Soul, Death, & Grace Chapter 11
SUMMARY TO CHAPTERS 7-10
In our research materials we have found the following formula:
Man is, at the beginning of life, a three-part being; a being composed of a spirit which returns to God at death, a body which will go to the grave at death, never to be resurrected-a much finer material making up the resurrected body, and a soul which is dead in trespasses and sins until it is reformed and prepared for death and the resurrection through the work of grace which is as real as the air, and which was purchased for man by the salvific work of the Christ.
Grace comes to the soul through means of grace such as the study of the Word in quest for truth, the agency of the Holy Spirit, the exercise of faith, and the ministry of the angels. This means that where faith is not exercised grace though present does not function.
Under the work of grace the soul is surrounded with an atmosphere which introversly remakes the soul, guards the avenues to the soul, and infects everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, who encounters the person with the reconstituted soul.
Soul, Death, and Grace
the back story
prolepsis
introduction
chapters:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
acknowledgments
bibliography
The person possessing the soul being restructured by grace is capable of attaining almost to the excellency of the angels; capable of constant mental progress.
But perhaps most significant to our topic of study, as one participates in grace their soul becomes a partaker of the elements of eternal life, which guarantees it immortality. AA. p. STO.
When such a person dies and goes to the grave, or prison house, the soul is protected during death until the time when the eternal life within enables that one to hear the call of the Life-giver and come forth from the grave partly by the life-within which is the result of personal connection with Christ.
In the resurrection the spirit, or character which went back to God at death, is returned and the resurrected, or standing-up-one, is housed in a body designed for the post resurrection life, an uninterrupted continuation of the pre-death person. That is, there is no disruption between death and resurrection for the soul which was made by grace. There is no change of character by death or by resurrection.