Lex Meyer's book Immortal advocates for Soul Sleep and Annihilationism

I've watched his two part interview with Rob Skiba on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ufMPwt_Co
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c37lN0yDtc

I agree in the sense that contemporary Heaven is not what we are looking forward to.  And while I disagree with Soul Sleep, rejecting The Resurrection or arguing it is not a literal Bodily Resurrection is far worse of a false doctrine. And I agree with him that being Born Again refers to the Resurrection.  And I can agree with him on where to put the comma when Jesus says to the thief on the Cross "I tell you this day, you shall be with me in Paradise".

Much of what he says is stuff I already addressed in The Soul and Spirit Biblically.  And I will be doing a separate post on the Prophecy Blog about what he has to say regarding Enoch and Elijah.  But that spins off from what I've already argued regarding them.  And I agree with him over Rob Skiba about The Book of Enoch and Jasher being bad sources.

I can also agree with his take on the Witch of Endor and Samuel, in fact he convinced me of that, it does go against how I've mentioned it before.  And I agree on the Rich Man and Lazursus of Luke 16 being a Parable and not something to build doctrine on.  And his take on the point of what Jesus said to the Sadducees in Matthew 22 is also valid.

And I agree there is no pre-existence, the Soul is created when The Body is given Life at first Breath.

But he doesn't address the references to Sheol/Hades in 1 Peter 3 and 4, or Ezekiel 32, or other passages considered relevant to the Harrowing of Hell.  Zechariah 9 also refers to souls in prison.  And verses in the Torah that refer to Abraham joining his father when he died, and Moses joining Aaron, though they were buried far apart.  And Jesus promises His believers they would Never Die in John 11:26.

Meanwhile it is dangerous to build doctrine on Ecclesiastes, that book is partly Solomon describing things how they seem to mortal eyes, to proclaim all that wrong at the end.  Christians absolutely do believe in something New under the Sun, the New Testament.

My biggest issue is his writing off the Matthew 27:52-53 Resurrections as temporary Resurrections like Lazarus.  I believe firmly this verse is tied directly to Daniel 12, the only other time the Resurrection is refereed to where Many rather then All are raised.  This ties in directly to the Harrowing of Hell, Jesus lead the Dead out of Sheol on the 15th of Nisan, same day Moses lead Israel out of Egypt.

He's a Post-Tribber, so he unlike me thinks Revelation is not Chronological.  The "First Resurrection" is a classification rather then a chronological sequence.  People already Resurrected followed Jesus in Revelation 19.

Also he responds to using that the Beast and False Prophet were still there 1000 years later against Annihilationism by saying they were Angelic beings not Humans.  That happens to be another major annoyance of mine, whenever someone for whatever agenda tries to deny the Humanity of The Beast.  Revelation 13 at the end clearly calls him a Man, and the word for Man used is Anthropos.  As I've laid out elsewhere, Anthropos means Human, it never means male gender, and Angels probably wouldn't have Genders anyway.  If it was in Hebrew the word used here would probably have been Adam or maybe Enosh, but not Zakar or Ish.

The argument for him being not a Human comes down to him ascending out of the Bottomless Pit, and from that arguing he is Apollyon of Revelation 9, who is called an Angel.  The word Angel is used to describe humans sometimes, in fact the same form of it used of Apollyon Jesus used of John The Baptist.  IF Apollyon is the same entity as one of the Beasts, then he was a Human sent there at some point.  Maybe Judas Iscariot who went to "his own place".

In fact twice Angels in Revelation clearly identify themselves as having once been normal Humans.  That I consider further proof some OT saints are already Resurrected.  The Angels of the Seven Churches in Revelation 1-3 I think are believers in those congregations who held the office of Prophet.  And the Angels with the Seven Trumpets I've heard argued are seven OT Prophets who foretold corresponding Prophecies.  I think that's interesting.

Meyer makes an argument similar to Universalists, questioning how the New Creation can be so Happy if people are being tormented forever.  But he thinks Annihilationism is sufficiently more merciful.  But here is my question, why bother Resurrecting the Un-Beleivers only to immediately kill them?  That seems unduly cruel to me.  Where Meyer slips on the Importance of the Resurrection is that it's only our Sin being paid for by Jesus Shed Blood that allows the Resurrection to be possible at all.  If you're Resurrected you have been Saved, and since everyone gets Resurrected......

I also agree that Plato is the source of much bad doctrine.  But my problems with Plato are more in how he broke with the usual views of the Pagan Greeks before him.  The Pagan Greek view of the After Life was no more or less wrong then what the Pagan Canaanites believed which it was pretty much based on.  And The Hebrew Bible condemns a lot about the Pagan Canaanites but never the gist of their view of the after life.  The issue is they were the opposite of Universalism, they believed in no hope of escape from Sheol/Hades for anyone.

Also the assumed After Life view of casual Christianity which I find just as annoying as he does, comes from Zoroastrianism rather then Gnosticism.  If any Gnostics believed an After Life view similar to the Zoroastrians it was maybe the Persia based Manicheans who Augustine came out of.  But generally the Gnostics believed all Souls were part of one original Soul that they seek to return to.  Sometimes it's Sophia as The World Soul, sometimes it's the Pleroma.  We see a similar idea expressed in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith, when Yoda says that the dead become one with The Force, and the closing Yoda arch episodes of Clone Wars elaborated on that concept.  We also see this when some modern New Age type people say so and so "merges with the Infinite" when they die.

And this is another aspect of Gnosticism that can be traced back to Ancient Egypt.  Everything in existence was said to be one of the Ka of Atum the creator god, who originally contained all things within himself, according to Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. p. 99

We also see in Acts 23:8-9 that the Sadducees didn't just deny the Resurrection, they also denied the existence of Spirits and Angels.  From what can learn outside The Bible they also seem to have believed in an ancient form of Deism, a belief that a Creator God exists but that he is uninterested in interfering in Human affairs.  Deism seems to have arguably began with Aristotle and his Unmoved Mover idea.  And Aristotle also rejected Plato's doctrine of an immortal Soul.  So denying the immortal Soul also comes from Greek philosophy.