The word as used in the Bible means deathlessness, or exemption from the physical death of the body. It is not to be confused with the eternal life of the saved or the unending existence of the lost, though popular usage confuses these terms. The word is used only with reference to the body, Rom. 6:12; 8:11, and never in connection with the soul. Men are unable to kill the soul. Only God can destroy it, Matt. 10:28, where a word is used which does not mean to deprive the soul of life.
With the coming of Christ, light was cast upon the subject of immortality, which had been clothed in obscurity since OT days, 2 Tim. 1:10, Gr. Only Christ now possesses immortality, 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16. All men, including saved persons, are now mortal, Job 4:17; 1 Cor. 15:22; Heb. 9:27. Men will continue to die until death is destroyed, 1 Cor. 15:26.
At the translation of the church, all believers will put on immortality. They will be clothed with deathlessness as with a garment, 1 Cor. 15:51-54. Mortality will then be “swallowed up of life,” 2 Cor. 5:4, and believers will never again be able to die. In the same moment that their bodies become immortal, they also become incorruptible, or immune to change and decay.
William Evans, The Great Doctrines of the Bible, (Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Assoc., 1912), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: “Immortality”.
Amen.