Featured Spiritual Death

Abstract of Systematic Theology, James P. Boyce | The Reformed Reader

II. Spiritual death was also an effect of Adam a sin. Our inquiry into natural death as a penalty leads us to look for some other and higher evil as resulting from sin. It must be something which occurred at the very time of eating, which affected that part of man that was naturally immortal, and which was also connected with that part with which conscious personality is inseparably associated.

1. It must therefore be the death of the soul.

The Scriptures present this in several aspects, showing it in each case not only by statements of what it is, but by contrasting it with the life of the soul. It is presented as (1) Alienation from God. (2) Loss of God's favour. (3) Loss of acceptance with him.

It is contrasted with life in many passages, as Lev. 18:5; Deut. 8:3; 30:15-19; Ps. 119:17, 77, 116; Matt. 4:4; John 5:24.

That this death has come upon mankind is evident from the fact that the Scriptures speak of man in his fallen state as being "without God in the world," Eph. 2:12; as "alienated from the life of God," Eph. 4:18. It says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Rom. 3:23. Also that "the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth," Ps. 11:5. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men," Rom. 1:18. It is not only said that "he that believeth not hath been judged already," but that "the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:18, 36.

It is also evident from the work of Christ, which was to reconcile man to God, and to propitiate his good will. Hence Christ speaks of himself as giving living water. We are said to live in Christ.

2. This spiritual death was not only the death of the soul,--as seen in the various aspects of alienation, loss of God's favour and of acceptance with him, referred to above,--but it also consisted in a corrupt nature. The Scripture statements as to this corruption show:

(1.) Its universal extent. It is found in every man. "There is no man that sinneth not," 1 Kings 8:46. "There is none that doeth good," Ps. 14:1; and this is emphasized in v.3 by adding "no, not one." See also Rom. 3:10 and the argument of the context. Also Ps. 53:1-3; 130:3; Prov. 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; Isa. 53:6; 64:6; Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 14; Gal. 3:22; 1 John 1:8-10; 5:19.

To the above passages might be added arguments for the universal existence of sin from the declared necessity of regeneration in each man; from the direction to preach the gospel to every creature; and the assertion that there is no salvation for any man except in the name of Christ.

(2.) Its early appearance in man's life is another proof that corruption is the effect of Adam's sin. Certain passages of Scripture are supposed to refer to young children as though innocent of guilt. These are such as Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; and Luke 18:15-17, "Of such is the kingdom of God." Also Matt. 18:3: "Except ye turn and become as little children." Also 1 Cor. 14:20: "Be not children in mind: howbeit in malice be ye babes, but in mind be men." [See Gill's Body of Divinity, I., 474.]

But these passages do not teach freedom from corruption. On the other hand, corruption in early infancy is plainly taught. "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies," Ps. 58:3. "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," Ps. 51:5. "Foolishness (wickedness) is bound up in the heart of a child," Prov. 22:15.

(3.) The fact of this corruption. Before the flood it is said: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," Gen. 6:5. "Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy," Ps. 53:3; see also Ecc. 8:11; Matt. 15:19; Rom. 1st chapter at length, as to the heathen, in connection with Paul's question, Rom. 3:9. Similar descriptions appear in Isa. 59:3-14; in Gal. 5:19-21; Titus 3:3; 2 Pet. 2:13-18.

 

Once Dead, Now Alive

2267. Life From The Dead

1. Our translators, as you observe, have put in the words “he has made alive,” because Paul had thrown the sense a little further on, and it was possible for the reader not to catch it. They have only anticipated the statement of the fourth and fifth verses: “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has made us alive together with Christ.”

2. Here is the point. God has made us alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead. We were full of vigour towards everything which was contrary to the law or the holiness of God, we walked according to the course of this world; but as for anything spiritual, we were not only somewhat incapable, and somewhat weakened; but we were actually and absolutely dead. We had no sense with which to comprehend spiritual things. We had neither the eye that could see, nor the ear that could hear, nor the power that could feel.

3. We were dead, all of us; and yet we were not all like one another. Death may be universal over a certain number of bodies, and yet those bodies may look very different. The dead who lie on the battle-field, torn by dogs or kites, rotting, corrupting in the sun, what a horrible sight! Your recently departed one, lying in the coffin, how beautiful! The corpse still looks life-like; yet your beloved one in the coffin is as dead as the mangled bodies on the battle-field. Corruption has not yet done its work, and tender care has guarded the body as yet from what will surely come to it; yet there is death, sure, complete death, in the one case as well as in the other.

