“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?’” (Revelation 6:9-10)
Revelation 6:9-10 are the only texts that remain to be examined as a stronghold of the popular theory of the immortality of the soul—that is, of those texts in which the word “soul” is found; others we shall examine under their proper headings. Superficial, indeed, must be the mind that cannot see that, instead of this portion of Scripture favoring the immortality and immateriality of the soul, it is directly opposed to such a theory. One would think that the fact of these “souls” were seen underneath an altar, and that they had blood would be sufficient to show that they are not immortal or immaterial. Moreover, if an immortal soul has no size, weight or dimension, if it cannot be seen or felt, if it can be found underneath an altar (or at its base), then how can it be put on an altar and slain, and how can it be said to have blood?
The apostle was not speaking of immortal, immaterial, bloodless souls... He was referring to the lives of men and women. Why be astonished at the idea of “souls” being slain, when it is said that “Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them and all the souls that were therein” (Joshua 10:28, 39)? Why should It be thought incredible that “souls” have blood when the prophet Jeremiah says: “In thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents,” (Jeremiah 2:34)? To a mind in harmony with and familiarized with the Word of God, the texts in question present no difficulty whatever in the way of the materiality, and mortality of the soul. Neither is there anything in the fact of their crying out to prove that they were disembodied entities.
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Author: Thomas Williams
Keywords: Immortality of the soul, Soul, Kill the body, Soul's immortality, Immortal soul, Kill the soul, Immortal spirit, Undying spirit, Undieing spirit, Life after death, Undying soul, Undieing soul, martyrs slain, Souls altar, Souls under the altar, Soul crying out, Soul cries out, Souls in heaven, Going to heaven, Afterlife in heaven, Life in heaven
Bible reference(s): Rev. 6:9-11
Source: The Great Salvation (Englewood: Advocate and Gleaner Pub. House, 1893?).
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.