**Unlike most of my scripture references in other articles, the reader will notice that I reference the particular translation used in several places throughout this article. This is done so that the reader may easily note the differences between two or more translations of the same scriptural passage.**
KJV “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” (John 8:51)
KJV ”And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:26)
The first lie that we are made known of in the scriptures was uttered by The Serpent, to Eve:
“And the serpent said unto the woman: Ye shall not surely die.”(Gen.3:4)
God, said that they WOULD die, if they ate of the one tree that He instructed them not to eat of; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we read God’s instructions to our first parents, we read the following:
KJV “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Gen.2:17)
We know from the Genesis account that Adam did not die the day that he disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree. Adam lived to be 930 years old, according to scripture (Gen.5:5). What are we to make of God’s pronouncement that Adam would die “in the day” he first sinned against God? The fact that Adam did not die as described (in the KJV and many other translations) is used to put for the false teaching that Adam died spiritually that day. Theologians and pastors contend that Adam had to have died that day; therefore, since we know he lived well beyond that day, he must have died in a spiritualsense.
We will next examine why and prove why this is not the case; and build the case, that the spiritualization of death; is a form of Satan’s lie to our first parents (see above). The spiritualization of death is expressed in phrases which cannot be found in scripture. Some of these phrases include: “spiritual death”, “physical death”, “bodily resurrection”, “death of the body”, “immortal soul”, etc.
In everyday language, these phrases and their underlying philosophies are found in sayings (when speaking of the dead) such as: “He is in a better place.”, “He went to be with the Lord.”, “He is walking the streets of gold.” Etc.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to go into great depth as to answering what happens at death; from a scriptural perspective, below are just a few verses stating that death is a state of oblivion.
“For the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything.” (Ecc.9:5)
“For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave, who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps. 6:5)
“For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.” (Is.38:18)
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die…” (Ez.18:20)
“Men and brethren, let me speak unto you of the patriarch, David, that he is both dead and buried…” (Acts 2:29)
When the scriptures speak of death and of resurrection, you will not find one, single, solitary instance in which death of the body, resurrection of the body, physical death, or physical resurrection is described. In every instance, it is the death of the person, or the resurrection of the person.
When Adam sinned, did he die spiritually? He couldn’t have because Adam was not spiritual, but soulish.
Concordant “If there is a soulish body, there is a spiritual also. Thus, it is written also, The first man, Adam,”became a living soul: the last Adam a vivifying spirit. But not first the spiritual, but the soulish, thereupon, the spiritual.” (1 Cor. 15:45-46)
Paul was speaking in this passage (what is known as “the resurrection chapter”) contrasting our earthly body with our heavenly body (to be exchanged in resurrection), and also contrasting the first Adam, with the second Adam, Christ Jesus. Adam was not spiritual. He was guided by the senses, emotions, etc.; thus, soulish.
If we know that Adam lived well beyond the day he sinned against God, and that he did not die spiritually, how are we to understand Genesis 2:17? The key is in the translation. Below, is an accurate translation of the original Hebrew:
Concordant “Yet from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you are not to be eating from it, for in the day you eat from it, to die shall you be dying.”
After Adam disobeyed God, he was barred from the path to the tree of life. As long as Adam could eat from the tree of life, he would never die. As a mercy, God blocked Adam’s path to the tree of life, so that he could not live forever in a corrupted state. The King James Version (and most translations) do not say that “in the day you eat from it, to die shall you be dying”. This is phrase is the figure of speech, “Polyptoton” (redundancy for emphasis). It isn’t signifying that the death process starts, but saying that his death is a certainty.
In the New Testament, there is a particular phrase which Jesus Christ said on two occasions, which are NOT in the King James Version Bible; nor most any other translations. I want to emphasize this. There is a phrase (3 specific words) which on the two occasions that Jesus spoke it, most bible translators chose to omit it! This isn’t an issue of mistranslating the phrase. A noun wasn’t exchanged for an adverb here. An English word that bears no semblance of meaning with the Greek was not substituted. The phrase was just omitted from the scriptures, as if He had never spoken them.
Below, are the verses in question as they read in the KJV and most translations.
KJV “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” (John 8:51)
KJV ”And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:26)
Below are how the verses read, translated correctly. I provided one from the Concordant Version and one from the Rotherham. Also, I have bolded the phrase which had been omitted by the King James Version.
Concordant “Verily, Verily, I am saying to you, If ever anyone should be keeping My word, he should under no circumstances be beholding death for the eon." (John 8:51)
Rotherham “And everyone who is living and believing in Me, should by no means be dying for the eon. Are you believingthis?” (John 11:26)
There is a HUGE difference in the meanings when the King James Version (and almost all other translations) are compared with the two above. Also, the phrase which Jesus spoke, and the translators chose not to include are definitely there. You can check by going online and looking up the two verses in a Greek interlinear. The Greek phrase, “eis ton aiona” means literally “for the eon (age)”.
Let me attempt to describe in a hypothetical conversation, just how big a deal this omission really is, when it comes to our understanding of what Jesus was speaking about.
