Soul for Sale?
In the news again are a number of people that have ‘auctioned’ their souls to the highest bidder on internet auction sites. One even said, “I'm not really worried about selling it, unless the devil has an account…”
Hmm, it is an interesting thought. How much is a soul worth? According to some of the news reports, a human soul sells for somewhere between 99 cents and a few hundred dollars. That is not very much.
One could comment on the sad state of human existence. It is sad that anyone would want to sell his or her own soul. It is even sadder that someone would want to buy another’s soul. (Maybe I could understand it if someone like Adolph Hitler was in the market for someone else’s soul, but the bidders all seemed to be ‘average folks’.) One could ‘presume’ that the desire to purchase someone else’s soul was a desire to ‘enrich’ one’s own possibilities in light of eternity. That idea would make a market price for say, the Pope’s soul, worth ‘a fortune’. (Then again, cut out the intermediary and purchase indulgences from the Catholic Church to insure one’s soul.)
Unfortunately, these auctions of a soul seem to be about money and novelty, and not a matter of eternity. As one seller stated, “I’m not using it anyway.” He also said he was considering the idea of auctioning his morals. Guess he is not using those either if he is willing to sell his soul.
There is an interesting legal question involved here. One of the sellers is supposedly in college to become a lawyer (one could argue that lawyers do not have souls to begin with). More importantly, is the legality of the sale. The question is; is it legal to sell something one does not own?
Is it ‘legal’ to sell one’s own soul? Technically, one can not sell what does not belong to them. Therein rests the ‘legal’ issue. Many believe, mistakenly, that they ‘own’ their immortal soul. This is incorrect [1]. One has ‘temporary custody’ of their soul. One may exercise some free will over their soul while it is in their custody, but one does not own their soul.
Eternal ownership of the soul belongs either to Satan or to God. Free will on the part of the individual determines which one actually owns it.
Romans 3:23 tells us, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. As discussed in the three part series ‘Judged’, unless we, as individuals, make a conscious decision otherwise, Satan owns our immortal soul. The first time we ‘broke’ a commandment or disobeyed and ordinance of God, we ‘joined Adam’, giving ownership of our soul to Satan.
This is a novel idea. How many times have we heard the not so funny jest, “I’d sell my soul to Satan for…?” The reality is that he already owns it! Satan does not have to ‘make a deal’ to get one’s soul. Unfortunately, for the seller at the auction, the Devil does have an account there. Even more unfortunate, is that the Devil already has the winning bid. Satan got ‘ownership’ of souls very cheap. The total purchase price the Devil paid for ‘all’ the souls that were or will be is one bite of one fruit.
Romans 5:12 tells us, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned--”
Adam screwed it up for all of us; he sold us all for one bite of one fruit, once. (Better Adam, because sure and certain, if it had not been Adam, it probably would have been me!)
There is no bargaining with the Devil. Satan does not need to bargain. What do we have or can we possibly offer that he wants and does not already have? He owns all of us! Satan, by default, or by one man’s fault(Adam’s), got all of our souls (quite a bargain).
That should be a very sobering thought… Satan already owns our souls!
Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Mr. Burke was wrong. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for man to do nothing. That is more correct, there are no ‘good’ men.
“For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.” Ecclesiastes 7:20
“As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;”” Romans 3:10
The only thing necessary for the Devil to get the soul is nothing. That is bad enough. It gets even worse. Absolutely nothing we can ‘do’ will ‘buy’ back our souls from Satan. There are no works, ceremonies, ‘magic charms’, ‘magic formulas’ or incantations that we can do that will be enough! If Bill Gates were to offer his entire fortune to the Devil to ‘buy’ one soul, it would not be enough. If one were to offer all the acts of charity of Mother Teresa, and all the ‘Saints’ in the Catholic Church, all the acts of martyrdom by Muslims, and all the sermons ever preached by Protestant preachers it would not be enough to purchase one single soul…
We have to understand Satan covets our souls…
To Satan, our souls are prizes. Satan will do whatever he can do to keep our souls. There are two reasons Satan covets our souls. The first is a very plain and simple truth. Every soul Satan gets to keep is an insult to God’s perfect plan. God did not ‘want’ Adam to take a bite of that fruit.
