Conditional Immortality! Do You Understand It? Do You Believe It?

Many Christians have been taught your definition of death, but actually your definition is not supported by a careful study of the word death in the Bible. I presented the results of my study of how the Bible uses the word death in a post on my on blog, here.

I give an edited excerpt here:

A Possible Point of Confusion

Most Bible-believing Christians, including myself, believe that a part of us (usually called our “soul” or our “spirit”) consciously lives in God’s presence in between the time we die and the time when we are resurrected. Because we believe that a part of us lives on after death, there is a possibility that some might think that the word “death” in the Bible does not mean the complete loss of all ability to feel, think, or be aware of anything. However, when the Bible speaks of death prior to the final judgment it is focused on what happens to our bodies:

James 2:26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Notice that the part of us that is dead when we die is “the body”. And of course, our dead body will no longer feel, think, or be aware of anything.

Now let’s start to examine both the literal and metaphorical meanings of “death” in English, and then in the Bible.

The Literal Meaning of “Death” in the Bible

The word “death” is something that all people have a basic understanding of because all people have seen it. Even children have seen many dead animals, and most of us have seen the dead bodies of people. The basic meaning of death when speaking of any person is that all the essential biological activities of the person have permanently ceased (when we say “permanently”, we mean that short of God’s miraculous intervention they have ceased and there is no reasonable expectation that they could resume). These biological activities include breathing, circulating blood, and also include the ability to be conscious and feel and think. Everyone knows that if someone can still feel and think, they are not “literally dead”.

This commonsense, literal meaning of death is also the literal meaning of death in the Bible. The context of the following verses makes clear that when they use the word “death” they are referring to literal, physical death:

Matthew 10:21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Acts 13:28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

Philippians 1:20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Here is a partial list of more examples where “death” is used with its normal, literal meaning in the New Testament:

Matthew 15:4, Matthew 20:18, Matthew 26:66, Luke 2:26, Luke 22:33, Luke 23:15, Luke 23:22, John 21:19, Acts 23:29, Acts 25:11, Acts 26:31, Acts 28:18, Romans 8:38, Philippians 2:27, Hebrews 7:23, Hebrews 9:16

Metaphorical Meanings of Death in English and in the Bible

I was once blessed with the opportunity to take a graduate level course on the science of defining words. The basic procedure to follow when seeking to find all the definitions a word has (both literal and metaphorical) is to look for sentences where the context of the sentence makes the meaning clear.

Like many words, the word “death” can be used with metaphorical meanings. Here are two examples:

1. When Joey saw his brother had broken Mom’s favorite vase, he said, “You are so dead.”

2. The car won’t start; the engine is dead.

The first example combines hyperbole (it’s not likely the mom will literally kill her son) with a figure of speech called prolepsis. Prolepsis is used when we speak of something we expect to happen in the future as if it has already occurred. In the example above, Joey is certain that his brother will be punished even though it hasn’t happened yet.

The second example involves a metaphorical use of the word “dead”. Literal “death” refers to the state of a formerly living being which is no longer functioning. For people and animals this means the dead person or animal is no longer breathing, its heart is no longer pumping, and it is no longer able to think or feel anything. It is easy to see how this meaning can be extended metaphorically to an engine which in no longer able to run.

We find the same types of metaphorical meanings for death in the Bible.

With regard to prolepsis, the clearest example is probably found in the life of a king named Abimelech. The ESV provides a literal translation:

ESV Genesis 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, "Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife."

The NIV translation makes it clear that this is an example of prolepsis:

NIV Genesis 20:3 But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman."

The Bible also uses “death” with metaphorical meaning. Many Christians refer to this as “spiritual death”. The term “spiritual death” is not found in the Bible. It is alright to use this term as long as we are careful to let the Bible define “spiritual death”.

