This is the 2nd part in a series of 7 written under the title:

You Shall Surely Die

Rediscovering Life, Death, and Resurrection Through Scripture
See index for previous parts.
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Part 2. Dust + Breath = Life?

In the previous chapter we arrived at the point where the biblical story of humanity truly begins. Before asking what death is or what happens after death, we must first understand how God created human life. Genesis 2:7 tells us:

"Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (ESV)

It is a familiar passage, yet perhaps because it is so familiar, we often read past what it actually says.

Before we attempt to answer larger questions about the soul, death, resurrection, or eternal life, we should pause and ask a few simple questions about this verse itself.

• What was Adam before God breathed into him?
  
• What happened when God breathed the breath of life into him?
• What became alive?
• If the man became a living being, what exactly dies when a person dies?

These questions are not as obvious as they first appear.

Genesis describes two distinct elements coming together. God first formed the man from the dust of the earth. He then breathed into him the breath of life. Only after these two elements were united did "the man become a living creature."

Notice carefully what the text does—and does not—say. It does not say that God placed a living soul inside a body. It says that the man became a living being.

If we were to express the verse as a simple equation, it might look like this:

Dust of the earth + the breath of life = a living being.

That is the entire biblical description of humanity's creation!

This simple observation raises another important question. If Genesis intended to teach that humanity consists of an immortal soul temporarily inhabiting a physical body, why does it never describe creation in those terms? Instead, it presents a remarkably unified picture. God forms the man. God breathes into the man. The man becomes a living being. The emphasis falls not upon two independent entities but upon the creation of one living person. Before asking what later generations believed about human nature, we should first ask what Moses intended his readers to understand.

This also gives us insight into how ancient Israel—the first audience to receive Genesis—would have understood the human person. They would not have approached the text with centuries of later philosophical discussion about the nature of the soul. They would simply have understood the account as describing how God created a living human being. The man was formed from the dust of the ground. God breathed into him the breath of life. As a result, the man became a living creature.

Throughout the Old Testament, this same picture continues to dominate. Human beings are ordinarily presented as whole, living persons rather than as immortal souls temporarily inhabiting physical bodies. Life is God's gift. Humanity is animated by His breath. The emphasis falls upon the living person as a unified whole.

This understanding also explains something that many modern readers find surprising. The same expression translated “living creature” or “living soul” (nephesh chayyah) in Genesis 2:7 is also used of the animals God created in Genesis 1. Fish, birds, land animals, and mankind are all described in the same way—as living creatures. The expression emphasizes that they are living beings; it does not, by itself, describe an immortal, immaterial component existing independently of the body.

The language of Genesis is remarkably concrete. Adam is formed from the dust of the ground, and his life depends entirely upon the breath God gives him. Neither element alone is described as a living person. Dust is not alive, and the breath of life is not presented as a conscious individual. Life begins only when the Creator brings the two together. This does not answer every question we might ask about human nature, but it establishes the foundation upon which those questions must be explored. If we are to understand what the Bible means by words such as soul, spirit, life, and death, we should begin with the meanings those words carried for those who first received God's revelation, rather than with ideas that developed centuries later.

This picture should not surprise us. Throughout Scripture, life is consistently portrayed as God's gift rather than humanity's inherent possession. Human beings do not possess life independently. They receive it. They remain alive because God continually sustains the life He has given.

The importance of this picture becomes even clearer when Scripture begins to describe death.

When Adam was warned that disobedience would result in death, God did not introduce an entirely new concept. Death would be the undoing of what had happened in Genesis 2:7. The body would return to the dust from which it was formed, while the breath of life would return to the God who gave it.

The creation account itself prepares us for this understanding.

The creation account therefore establishes the pattern that will guide everything that follows. Human beings are not introduced as immortal souls temporarily inhabiting bodies, but as living creatures whose life depends entirely upon the Creator. That distinction may seem small, yet it profoundly shapes the way we understand the rest of Scripture. It also prepares us for the next question. When Genesis says that Adam “became a living creature,” what exactly does that expression mean? More specifically, what does the Bible mean by the word so often translated “soul?” Before asking whether the soul is immortal, we must first discover what the biblical writers meant by the word itself.

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Watch for part 3.  "The Living Soul"

Now posted.