The Bible tells us, in a straightforward manner, that God wants our souls. Remember we have all sinned (Romans 3:23; 3:10). Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
These verses tell us that we have sinned and are wicked and evil. What does God say about us, even though we have sinned and are ‘desperately wicked’?
“Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die…?’” Ezekiel 33:11
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
Our souls are ‘in contention’. Satan wants, covets and prizes our souls because his getting them represents an insult to God. God wants our souls too.
The second reason Satan wants, covets and prizes our souls is that while we have ‘custody’ of our souls, we have something Satan does not have!
We have a choice!
Satan may own our souls, but while we have ‘custody’ of them, we have a choice as to whether or not he gets to keep them. Satan does not have that choice… Satan does not have an ‘option’ (not that he wants one, but he covets our ‘option’).
We have stated there is nothing we can ‘do’ to buy our souls. No amount of money, no works, nothing we can ‘do’ would be worth enough to ‘buy’ our souls… They are that valuable… (That makes a soul worth more than a few hundred dollars at an auction!)
BUT!
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45 (Matthew 10:28)
“…the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all…” 1 Timothy 2:5b-6a
Christ gave His own life - to buy our souls back from Satan!
God wants our souls so badly, He gave His own Son’s life to buy them back from Satan…
He (God) gave us the opportunity to have our souls ‘auctioned’ to a higher bidder! Our souls are ‘on sale’. Satan owns them, but Christ ransomed them. All we have to do is choose to believe. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
While some people, looking for their 15 minutes of fame, are auctioning their souls on the internet, we see the Truth! We do not own our souls - Satan does. It does not have to stay that way. God gave us the ‘purchase price’ of our souls so that HE (God) gets ownership, not Satan. Because of Adam’s choice to sell us for a bite of fruit, we have to make a choice to have God ‘buy’ us back with the blood of His Son.
QUESTION!
WHO DO YOU WANT TO HAVE ETERNAL OWNERSHIP OF YOUR SOUL?
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23
For the brief time here on earth, while you have temporary custody, the ‘eternal’ ownership of your soul is in question. Again, who do you want to have ownership of your soul? Do you want your soul to belong to a loving, caring, compassionate being that views you as a unique creature to be valued, wants your company and was willing to pay an incredible price for it? Or do you want your soul to belong to hateful, spiteful being, that sees your soul as simply another notch on its whip handle, to be treated with contempt and wants to take away the thing it covets, your ‘choice’?
For me, Joshua said it best in the final phrase of Joshua 24:15, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
“And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,” Acts 16:30-31
Believe and have your soul ransomed, or do not and leave it to Satan.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for man to do nothing.
If you have decided, you want your soul to go to the ‘high bidder’, God - the one who paid the ransom… Bequeath your soul to Him with a ‘prayer of salvation’. You can find one here in “Escape Condemnation - Judged part 2” or a Google search “Prayer of Salvation” - there are hundreds of ‘prayers’ listed - most acknowledge the same thing: - Believe in the ransom of Christ because without it your soul belongs to Satan.
[1] When talking about ‘ownership’ of the soul, God, initially owns our souls. As stated, the first time we sin, we ‘die’ - Satan gets ownership…
Ezekiel 18:4 specifically tells us who ‘owns’ our soul. God is speaking and says, ““Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die.”
God made and owns all souls (Num. 16:22; 27:16; Is. 42:5; 57:16)
Satan gets ownership the first time we sin. (Ezek. 18:20; Rom. 6:23)
Hmm, it is an interesting thought. How much is a soul worth? According to some of the news reports, a human soul sells for somewhere between 99 cents and a few hundred dollars. That is not very much.
One could comment on the sad state of human existence. It is sad that anyone would want to sell his or her own soul. It is even sadder that someone would want to buy another’s soul. (Maybe I could understand it if someone like Adolph Hitler was in the market for someone else’s soul, but the bidders all seemed to be ‘average folks’.) One could ‘presume’ that the desire to purchase someone else’s soul was a desire to ‘enrich’ one’s own possibilities in light of eternity. That idea would make a market price for say, the Pope’s soul, worth ‘a fortune’. (Then again, cut out the intermediary and purchase indulgences from the Catholic Church to insure one’s soul.)
