Does it follow from 1 Timothy 6:13-16 that the souls of human beings are not inherently immortal?

Question

1 Timothy 6:13-16 (YLT):

13 I charge thee, before God, who is making all things alive, and of Christ Jesus, who did testify before Pontius Pilate the right profession,
14 that thou keep the command unspotted, unblameable, till the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 which in His own times He shall shew -- the blessed and only potentate, the King of the kings and Lord of the lords,
16 who only is having immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, whom no one of men did see, nor is able to see, to whom [is] honour and might age-during! Amen.

Leaving aside the discussion of whether the referent of verse 16 is God or Jesus, what is clear is that the attribute of immortality belongs exclusively to one being ("who only is having immortality"). If only one being possesses the attribute of immortality, to the exclusion of all others, what are the implications for human beings? Does it follow from the passage that the souls of human beings are not inherently immortal?

How should we understand the word immortality in context as an exclusive attribute and the implications this has for human souls?

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Related questions

On 1 Timothy 6:13-16:

• Is 1 Timothy 6:15-16 about God or about Jesus?
• In 1 Timothy 6:16 why does Paul characterize Jesus as "Immortal"?
• Who is "King of kings and Lord of lords"? God or Jesus? 1 Timothy 6:13-16 vs. Revelation 17:14

On the immortality/mortality of the soul:

• A living soul cannot exist without a body (Gen 2:7; 1 Cor 15:44-45) but killing the body doesn't kill the soul (Matt 10:28). Is this a contradiction?
• Are the spirits of the dead conscious according to Isaiah 14:9-11?
• Does Ecclesiastes 9:10 affirm that the dead are unconscious?
• Does Psalm 146:3-4 affirm that the dead are unconscious?
• Is there a contradiction between Ecclesiastes 9:5 & Luke 16:19-31?
• Luke 16:19-31 Lazarus and the rich man - literal, allegorical or a mixture of both?

Answer 1

The root word for immortality here is ἀθανασία ("athanasia"), also used by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:53-54, therein to describe the change from a mortal body which will die to an immortal body that can never die (through the resurrection).

Life in and of Himself

Gill's commentary is helpful:

Who only hath immortality,.... Angels are immortal, and so are the souls of men, and so will be the bodies of men after the resurrection; but then neither of these have immortality of themselves, they have it from God; who only has it, of himself

See also similar comments from Ellicott:

Who only hath immortality.—The holy angels—the souls of men—are immortal. “But one alone, ‘God,’ can be said to have immortality,” because He, unlike other immortal beings who enjoy their immortality through the will of another, derives it from His own essence.

Jesus affirmed this in John 5:26:

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;

Indeed this attribute is described by the very name Jehovah:

Jehovah is the Anglicized rendering of the Hebrew, Yahveh or Jahveh, signifying the Self-existent One (Talmage, Jesus the Christ p. 36)

Conclusion

The passage from Timothy does not describe the duration of the life of a human, but rather its source. This is in sharp contrast to the impotence of the false gods worshipped in Ephesus, where Timothy resided at this time (see 1 Tim. 1:2-3) -- they had no life to offer here or hereafter.

As John beautifully put it in his prologue:

In him was life (John 1:4)

Answer 2

I agree that the 1 Tim 6:16 clearly teaches that God is the sole source of life - all other beings and creatures depend upon God for existence and life. We see this several times:

• Col 1:17 - And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
• Matt 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. [See my answer to this question: A living soul cannot exist without a body (Gen 2:7; 1 Cor 15:44-45) but killing the body doesn't kill the soul (Matt 10:28). Is this a contradiction? ]
• Eze 18:4, 20 - Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die. ... The soul who sins is the one who will die.
• 1 John 5:12 - Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
• 2 Thess 1:9 - They will suffer the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might,. [According to the above references, such an arrangement, separated from God means we cannot exist because we are dependent of God for life.]

Recall that the "soul" is the combination of the breath of life and the body as per Gen 2:7 [Again see my answer to A living soul cannot exist without a body (Gen 2:7; 1 Cor 15:44-45) but killing the body doesn't kill the soul (Matt 10:28). Is this a contradiction? ] Only God can destroy the person completely - but God can also resurrect the person as well.

Thus, no one is inherently immortal - we all depend on God for life and existence. Thus when a Person is permanently separated from God, that person/being ceases to exist.

Let me state the same thing in a different way - if souls/people were immortal, then they would not be dependent on God for life but would have an independent existence. God could not destroy them. Such an idea is unthinkable!

Stated another way - humans and other beings have what is known in technical theology speak as "conditional immortality" meaning that we (as resurrected saints) and heavenly angels only have life and immortality as long as we remain connected to the source of life, God.

Answer 3

“Immortal” is a term that means “not subject to death...everlasting” (American Heritage Dictionary). God alone is immortal, and we derive our immortal bodies at the resurrection from Him (1 Corinthians 15:53).

But the definitions that matter are biblical definitions - not dictionary one. Example - define ‘death’? Biblically death means separation. Example, at ‘physical’ death, you separate from your ‘earthly’ body.

Everlasting ‘death’ means being separated from God - forever. And God being the ‘source’ of life, means this equates to everlasting death - as opposed to everlasting ‘life’, which is forever joined with God. (through or ‘in’ Christ). Man needs God for immortality. Man ‘needs’ a source of ‘life’.

Now to your Q. Are ‘souls’ inherently immortal? This requires an understanding of the makeup of man. Man himself [spirit] is ‘known’ via his soul. But ‘it’ [his soul] needs a ‘body’. That’s what happened in Genesis 2:7.

Your ‘soul’ needs a ‘body’ in order to ‘express’ yourself. But via the fall, that ‘body’ became subject to ‘death’. Hence, the resurrection will result in - a ‘new’ body. Now importantly, ‘immortal’ is a term that applies to the body - and the ‘soul’ gets or inherits this from the ‘body’. So the answer to the Q “are souls inherently immortal” is no, or yes.

Back to the definition of ‘immortal’ - “not subject to death”. Our present ‘bodies’ are not immortal - so our ‘soul’ isn’t. But with a ‘new immortal’ body, it [our soul] will be.

Answer 4

Neither human intelligent soul, being a creation, is inherently immortal, for inherently immortal is only Three - Father, the Logos, and H. Ghost, the Three being One in their co-eternal and co-unbegun existence and essence.

When Paul says that "only He has immortality", he cannot possibly deny immortality of the Father and the H.Ghost, but that among men only the man Jesus Christ has inherently immortality, for His human nature became an eternal aspect of His divine Person/Hypostasis, so that the eternal, divine, uncreated Person/Hypostasis of Logos after His incarnation or inhumanation cannot be any longer considered without His human nature, to the effect that Jesus Christ is since the Incarnation the name of the Logos/the Son. And so much so that even we can freely worship the dead body of Jesus Christ in tomb before its resurrection while lying there three days without committing an idolatry, for this body is beginnedly but eternally hypostatized and impersonalized by the uncreated divine Person/Hypostasis of Logos; and also, we can freely say that Jesus Christ created the universe along with the Father, for Jesus Christ is exactly the same hypostasis of Logos, who being God is changeless both in the infinity of before and the infinity of the after (Hebrews 13:8), and moreover "before" and "after" apply to Him only from our point of view, while from His own point of view His being is eternal that has only "is" or "am" as a proper tense of the verb to be applied (John 8:58).