INQUIRER: My question is about the soul. I suffered a stroke nine years ago. I was comatosed for almost two weeks. I want to believe because I really experienced that my soul went out of my body, then sat down, but I was lying on the bed. Then my soul invited me, "Let us leave," it said. I said, "I do not want to." I could not find my hand. Then, it lied down again, then it sat up again and invited me once more. My question is, is it true that it was really my soul? And I want to increase my knowledge about the soul.

BRO. ELI F. SORIANO (EFS): Psalms 88:14-18 -

SIS. LUZ CRUZ (LC):

"LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness."

EFS: It is much better for us to have a Biblical background of what a soul is. What is a soul? Let us know from the Bible what a soul is. Let us begin with God. Does God have a soul? Let us read Hebrews 10:38 -

LC: "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."

EFS: The one speaking is the Lord God. He said to His servants - "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." So, straightforwardly speaking, the Lord God Himself has a soul. my soul shall have no pleasure in him." God Himself has a soul. He said - "but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." So, God has a soul. Now, who else has a soul? Let us read Job 12:10 -

BRO. MEL MAGDARAOG (MM): "In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."

EFS: Maybe it is now clear to you that all living things have a soul. In Hebrew and Greek, the words used are really synonymous. In Hebrew, the word used is nephesh. properly a breathing creature, So, sister, soul means an existing thing with life. That is it, the soul. Now, the Bible says, the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God. In fact, even the things in the sea have souls. Let us read Revelation 16:3 -

MM: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea."

EFS: Please read it in English -

LC: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man:

EFS: "..and every living soul died in the sea."So, there are also souls in the sea. Therefore, not only man has a soul, sister. Not only man. God has it, other living creatures have it, and man has it. We will not debate about it because we both believe. But what is the soul of man? That is our question. What is the soul of man? Listen to Genesis 2:7 -

MM: "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Bro. Eli: So in man, his whole being, it is called soul, sister. The one from dust, then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, then after he was formed, the man, it says -

MM: "...became a living soul."

EFS: Let us read in English -

LC: "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

EFS: So, man became a living soul. So, man himself is a living soul. He is a soul. Man is a soul, his entirety. Now, the question of our sister here, when she was comatosed, she saw her soul sit up, she said, and was looking at her, and took her hand, "Let us leave," it said and then it sat down. Presumably, she believed that that was her soul. You know, sister, we do not doubt what you said. We believe in what you said. But if we will examine it in the Bible, that was not your soul, sister. Do you know why? Your soul will not invite you like, "Come on, let us leave." Because the soul is with your being. The complete you, that is your soul. So how could it invite you? Maybe, another thing invited you; not your soul. Then you said that it lied down again, and presumably, maybe, that's what it means, you lived again, you recovered from comatose. You know, that is what they call near-death experience, others who studied supernatural things call it that way. But you know, in the Bible, if you are really about to die, your soul will not invite you. It will not invite you. Because it knows that he could not take you anywhere, if it refers to the flesh, your body - it cannot take you anywhere. You know, what separates from the body is not the soul. What separates from the body is the spirit. Let us read James 2:26 -

MM: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

EFS: What separates from the body is the spirit of man. So for example, you are whole, you are alive, you yourself are a living soul, the Bible says. You are a living soul. But if the spirit separates from that soul or from that living soul, then you will die. Listen to Hebrews 4:12 -

MM: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,"

EFS: Did you see? The spirit separates from the soul. What the word of God can do is to separate spirit from soul. Why will the spirit separate from the soul? Because the soul is the entirety of your being, your whole being. Your entire being - your body, the spirit that is in you, your faculties, your awareness, your understanding, your intelligence, your emotions… Our whole being is called soul. That is our entirety. Now, if you die, the spirit will separate from it. That is the process mentioned by the Bible. The soul is our entire being. What separates from us is the spirit. But when the flesh and the spirit are together, including awareness, intelligence, the faculties, the mind, the entirety, then it is called the soul. So, it is not only us who have souls. Even those in the sea have souls. Which is the soul? That is their entire being. For example, the shark, its whole being as a shark is a soul in the sea. Now, the same with God. The entirety of His being is His soul. The entirety includes everything. When it comes to man, the soul is our entirety. It includes everything, even the flesh, the spirit, the mind, our knowledge, awareness, that is our soul. So in the Bible, when it comes to the soul, it is debatable between religious leaders. But if we will get it from the Bible, the soul is the totality of your being. That is the soul. The proof, in 1 Peter 3:20-

MM: "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."

EFS: Did you see? In the ark of Noah, those who were justified before God during his time are the eight souls inside the ark. Who were the eight souls in the ark? Noah, his wife and his three sons, and his three daughters-in-law. That's it. So, it is possible, sister, what you see separating from your body is not your soul but that spirit that is in you. That's it.