1. The phrase "immortal soul" is not found in the Bible. The Bible mentions the word "soul" often enough, and the word "immortal". However the two words are never joined in the Bible; and what the Bible says about the two things separately, is out of keeping with the idea that a soul is an immaterial thing, or that immortality belongs to anybody now.
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"The soul of every living thing" (Job 12:10). "Satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Prov. 6:30). "Levy a tribute . . . one soul of five hundred ... persons ... asses ... sheep" (Num. 31:28). "Smote all the souls" (Josh. 11:11). "In thy skirts is found the blood of the souls" (Jer. 11:34). "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 15:20). "Seek for glory, honour, and immortality" (Rom. 2:7). "This mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:54). "God only hath immortality" (1 Tim. 6:16).
If every living thing has a soul, and a soul can eat, and can be handled and can die, and if immortality be some thing that men have to seek for now, and to put on when Christ comes, it follows that the idea that the soul is an invisible thing that cannot die is not true.
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2. The Bible teaches that man is mortal now; that death has entered the world by sin; that where sin is death must be, and that death will only be destroyed with Christ's final triumph upon earth.
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"Mortal man" (Job 4:17). "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men" (Rom. 5:12). "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). "The end of those things is death" (Rom. 6:21). "To be carnally minded is death" (Rom. 8:6). "He (Christ) must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:25-26), "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away ... Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:4-5).
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3. The hope of immortality is to be realised when Christ comes, by the resurrection of the dead or by a change of the mortal body if alive at his coming.
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"He shall change our vile body" (Phil. 3:21). "This mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:53). "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (verse 51). "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven ... and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thess. 4:16). "They shalI come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of Iife" (John 5:29). "Clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. 5:4).
How could this be if we are already immortal, and if that immortality resided in an invisible spirit which goes away from the body at death?
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4. The dead are to be judged at the coming of Christ. The righteous are to be rewarded, and the wicked punished at that time.
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"He shall judge the living and the dead at his appearing" (2 Tim. 4:1). "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father ... and then shall he reward every man according to his works" (Matt. 16:27). "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor. 5:10). "The time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward to thy servants the prophets" (Rev. 11:18). "Those that know not God .... shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thess. 1:8).
Therefore when we die we do not immediately "go to judgment", and if accepted go to heaven to be rewarded, or descend to hell to be punished. What is the meaning of a day of judgment if everything is settled before the judgement day arrives?
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5. In the death state men are without feeling, or memory, or consciousness, and that they are incapable of exercising any faculty or rendering any praise. In fact, they "know not anything".
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"In death, there is no remembrance of thee" (Psa. 6:5). "The dead know not anything; their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished" (Eccl. 9:5). "He returneth to his earth: in that very day his thoughts perish" (Psa. 146:4). "The dead praise not the Lord" (Psa. 115:17). "The grave cannot praise thee" (Isa. 38:18).
If all this be so, how can the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be true? If man is mortal, then he is not immortal; and if death has passed upon all men, then it must be wrong to say that he is never-dying and cannot die. Man is mortal. His being dissolves in death, and when dead, he is really dead. Therefore there is a need for the resurrection at Christ's re-appearing.