“Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
How much does a soul weigh? In 1901, physician Duncan MacDougall tried to find out. He identified six patients at a nursing home who were near death. As the moment of death drew near, he placed the patient on a large scale. He wanted to see if there was a loss of weight at the moment of death. He reasoned that the lost weight would be the weight of the soul.
The results varied. Two lost weight at the moment of death and then lost more weight after a few minutes. One lost weight and then put it back on. One lost 21 grams at the moment of death. The New York Times found out about the study and published an article implying that the weight of the soul was 21 grams. Those 21 grams have been part of the public consciousness ever since. We see it in the 2003 film, 21 Grams,starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. Penn’s character says, “They say we all lose 21 grams… at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose [those] 21 grams? How much goes with them?”
The idea that the soul weighs 21 grams has no scientific basis. It has no Biblical basis. Yet people cling to the idea. Why?
People cling to the idea because they want measurable proof for the soul. We live in an age that only believes in what can be measured, and so people want the soul to be measurable.
The soul is immeasurable. What can be known about the soul isn’t accessible by science. It is accessible by revelation. This is knowledge that must be revealed to humanity and it has been revealed in Scripture.
Do you know what the Scriptures say about the soul? Do you know what Christians say about the soul? If you follow Jesus, imagine that an unbelieving friend has asked you what you believe about the soul; what would you say? People are interested in questions like this. They are interested enough to do experiments to try to measure the soul. They are interested enough to make movies hoping that the soul has weight. People rightly care about these things.
The world expects the church to have something to say about matters like the soul. They know what they think. They know that they don’t know. They expect that we Christians might know something they don’t.
The world has the right to hear that each of us has a soul, that this soul came from God, and that this soul will stand before God. The church can and must speak with authority on what we know to be true. The soul is a precious thing, but it must be given away. If any man or woman wants to live, they must give their soul to God. They must give their soul to Jesus.
Have you done that? If you don’t belong body and soul to Jesus, you don’t belong to Jesus. To belong to Jesus, you must give him your soul. That is the claim of this sermon: to belong to Jesus, you must give him your soul.
We will see this in two points. First: the soul. Second: my soul belongs to Jesus. First, we will do our best to understand the soul. Second, we will do our best to understand what the Catechism, and Bible, mean when they talk about the soul belonging to Jesus.
First: the soul. The soul is the immaterial part of a person. In other words, the soul is what is within you. Psalm 103:1 repeats itself when it says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” My soul is all that is within me. It is the me you cannot see. It’s the me that can’t be measured.
This body that you see before you is the material part of me. My soul is the immaterial part of me. Genesis 2 speaks of both at the creation of man. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
You are both body and soul. Your body is physical. Your soul is spiritual. That’s why the word ‘soul’ is used interchangeably with the word ‘spirit’ in Scripture.
You can’t weigh the soul because it doesn’t have physical properties; it has spiritual properties. You can’t weigh the soul any more than you could weigh God, who is spirit.
God gave us life as body and soul. These two are split at death. In Ecclesiastes 12, Solomon speaks about the moment of death using creation language; “the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
To understand the soul, I want you to think about this moment of death. When you die, your soul separates from your body. The death of Jacob’s wife Rachel is described this way, “As her soul was departing (for she was dying) she called [her son’s] name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.”
Your soul departs, but the Bible doesn’t just talk about your soul departing when you die, it talks about you departing when you die. Psalm 90:10, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”Moses didn’t just say “your soul” flies away. He said, “You fly away.”
This is where you see the genius of the way George MacDonald put it, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Since you are a soul with a body, you will still be you when you don’t have your body. When Rachel died, she returned to God. Jacob buried her body but who she was went to God. That’s what we call the soul.
Your soul isn’t something within you that you hope God keeps safe when you die. Your soul is you. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord me to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord me to take to heaven.’
This is why when Paul pondered his death, he said, “I desire to depart and to be with Christ.” Paul knew he would be himself even after he died. His body would be in the ground but he, his soul, would be with Jesus.
We rightly talk that way at funerals. Remember when Ella Mae passed away? We said, “I’m so glad that her suffering is over and that she is with the Lord.” Her suffering in the body is over. Her soul is with the Lord. What we buried is no longer really her because her soul was absent from that body. The breath of life that God breathed into that body was gone and it had returned to God.
This is hard for us to get our minds around because we have never yet lived as souls without out bodies. We will. When you die, you will live for a time without your body. It seems that you will live as a soul without a body until the final judgment. The book of Revelation gives a picture of this. John writes, ‘I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”’ These souls were people who were killed for their faith. They knew who they were. They knew what happened to them. They didn’t yet have their resurrected bodies that we studied last week, but they were with God as souls.
If you belong to Jesus, that’s what will happen to you when you die. Your soul will immediately be with Jesus just like that thief on the cross. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
You won’t yet have your resurrected body. Being absent from the body but at home with the Lord, will be better than this life in a thousand ways, but it won’t yet be everything you want or everything you were created for because you won’t have a body. The soul wants to be with the body. Paul explained it to the Corinthians. They wanted to know about the soul just like Americans do. They wanted to know what happens after we die just like people who read the New York Times do. Paul explained it by calling this body a tent and the resurrected body a heavenly dwelling. He spoke about the body as something that you inhabit. That’s telling. You are the soul who inhabits this earthly tent and you are the soul who will inhabit that heavenly dwelling. “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
Speaking of the moment of death, Paul wrote, “we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”
You are a soul with a body right now. When you die, you will be a soul waiting for your body.
God created you this way to give you untold dignity. You, soul, are made in the image of God. Scripture speaks of God’s soul. You aren’t made in the image of God because your body looks like His. God is spirit. He doesn’t have a body. You are made in the image of God not because you have a body, but because you are a soul.
