| The Christian Life | January 1947 |
With All Our Soul
Praising God
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”—Psalm 103:2
THE term “bless” as used by the Psalmist denotes praise. We are to praise the Lord because he is good, and because his goodness is manifested toward us “in so many ways. Truly, the benefits bestowed upon us by our God are more than can be numbered. Daily we are the recipients of his favor and mercy. Every blessing we enjoy, whether material or spiritual, is a gift from him, the great Giver who crowned all of his favors with the gift of his beloved Son in order that our souls might be redeemed from death.
David has stated the matter very uniquely by saying that we should not forget all of God’s benefits. David knew, as we must also realize, that it would be impossible for us to remember all of the gracious benefits which our Heavenly Father bestows upon us from day to day; but how tragic it would be should we forget them all. Because of the limitations of our imperfect finite minds we are sure to forget some of God’s benefits, but it is well that we remember and cherish as many of them as possible.
And it is interesting to note the prophet’s use of the term “soul”—“Bless the Lord, O my soul.” How can one’s “soul” bless the Lord? This would be a strange statement indeed if the human soul is what the creeds of the Dark Ages represent it to be; that is, a little spark of life that dwells somewhere within the human body, which has individuality and can exist apart from the body. If this were the case David’s statement would indicate that one can address that separate entity which dwells within, and call upon it to do things. In Luke 12:19 Jesus represents a covetous man as admonishing his soul not to bless the Lord, but to make merry on account of its riches.
There are many other strange statements in the Bible concerning the soul, if the Dark Age theory concerning it is true. For example, Psalm 11:1 describes his soul as fleeing “as a bird”; Psalm 16:10 speaks of the soul of Jesus as being “in hell”; Psalm 42:2 depicts the soul as being “thirsty”; Psalm 74:19 mentions the soul as a “turtledove”; in Psalm 119:109 the Psalmist speaks of his soul being in his “hand”; Ezekiel 18:4 declares that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die”; and Numbers 31:30 tabulates the souls of various animals.
All these uses of the word are quite understandable if we accept the scriptural definition of the soul as given in Genesis 2:7. Here we are told that the union of the breadth of life with the physical organism is what constitutes the soul—“Man became a living soul,” The soul then, is the whole being; and when David bids us call upon our souls to praise the Lord it simply means that we should enlist all of our powers to give praise to him who has done so much for us. The term is used hundreds of times in the Bible, but never said to be immortal.