4. So we have many who are lovely, amiable, morally admirable, like him whom the Saviour looked upon and loved; yet they are dead for all that. We have others who are drunken, profane, unchaste; they are dead, not more dead than the others; but their death has left its terrible traces more plainly visible. Sin produces death, and death produces corruption. Whether we were corrupt or not, is not a question that I need to raise here; let everyone judge concerning himself. But dead we were, most certainly. Even though trained by godly parents, though well instructed in the gospel scheme, though saturated with the piety that surrounded us, we were dead, as dead as the prostitute of the street, as dead as the thief in the jail.

5. Now, the text tells us that, though we were dead, yet Christ has come, and by his Spirit he has raised us out of the grave. This text brings us Easter tidings; it sings of resurrection; it sounds in our ear the trumpet of a new life, and introduces us into a world of joy and gladness. We were dead; but we are made alive by the Spirit of God. I cannot help stopping for a minute to know whether it is so with you, my dear hearers, and praying that what I might have to say may act as a kind of sieve, separating between the really living and those who only think that they are alive, so that, if you have not been made alive, if you are only “a child of nature, finely dressed,” but not spiritually alive, you may be made aware of it. If you have been made alive, even though your life is feeble, you may cry to the living God with the “Abba, Father,” which never comes from any lip except what has been touched and made alive by the Holy Spirit.

6. I. First, let us talk a little about OUR BEING MADE ALIVE. You who have been made alive will understand what I say. To those who have not been, I daresay it will seem as an idle tale.

7. Well, dear friends, if we have been made alive, we have been made alive from above. “He has made you alive.” God himself has had dealings with us. He has raised us from the dead. He made us at the first; he has made us anew. He gave us life when we were born; but now he has given us a higher life, which could not be found anywhere else. He must always give it. No man ever made himself to live. No preacher, however earnest, can make one hearer to live. No parent, however prayerful, no teacher, however tearful, can make a child alive to God. “He has made you alive,” is true of all who are made alive. It is a divine spark, a light from the great central Sun of light, the great Father of Lights. Is it so with us? Have we had a divine touch, a superhuman energy, a something which all the learning and all the wisdom and all the godliness of man could never work in us? Have we been made alive from above? If so, I daresay that we remember something about it. We cannot describe it; no man can describe his first birth; it remains a mystery. Neither can he describe his new birth; that is still a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Spirit, of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is accomplished.

8. I think that, usually, when the divine life comes, the first consciousness that we get of being made alive is a sense of pain. I have heard that when a man is nearly drowned, while he lies under the power of death, he feels little or nothing, perhaps even has pleasurable dreams; but when, in the process of restoring him, they have rubbed him until the blood begins to flow, and the life begins to revive a little, he is conscious of pricking and great pain. One of the signs that life is coming back to him is, that he wakes up out of a pleasant sleep, and feels pain. Whether it is so or not with every person restored from drowning, I do not know; but I think that it is so with every person restored from drowning in the river of sin. When the life begins to come to him, he feels as he never felt before; sin that was pleasant becomes a horror to him. What was easy to him becomes a bed of thorns. Thank God, dear hearer, if you have living pangs. It is an awful thing to have your conscience hardened, as in the very fires of hell, until it becomes like steel. To have consciousness is a great mercy, even if it is only painful consciousness, and every movement of life within seems to harrow up your soul. This divine life usually begins with pain.

9. Then, everything surprises you. If a person had never lived before, and had come into life a full-grown man, everything would be as strange to him as it is to a little child; and everything is strange to a new-born man in the spiritual realm into which he is born. He is startled a hundred times. Sin appears as sin; he cannot understand it. He had looked at sin before, but had never seen it to be sin. And Christ appears now so glorious to him; he had heard of Christ before, and had some apprehensions of him; but now he is surprised to find that the One whom he said had no form nor beauty is, after all, altogether lovely. To the new-born soul everything is a surprise. He makes no end of blunders; he makes many miscalculations because everything is new to him. He who sits upon the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new”; and the renewed man says, “My Lord, it is even so.” One said to me, when joining the church, “Either I am a new creature, or else the world is altogether altered from what it was. There is a change somewhere”; and that change is from death to life, from darkness into God’s marvellous light.

