Many religions teach that the human soul is immortal, and only the physical body actually dies. They see death as the transition from one state of consciousness to another. 

According to this doctrine, the soul is a separate entity that only resides in the body of the living. However, the text of Genesis 2:7 clearly states that God breathed into the formed man the "breath of life" and the man became a living soul. He did not receive a living soul; he became one. The New King James Bible states, "man became a living being."

Immortality

Of the Bible's 1700 references to the soul and the spirit, neither the soul or spirit is ever declared to be immortal or eternal. In fact, 1 Timothy tells us that only God is immortal. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is full of false hope and negates the message of death. If humans continue to live—albeit in an altered state—then there is no need for the atoning death of Christ. Christ died to restore life to those who had forfeited it through sin.

In Eden, God said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). God did not say, "Your body will die, and you will enter a new state of consciousness."

It was the serpent who lied to Eve, saying, "You will not die." The idea that our soul is immortal is a lie that originated in Eden to convince us that we are immortal like God.

We are not immortal, but it's true that we were never meant to die. Death entered the world as a consequence of sin (Romans 6:23). Only when Adam and Eve chose to ignore God's good plan and choose death did it become a reality.

When someone dies, their spirit, or breath of life, returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7). God takes back the life (ruach, spirit, breath) that He granted on condition of obedience, and the person ceases to live. When God said that humans would surely die if we transgressed His requirements (Genesis 2:17), He meant that we would cease to live, and would return to dust.

The Bible Describes Death

Far from being a conscious state, death is the ultimate state of non-being or unconsciousness, and is described as such in the Scriptures:

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish (Psalm 146:4).

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6).

For in death there is no remembrance of You (Psalm 6:5 NKJV).

The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence (Psalm 115:17).

So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep (Job 14:12).

Humans lie in the sleep of death until the resurrection at the end of time. Then, and only then, will we awake and be raised out of what David called the "sleep of death" (Psalm 13:3). Learn more about the "sleep of death" in our next article: The Resurrection of Lazarus