The Immortality of the Human Spirit

Both Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses have a doctrine called "conditional immortality." This is not the same thing as annihilationism, but is related to it. According to their doctrine, a man's spirit is as mortal as is his body. If he believes in Jesus, then his spirit will be made immortal at the resurrection. However, in this life, they claim, there is no difference between the condition of the believer's spirit and the unbeliever's spirit. Only the believer has eternal life (and that doesn't become effectual until the resurrection).

That is not at all biblical.

Let's start with the logical fallacy of bait and switch which underlies the doctrine. The JW's and SDA's make eternal existence mean the same thing as eternal life. That would mean that only the believer, having eternal life, therefore has eternal existence. That equivalency is false.

Every human being, since Adam, and excluding Jesus alone, has entered life with a spirit with eternal existence, but dead: "You were dead in the trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Contrary to the assumption of the conditionalists, men do not start in a neutral condition. They start out as spiritually dead, and enter continuing eternal death.

The unbeliever remains in his dead condition: "Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18). Therefore, when his body dies and he enters eternity, it is not as a person who now dies spiritually. That has always been his condition! Therefore, he enters eternity dead, and continues as such for all eternity in Hell (II Peter 2:9).

The believer on the other hand, at the moment he believes, becomes alive for the first time: "You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him" (Colossians 2:13). The believer has changed condition, from death to new life, what the Bible calls being born again (John 3:3-7) and new creation (I Corinthians 5:17). He doesn't begin eternal life at the resurrection. he begins eternal life at the moment that he believes! And now, when his body dies, that principle of spiritual life remains, and he is immediately taken into the presence of the ascended Jesus (II Corinthians 5:8, Philippians 1:21-23).

All of this goes to show that there is nothing conditional about spiritual immortality. What is conditional is whether a man will remain eternally dead, or will he become alive in the new birth by Jesus Christ. The JW and SDA doctrine has much too low a view of the new life, in my opinion.