Unfortunately, these auctions of a soul seem to be about money and novelty, and not a matter of eternity. As one seller stated, “I’m not using it anyway.” He also said he was considering the idea of auctioning his morals. Guess he is not using those either if he is willing to sell his soul.
There is an interesting legal question involved here. One of the sellers is supposedly in college to become a lawyer (one could argue that lawyers do not have souls to begin with). More importantly, is the legality of the sale. The question is; is it legal to sell something one does not own?
Is it ‘legal’ to sell one’s own soul? Technically, one can not sell what does not belong to them. Therein rests the ‘legal’ issue. Many believe, mistakenly, that they ‘own’ their immortal soul. This is incorrect [1]. One has ‘temporary custody’ of their soul. One may exercise some free will over their soul while it is in their custody, but one does not own their soul.
Eternal ownership of the soul belongs either to Satan or to God. Free will on the part of the individual determines which one actually owns it.
Romans 3:23 tells us, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. As discussed in the three part series ‘Judged’, unless we, as individuals, make a conscious decision otherwise, Satan owns our immortal soul. The first time we ‘broke’ a commandment or disobeyed and ordinance of God, we ‘joined Adam’, giving ownership of our soul to Satan.
This is a novel idea. How many times have we heard the not so funny jest, “I’d sell my soul to Satan for…?” The reality is that he already owns it! Satan does not have to ‘make a deal’ to get one’s soul. Unfortunately, for the seller at the auction, the Devil does have an account there. Even more unfortunate, is that the Devil already has the winning bid. Satan got ‘ownership’ of souls very cheap. The total purchase price the Devil paid for ‘all’ the souls that were or will be is one bite of one fruit.
Romans 5:12 tells us, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned--”
Adam screwed it up for all of us; he sold us all for one bite of one fruit, once. (Better Adam, because sure and certain, if it had not been Adam, it probably would have been me!)
There is no bargaining with the Devil. Satan does not need to bargain. What do we have or can we possibly offer that he wants and does not already have? He owns all of us! Satan, by default, or by one man’s fault(Adam’s), got all of our souls (quite a bargain).
That should be a very sobering thought… Satan already owns our souls!
Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Mr. Burke was wrong. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for man to do nothing. That is more correct, there are no ‘good’ men.
“For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.” Ecclesiastes 7:20
“As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;”” Romans 3:10
The only thing necessary for the Devil to get the soul is nothing. That is bad enough. It gets even worse. Absolutely nothing we can ‘do’ will ‘buy’ back our souls from Satan. There are no works, ceremonies, ‘magic charms’, ‘magic formulas’ or incantations that we can do that will be enough! If Bill Gates were to offer his entire fortune to the Devil to ‘buy’ one soul, it would not be enough. If one were to offer all the acts of charity of Mother Teresa, and all the ‘Saints’ in the Catholic Church, all the acts of martyrdom by Muslims, and all the sermons ever preached by Protestant preachers it would not be enough to purchase one single soul…
To Satan, our souls are prizes. Satan will do whatever he can do to keep our souls. There are two reasons Satan covets our souls. The first is a very plain and simple truth. Every soul Satan gets to keep is an insult to God’s perfect plan. God did not ‘want’ Adam to take a bite of that fruit.
The Bible tells us, in a straightforward manner, that God wants our souls. Remember we have all sinned (Romans 3:23; 3:10). Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
These verses tell us that we have sinned and are wicked and evil. What does God say about us, even though we have sinned and are ‘desperately wicked’?
“Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die…?’” Ezekiel 33:11
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
Our souls are ‘in contention’. Satan wants, covets and prizes our souls because his getting them represents an insult to God. God wants our souls too.
Satan may own our souls, but while we have ‘custody’ of them, we have a choice as to whether or not he gets to keep them. Satan does not have that choice… Satan does not have an ‘option’ (not that he wants one, but he covets our ‘option’).
We have stated there is nothing we can ‘do’ to buy our souls. No amount of money, no works, nothing we can ‘do’ would be worth enough to ‘buy’ our souls… They are that valuable… (That makes a soul worth more than a few hundred dollars at an auction!)
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45 (Matthew 10:28)
“…the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all…” 1 Timothy 2:5b-6a
Christ gave His own life - to buy our souls back from Satan!
