life? Would corruptible flesh have been sustained endlessly, trapped in rebellion, like fallen angels?
Scripture teaches that death is the payment for sin. Ask further, did Adam require food, water, and air while in the Garden? Scripture is clear: he was flesh, a living nephesh, no different in dependence than the beasts. Immortality was never Adam’s by nature.
The Witness of the Prophets
The prophets affirm this truth. Obadiah declares that the wicked “shall be as though they had never been” (Obadiah 1:16). Not endless torment, not unending existence — but nothingness. Death.
Jude warns of “wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1:13). This is not eternal consciousness but the utter absence of life — the blackness of nothingness.
The testimony is consistent: man does not possess inherent immortality. Only Jesus is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16).
The False Teaching of Innate Immortality
Yet today, seminary-trained, man-ordained ministers teach that all humans are born immortal, that the soul cannot die, and that men have eternal life at conception, even before it. They divide man into “body, soul, and spirit,” and exalt the soul as a godlike, indestructible essence, with pride.
This doctrine makes a grave error. It teaches that eternal life is man’s natural possession rather than Jesus’s gift. It subtly denies the very gospel and men have guile in their mouth. Scripture says plainly:
“He that has the Son has life; and he that does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
(1 John 5:12)
To claim otherwise is antichrist, for it denies Jesus as the source of eternal life. It replaces Him with a false teaching — that life is already within us. In doing so, it strips Christ of His unique role as “the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25).
We Must Be Born Again
The truth is simple. We do not have eternal life in ourselves. We are mortal. We die like grass in a field. Only through being born again of the Spirit, through belief in Messiah, do we receive the promise of immortality. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Eternal life is not something we already have. It is a gift, found only in Christ. To teach otherwise is to reject Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.