That gives you immeasurable value. The people of this world need to hear that they have immeasurable value. Jesus thinks the soul is incredibly valuable. That’s why he asked, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Your soul is so valuable that you would be a fool to trade it for anything. People in this world are falling into that foolishness. They are devaluing themselves.
Do you recognize the dignity that has been placed upon you? Does your soul feel its worth? The Christmas carol is true, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.”
Jesus came to save souls. He came to save sinners. He came so that you, so that your soul, could belong to him. That’s our second point: my soul belongs to Jesus.
To begin this point, we need to make clear that in the final assessment every soul belongs to God. He breathed His life into us. He rightly told Ezekiel, “Behold, all souls are mine.”
God said those words to prove that He has the right to judge all souls. “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.” What gives God the right to judge me for my sin? What gives God the right to make decisions regarding my soul? He created me. The soul that I am is His breath.
Does that carry weight with you? If not, I really don’t know what I can tell you that is going to make any difference until God opens your mind. Apparently, you have already decided that you, not God, have the final say. You have decided that God has no claim on you. Talking about sin would do you no good because you don’t think God has any right to judge you. Talking about God’s love for you would only puff you up. All I can do is tell you that you don’t think clearly. You don’t live in the real world. “Behold, all souls are mine,” says God; that’s the real world. Accept that and life makes sense. Deny that and you will keep living in foolishness. “Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your soul.”
If you do recognize that souls belong to God, you see the need to be right with God. God sees that need. He told Ezekiel to tell the people, “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
God loves people. He didn’t create us for death. He created us for life. “The Father loved the world this way: He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.”
That verse clearly tells us that one of two things will happen to your soul. You will either live, have eternal life in the words of John. Or you will perish. “The soul who sins will die,” as God told Ezekiel.
Which is it? I’m not asking, ‘which one do you want it be?’ I’m asking, ‘which is it?’ The crux of the matter is not your sin. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. The crux of the matter is whether you have acknowledged that you are a sinner and have come to Jesus Christ.
The apostle Peter told the early church, “you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Whether or not you have strayed is not the question. You have. The question is whether you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul.
Part of returning to Jesus is giving him your soul. To belong to Jesus, your soul must belong to Jesus. To save your soul, you must offer your soul. As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for their soul?”
Do you want to save your soul? Then you need to offer it. You need to give it to Jesus. Bebo Norman put it this way, “just so you know, I have never done this sort of thing before. I’ve never given up my very soul, but I have heard a voice like none I’ve heard before, and it’s a voice that never grows old; don’t you turn away from me, because my heart and my hopes, they’re in your hands, and if I don’t seem certain, it’s just a common fear from a common man, but I am in your hands.” Those are the words of a man who belongs to Jesus. He has given Jesus his very soul.
He said it was a bit scary, “just so you know, I have never done this sort of thing before. I’ve never given up my very soul.” Why did he do it? “I have heard a voice like none I’ve heard before, and it’s a voice that never grows old.” In the end, Bebo Norman knew what all Christians know; he knew that offering his soul to Jesus was certainly wise because of who Jesus is.
If you have difficulty giving your soul to Jesus, consider who he is. Listen to Peter, “[Jesus] committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to [God] who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Why wouldn’t you return to that Shepherd of the soul?
If you have trouble giving your soul to Jesus, consider who he is. Consider that he knows what it is like to have a soul. He told his friends in Gethsemane, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” He knew what Hannah meant when she tearfully told Eli, “I am troubled in spirit… I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” He knew what David meant when he said, “my soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.”
Jesus doesn’t deal callously with souls. He knows what it is like to have a soul and he knows how to care for them. His invitation is no empty boast; “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus’ way of life truly is good for the soul. Consider that if you find it hard to give him your soul.
Consider Jesus. Consider that he knows what it is like to give up his soul. What were Jesus’ last words on the cross? “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” ‘I give you my soul.’ Jesus knows what it is like to give his soul to another. Jesus isn’t asking you to do something that he wasn’t willing to do. He trusted his Father with his soul. Do you trust Jesus with your soul? Do you belong body and soul, in life and in death, to your faithful Savior Jesus Christ?
If so, you don’t need to fear anyone in this life. That’s why Jesus said, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus didn’t say that to make you dread God. He said that to make you fearless before man. He said that to make you like David who could write, “In God I have put my trust. I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?” Jesus said that to make you like himself. Do you belong to Jesus? That is the only security.
You have the breath of life in you. You have a soul. Now I am going to ask a question which you might find strange. Do you want to have a soul? You might be wondering who wouldn’t want a soul; plenty of people would rather not have a soul. Plenty of people hate life and shudder at the thought of eternity. Plenty of people fritter life away in the hope that none of this matters. It does matter.
CS Lewis was right, “there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
The soul of each person in this sanctuary matters more than we can calculate. That means you matter enough to warrant eternal punishment, to become an immortal horror, in the words of Lewis. Think what you want about hell, but you must admit that it is a sign that God takes the decisions of this life seriously. He takes souls seriously. He takes you seriously enough to treat you as a responsible individual, one who is responsible for your decisions. If you say that you want eternity without Him, you will have eternity without Him. If you say that you don’t want your souls to belong to Him, then your soul won’t belong to Him.
That’s your choice to make. That choice doesn’t please God. “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone; so turn, and live.”
If you want to live, belong to Jesus. Give your soul to Jesus. If you want to keep your soul, you are going to lose it. If you want to save it, give it to Jesus. Belong to him. That’s how you become an everlasting splendor. Amen.