“Spiritual death” refers to a situation where people who are clearly still physically living are called “dead”. Here is an example:

Romans 8:6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

When in verse 6 Paul writes that the mind controlled by the flesh is “death”, it seems very likely that he means the same thing that he means in verses 7 and 8 when he says that the same mind is unable to submit to God’s will and the person with that kind of mind is unable to please God. We can easily see how this meaning is derived from the literal meaning of “death”. Literal death occurs when a human body is no longer able to do what it was intended to do. So it makes sense that metaphorically death could refer to a human mind which is no longer able to do what God intended it to do. God intended human minds to understand and submit to His will and to please Him, but the mind of the unredeemed is unable to do what it was designed and intended to do.

The metaphorical meaning of dead as “unresponsive” can also be used in a positive way. Consider this example (a different Greek word from the examples above is used for “dead” here (an adjective is used) but the range of both literal and metaphorical meanings overlaps with the Greek word for death used in the examples above):

Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Here, Paul is urging us to be unresponsive to temptation in the same way that a dead body is unresponsive to the world around it.

We have identified two types of nonliteral meanings for “death” which are found in the Bible:

1. “death” can be used proleptically to mean “good as dead”, “doomed to die”, to refer to someone who is not yet dead but is certain to be dead if their situation is not changed

2. “death” can be used to refer to someone who is nonresponsive to influences either in a good way of being “dead” to temptation or in a bad way of being “dead” to the will of God.

I think we have a good, if not exhaustive and detailed, list of definitions for “death” in the New Testament:



Like most words, “death” can mean a number of things. But it can’t mean just anything. It does not make sense to use the word “death” to describe a situation where people actually continue to feel and think forever and ever and never actually die. It is fine to say that “death” is used metaphorically in the Bible (it certainly is!), but that doesn’t mean it can mean just anything. “Death” is used to mean either “literally dead”, “doomed to die,” or “nonresponsive”.

 

Aaron, thanks for asking! James helps us with this:

ESV James 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

At the first death, only our body is dead. Our body is no longer able to feel or think anything. Thus, the first death involves the complete cessation of all the normal functions of our body.

And although our soul separates from our body at death, death does not mean separation. If that were true, our soul would be just as dead as our body, since the soul is separated from the body and the the body from the soul.

Please also read comment #41 where I give a much more extended and detailed explanation of the various meanings of death found in the bible. Thanks!

 

James, thanks for asking about the assertion that immortality = eternal life.

Since immortality means living forever, and eternal life means living forever, I think most people would just assume that immortality = eternal life. But it always helps to have clear, explicit Biblical support, so here it is:

ESV Romans 2:6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;

 

Yes, in Ephesians 2:1 Paul does speak to physically alive people are "dead" in another sense:

ESV Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

I believe that the metaphorical meaning of death here in Ephesians 2:1 is basically the same as in Romans 8:6, where Paul also speaks of those who are literally alive as having a mind which is metaphorically dead (I explained death in this passage in a quote above):


Romans 8:6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

When in verse 6 Paul writes that the mind controlled by the flesh is “death”, it seems very likely that he means the same thing that he means in verses 7 and 8 when he says that the same mind is unable to submit to God’s will and the person with that kind of mind is unable to please God. We can easily see how this meaning is derived from the literal meaning of “death”. Literal death occurs when a human body is no longer able to do what it was intended to do. So it makes sense that metaphorically death could refer to a human mind which is no longer able to do what God intended it to do. God intended human minds to understand and submit to His will and to please Him, but the mind of the unredeemed is unable to do what it was designed and intended to do.

The metaphorical meaning of dead as “unresponsive” can also be used in a positive way. Consider this example (a different Greek word from the examples above is used for “dead” here (an adjective is used) but the range of both literal and metaphorical meanings overlaps with the Greek word for death used in the examples above):

Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The meaning "unresponsive to God's will" fits the context of Ephesians 2:1 quite well. How is this meaning a problem for Conditional Immortality?

 

Note: If you are not TCassidy, you may need to go back and look at comment #36 to understand this comment.

TCassidy, when we respond to a comment, we keep in mind that not only the person we are responding to, but potentially many others as well, may be reading it. This even includes some who are not native speakers of English. It is not condescending to occasionally include a quick definition in parentheses of a word which is relatively rare. Perhaps we were wrong to think that all potential readers of this blog would know what a lexicon is and what prima facie means, but we certainly were not trying to be condescending.