WILL the dead maintain their identity and individuality? Is there any clear light on this? We will not discuss it, but refer to a few evidences. Fifteen hundred years after Moses died, and before any had risen from the dead, he held a conversation with Jesus in the mountain of transfiguration. He had not lost his identity nor his individuality. He did not lose his consciousness. See Matt. xvii. 1–4; Mark ix. 2–4; Luke ix. 28–30. The rich man died, and in hades he lifted up his eyes in torment. See Luke xvi. 23. He did not lose his identity, individuality or consciousness. Nor is there any account of his existence being such as he had before he was born. Nor did Lazarus lose his identity, individuality or consciousness. These men were both identified, conscious, and retained their individuality. They were not in the same place or state, though both were in hades. There was a great gulf between them—the one in Abraham’s bosom, and the other in tartaros.
We are not to assume that, because we find soul and spirit used interchangeably in some instances, they always mean the same, much less that they always mean life. When Paul prays that the “whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless,” he does not use the words soul and spirit in the same sense, any more than he uses the words soul and the body in the same sense. He does not use the spirit, soul and body, in the same sense, or as meaning the same thing, but each having its own meaning. The word soul is used with more latitude than the word spirit. The word soul is frequently used in the sense of person, as “the soul that sinneth shall die;” “eight souls were saved in the ark,” and other cases. The word soul is used in the sense of life, in some instances. But it is used synonymously with spirit, in the following: “Are not able to kill the soul.” Matt. x. 28. Man can kill the body and the natural life, but the soul or spirit, man can not kill. The living being that dwells in the body, or the “inner man,” does not die when the body dies. This “inner man” may be “at home in the body, or absent from the body and present with the Lord.” This “inner man” may be caught away to paradise, in the body or out of the body. But we cannot go into the discussion of these matters, now.
We do not receive the idea of men losing their identity, individuality or consciousness; the transmigration of the soul, or the pre-existence of the soul; nor the atheistic idea that “death is an eternal sleep.” We can find better, and certainly more profitable themes than these, on which to dwell, both in our meditations, preaching and writing. Let us be careful and not get out where the water is too deep—we might find it over our heads.