10. Now, just as life comes with strange surprises, and mingled with pain, so, dear friends, it comes often with many questions. The child has a thousand things to ask; he has to learn everything. We little think of the experiments that children have to go through before they arrive even at the use of their eyes. They do not know that things are at a distance; they have to learn that fact by looking many times. As long as the object falls upon the retina, the child is not aware of whether it is distant or a near object until some time later. What you think that you and I knew from our birth, we did not know; we had to learn it. And when a man is born into the kingdom of God, he has to learn everything; and consequently, if he is wise, he questions older and wiser believers about this and about that. You who are instructed, and have become fathers, please never laugh at babes in grace, if they ask you the most absurd questions. Encourage them to do so; let them tell you their difficulties. You, by God’s grace are a man; this little one is only a new-born babe; hear what he has to say. You mothers, do this with your little children. You are interested, you are pleased, you are amused, with what they say. So instructed saints ought to deal with those who have been newly-made alive. They come to us, and ask, “What is this? What is that? What is the other?” It is a time of asking, a time of enquiring. It is good, also, if it is a time of sitting at Jesus’ feet, for there is no other place so safe for a new-born believer as the feet of Jesus. If he gets to the feet of anyone else, he is apt to get poorly instructed at a time when everything warps his judgment, when he is extremely impressionable, and not likely to forget the mistakes that he has made, if he has borrowed them from others. So you see what the divine life does when it comes into the soul. It comes to us with pain; it gives us many surprises; and it suggests a large number of questions.

 

pt2;
11. We begin then to make a great many attempts at things which we never attempted before. The new-born child of God is just like the new-born child of man in some things; and after a time that child begins to walk. No, he does not; he begins to crawl; he does not walk at first. He creeps along, pleased to make any kind of progress; and when he gets up on his little feet, he moves from one chair to another, trembling at every step he takes, and presently, down he goes. But he gets up again, and so he learns to walk. Do you remember when the new life came into you? I do. I remember the first week of that new life, and how, on the second Sabbath, I went to the place where I had heard the gospel to my soul’s salvation, thinking that I would attend there. But, during that week, I had made many experiments, and tumbled down a great many times, and the preacher took for his text, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” I thought, “Yes; I know all about that; that is my case.” When the preacher said that Paul was not a Christian when he wrote those words, though I was only seven days old in divine things, I knew better than that, so I never went there any more. I knew that only a Christian could ever or would ever cry out against sin with that bitter wail; and that, if the grace of God was not with him, he would rest satisfied and contented; but that, if he felt that sin was a horrible thing, and he was a wretched man because of it, and must be delivered from it, then he surely must be a child of God, especially if he could add, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

12. Beloved, we make many mistakes, and we shall continue to do so. At the same time, we learn by our experiments. You remember when you began to pray; would you like to have your first prayer printed? I believe that God liked it better than many of the collects. {a} You might not like it so well; it would not look well in print. You remember when you first began to confess Christ to a friend. Oh, you stuttered and stammered over it! There were more tears than words; it was not a “dry” discourse; you wetted it well with tears of grief and anxiety. That was the new life using powers with which it was not itself acquainted; and I believe that there are some of God’s children who have powers that they will never find unless they try to use them. I should like some of you young men who do not pray at the prayer meeting to make a start. And some of you older men, perhaps, have never preached yet; but you might if you tried; I wish you would. “I should break down,” one says. I wish you would. A break-down sermon that breaks the preacher down, might break the people down, too. There might be many advantages about that kind of discourse.

13. This, then, was the way in which the new life, spiritual life, came into us. We did not know what it was when it came; we had never felt like that before; we could not think that we really had passed from death to life; and yet, in looking back, we are persuaded that the throes within, the anguish of heart, the longing, and the pleading, and the wrestling, and the crying, would never have been in a dead heart, but were the sure marks that God had made us alive, and we had passed into newness of life.

14. II. Now, secondly, let us think of OUR PRESENT LIFE. “He has made you alive.” Well, then, we have a new life. What is the effect of this life on us? I speak to you who are made alive by grace.

15. Well, first, we have become now sentient towards God. The unconverted man lives in God’s world, sees God’s works, hears God’s Word, goes up to God’s house on God’s day, and yet he does not know that there is any God. Perhaps he believes that there is, because he was brought up to believe it; but he is not cognizant of God; God has not entered into him; he has not come into contact with God. Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, I think that you and I can say, that to us the most certain fact in all the world is that there is a God. No God? I live in him. Tell a fish in the sea there is no water. No God? I live by him. Tell a man who is breathing that there is no air. No God? I dare not come downstairs without speaking to him. No God? I would not think of closing my eyes in sleep unless I had some sense of his love shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit. “Oh!” one says, “I have lived for fifty years, and I have never felt anything of God.” Rather say that you had been dead for fifty years; that is nearer to the mark. But if you had been made alive by the Holy Spirit fifty minutes, this would have been the first fact in the front rank of all facts, God is, and he is my Father, and I am his child. Now you become sentient to his frown, his smile, his threat, or his promise. You feel him; his presence is photographed upon your spirit; your very heart trembles with awe of him, and you say with Jacob, “Surely God is in this place.” That is one result of spiritual life.