Imagine if you were warned by someone in authority and were told, “If you don’t arrive in time, you will never see your child.” That is how the King James Version would handle the conversation. Now, here is how the conversation, should have been handled, “If you don’t arrive in time, you will never see your child this afternoon.”
Do you think there is a big difference between these two statements? There is a very big difference between these two statements? One states that you will never see your child and the other states that there is a given period of time that you will not see your child. I would say that is a huge difference.
Likewise, Jesus Christ meant something very different than what most translators want you to think He meant. Christ’s earthly ministry was to Israel (Matt.16:24) and was about the next eon (age) to come. He was speaking in the context of the age, when He returns to set up His kingdom on earth and how to have life in that age (eon). Believers, who are resurrected to the kingdom, will live that entire age and never taste death again, because they will be made immortal. They will also live beyond that age, because again, they are immortal and beyond the reach of death. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15 (the resurrection chapter) of how we will put on immortality.
In contrast, the translators have made it seem that believers never die. This harkens back to the lie of the Serpent, “Ye shall not surely die.” All die. That is because we are brought under the condemnation of death, brought by Adam’s disobedience. Even so, we will be made alive because of Jesus Christ’s obedience.
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22)
Scriptural understanding that death is the death of the person is fundamental to the gospel. Most of the error in orthodox Christianity can be traced back to the belief in the first lie recorded. If we fail to have a correct grasp of death, we fail to see what the wages of sin actually are, we make God a liar when it comes to our nature, we make there to be no practical difference between life and death, and finally, we fail to believe in the cornerstone of the gospel for salvation from death. How can we believe that Christ died for our sins, if we don’t believe He really died?
The false doctrine of the immortality of the soul, denies the death of Jesus Christ, the person, the man. Many times I have heard pastors say something to the effect that His body died, but that He was still alive and in Heaven. This is a contradiction. This is not sound words. This is a denial of the truth and dishonest and deceptive translations of the Bible have aided in the deception.
If we believe that the words Jesus Christ spoke were important, I think there is an obvious question. Why did the translators (who read the two Greek phrases uttered by Jesus) ignore these phrases and choose not to include them in the Bible? Jesus spoke the phrase twice, and the Pharisees (John 8:52) repeated it back to Him. There is no explanation, other than the omission was intentional. I see three possibilities as to why the phrase was intentionally omitted.
a. The translators saw the problem that would be created if they translated the phrase containing “aion” as they translated it elsewhere.
b. The translators saw that this phrase was not in agreement with their theology.
c. (both, a. and b.)
The Greek word “aion” means “age”. It is from this noun,“aion”, we derive the English transliteration, “eon”. An eon is a period of time. It can be definite or indefinite. It is not endless, and it is not “eternal”. However, most translators rendered it in that fashion. “Aion” is almost never translated as “age/eon” in the King James Version. “Almost never” is the key phrase here. In the 165 times “aion” is used in the Greek New Testament, it is most often translated as “ever”, “never”, “world”, “for ever”, “evermore”, “everlasting”, and “course”. I wonder how a word could reasonably translated as both “ever” and “never”, but maybe my simple mind can’t just incorporate that a word can have one meaning and yet, another meaning that is antithetical to the primary meaning.
There are only 4 instances in the 165 times where “aion” is found in the New Testament, that it is actually translated correctly. Two of the verses are provided below. The other two are Ephesians 3:5;21.
“That in the ages to come, he might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” (Eph.2:7)
“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints.” (Col. 1:26)
The translators, due to the plural form of the noun, were uniquely boxed-in to actually translating correctly in these two instances. Otherwise, we would have been reading nonsense about the “forevers to come”, or “eternities”, or “nevers”.
You can see the potential problems created if the translators had included “eis ton aiona” when they have rendered it so poorly everywhere else. You have a noun (aion), definite article (eis), and a preposition (ton). Never mind, that in the instances the KJV translators made “aion” into “ever”, “for ever”, and “never”, they are turning a noun into an adverb, but they would really have to throw rules of grammar and syntax to the winds to render the phrase in question, consistently with what they have done elsewhere. I think that the translators’ inconsistent and incorrect handling of the noun, “aion” certainly is a component, but I think the fact that the Lord’s phrase presented a real problem for their theology is the underlying problem. The immortality of the soul doctrine was well entrenched by the time the translation of the King James Version was completed. In fact, the immortality of the soul doctrine does not have its origination in Christianity. This doctrine is a Pagan doctrine which has its roots in Babylonian and ancient Egyptian religion.
Saint Augustine 354A.D.-430A.D. is probably most responsible for the Roman Catholic (and subsequently Protestant) teachings on the nature of man and the death state. Augustine’s ideas on the soul were not so much informed by the scriptures, as by his philosophical views pertaining to Platonism and materialism. In addition, based on much of his writing, it seems he often used “soul” and “spirit” as interchangeable terms; while the scriptures keep them distinct.
In Jeremiah 8:8, the Israelites believe they are knowledgeable for they have the written record of the Torah. But, Jeremiah warns that they can’t claim that because, “thelying pen of the scribes hath handled it falsely”. This is exactly what we have in many translations of scriptures. The lying pen of the scribes has been used to teach and defend Pagan and unscriptural concepts, while artfully hiding and omitting the truth from those who search it out.
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