God wants our souls so badly, He gave His own Son’s life to buy them back from Satan…
He (God) gave us the opportunity to have our souls ‘auctioned’ to a higher bidder! Our souls are ‘on sale’. Satan owns them, but Christ ransomed them. All we have to do is choose to believe. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
While some people, looking for their 15 minutes of fame, are auctioning their souls on the internet, we see the Truth! We do not own our souls - Satan does. It does not have to stay that way. God gave us the ‘purchase price’ of our souls so that HE (God) gets ownership, not Satan. Because of Adam’s choice to sell us for a bite of fruit, we have to make a choice to have God ‘buy’ us back with the blood of His Son.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23
For the brief time here on earth, while you have temporary custody, the ‘eternal’ ownership of your soul is in question. Again, who do you want to have ownership of your soul? Do you want your soul to belong to a loving, caring, compassionate being that views you as a unique creature to be valued, wants your company and was willing to pay an incredible price for it? Or do you want your soul to belong to hateful, spiteful being, that sees your soul as simply another notch on its whip handle, to be treated with contempt and wants to take away the thing it covets, your ‘choice’?
For me, Joshua said it best in the final phrase of Joshua 24:15, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
“And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,” Acts 16:30-31
Believe and have your soul ransomed, or do not and leave it to Satan.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for man to do nothing.
If you have decided, you want your soul to go to the ‘high bidder’, God - the one who paid the ransom… Bequeath your soul to Him with a ‘prayer of salvation’. You can find one here in “Escape Condemnation - Judged part 2” or a Google search “Prayer of Salvation” - there are hundreds of ‘prayers’ listed - most acknowledge the same thing: - Believe in the ransom of Christ because without it your soul belongs to Satan.
[1] When talking about ‘ownership’ of the soul, God, initially owns our souls. As stated, the first time we sin, we ‘die’ - Satan gets ownership…
Ezekiel 18:4 specifically tells us who ‘owns’ our soul. God is speaking and says, ““Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die.”
God made and owns all souls (Num. 16:22; 27:16; Is. 42:5; 57:16)
Satan gets ownership the first time we sin. (Ezek. 18:20; Rom. 6:23)
posted by Unchained Slave at 6:22 AM
2 Comments:
I saw that you quoted Ezekiel 18:20, that the souls belong to God, and you've made a good case that our souls, though in our possession, are not our own. But I've never really understood why some Christians think the devil would own our souls, or that he has, or does, or will. I think that is commonly assumed, but I've never found a Scripture that makes this specific case.
I guess I could see the point that the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy, for at one time he had the keys of death. But Jesus has the keys of death and hell now, for He has led captivity captive. (Does this make Satan the warden or the inmate? Still working on this whole concept, by the way, these are just thoughts).
I also think it has been widely assumed that man lost dominion of the world to Satan when he fell in the Garden of Eden. But I don't see it that way. I think that principalities were assigned over the nations before that (spiritually), and man was over the earth (temporally), and when both fell, they each kept their original dominions but over fallen realms.
One ancient question this brings up is, when Jesus ransomed us, to whom did He pay the ransom? I think most of us have assumed it was to the devil, but I think He payed the ransom to the Father. All sacrifices were unto God, and only the heathen sacrificed to demons (1 Cor 10:20). Thus, Isaiah says:
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him (Jesus was an acceptable sacrifice) He (the Father) has put Him (the Son) to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin . . . He (the Father) shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied.
By the way, I'm still working on the heaven/hell/judgment topic, I'm sort of stuck but I'm still praying about it.
Loren:
1. Satan ‘gets’ damned souls in the ‘Lake of Fire’. It is the place prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). The damned are cast into that place (Rev. 20:11-15) In that respect, Satan gets ‘suzerainty’.
2. Satan is both warden & inmate after the final judgement - or more appropriately ‘head trustee’ - an inmate with authority over other inmates.
3. Satan has a ‘restricted’ reign over the earth (as you point out in your article).
4. Jesus paid the ransom to God. The Bible teaches, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That all have sinned (Romans 3:23). Hebrews 9:26-28 tells us, “He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Only through the ‘perfect’ sin offering (Jesus Christ) can the full payment be made to God for sins.
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