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This is the final post of our series on the nature of the soul and the afterlife. We cannot emphasize enough that there are two major factors that have distorted Christian thought on these subjects since the late second century AD.

The first is a failure to grasp how the Bible defines the soul. The second is a failure to recognize the influence of pagan Greek philosophies on church doctrine. These misunderstandings, which began to take root not long after the apostolic era, has left many theologians and believers painted into a theological corner.

This will be the last post in this series which examines passages Platonists cite as evidence of the soul’s ability to exist independently from the body. Next week’s post will wrap up the series. In this post, I will consider Revelation 6:9-11. This text depicts the souls of martyrs crying out for justice from under the altar. This scene might appear to contradict the biblical concept of death as a state of unconsciousness. How should we interpret this passage so that its message agrees with the overall scriptural portrayal of death?

The key to understanding this passage is recognizing that Revelation is a book of symbols. The souls under the altar are not literal disembodied souls in a conscious intermediate state. They are a symbolic representation of the martyrs’ deaths, their cry for justice, and God’s awareness of their sacrifice.