 

I wanted to post a solid sample to encourage others to read the whole link.

 

The biblical reality of spiritual death is basic to [my view] of salvation doesn't have to go any other thread it's fine right here

 

From precept austin

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, (NASB: Lockman)

Greek: Kai humas ontas (PAPMPA) nekrous tois paraptomasin kai tais hamartiais humon,

Amplified: AND YOU [He made alive], when you were dead (slain) by [your]

trespasses and sins (Amplified Bible - Lockman)

KJV: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins:

NLT: Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. (NLT - Tyndale House)

Phillips: To you, who were spiritually dead all the time (Phillips: Touchstone)

Wuest: And you being dead with reference to your trespasses and sins, He made alive

Young's Literal: Also you -- being dead in the trespasses and the sins,

AND YOU WERE DEAD IN YOUR TRESPASSES AND SINS: Kai humas ontas (PAPMPA) nekrous tois paraptomasin kai tais hamartiais humon:

 

pt2;
To these promises Gaebelein replied that in light of the truth in Ephesians 2:1 "How is it possible for a person to live a better life, when that person has no life at all"?

As an aside, it is notable that such promises are not without Biblical precedent. Read several other times where people made promises they could not keep - Ro 7:14-25 Ex 24:3, 7, Ex 19:8 Josh 24:21,22,24.

Were (eimi) is in the present tense indicating (spiritual) death was their (our) continual state. Unregenerate men, still in Adam (Ro 5:12-note, 1Cor 15:22), women and children are each like the popular television show "Walking Dead!" Without Christ we were all veritable "spiritual zombies!"

Dead in - "In" is locative of sphere, which indicates the sphere or realm, in which we lived before we were born in (the sphere of) Christ (see in Christ and in Christ Jesus and in Christ). We were not dead because we had committed sin but because we were in the sphere of sin. That's why we committed sin. We were born with the penchant as it were to commit sins. As a fish lives in an aquarium, we were born in the "aquarium" of sin. What does this mean? To reiterate we sin because we are sinners. Stealing does not make us a thief. We steal because we are by nature (from Adam) thieves! Does that hurt your pride?

When God looks down from heaven, in a sense, the whole world looks like a cemetery to Him. All God sees are spiritually dead people. Above every corpse (both those "walking" as well as those "lying" in the grave) is a three-word epitaph "DEAD IN SIN." The world without Christ always makes me think of the 1968 horror spoof "Night of the Living Dead"! And so Paul begins with the most important point which is man's desperate need for divine grace and mercy. Dead men can't do much in their own strength to create new life in their spirits! If you miss this point, you may miss eternity with God!

 

pt3;
Dead (3498) (nekros from which we get English "necropsy") denotes the body derived of life, and refers literally to the physical condition of being deceased. As used here in Ephesians, figuratively "dead" refers to the spiritual condition of those who are unable to attain to the life of faith in and of themselves. Lost men are spiritually, eternally dead, not merely weakened, incapacitated, disabled, or sick. Spiritual death is the state of separation from God and His life. Death itself is a separation, whether physical, the separation of the person from his body, or spiritual, the separation of the person from God. Two other marks of a dead person are corruption and impotence, both relevant to the spiritual condition of unregenerate men and women.

Nekros - 120x - corpse(1), dead(122), dead man(3), dead men(1), dead men's(1).

Matt 8:22; 10:8; 11:5; 14:2; 17:9; 22:31f; 23:27; 27:64; 28:4, 7; Mark 6:14; 9:9f, 26; 12:25ff; Luke 7:15, 22; 9:7, 60; 15:24, 32; 16:30f; 20:35, 37f; 24:5, 46; John 2:22; 5:21, 25; 12:1, 9, 17; 20:9; 21:14; Acts 3:15; 4:2, 10; 5:10; 10:41f; 13:30, 34; 17:3, 31f; 20:9; 23:6; 24:21; 26:8, 23; 28:6; Rom 1:4; 4:17, 24; 6:4, 9, 11, 13; 7:4, 8; 8:10f; 10:7, 9; 11:15; 14:9; 1 Cor 15:12f, 15f, 20f, 29, 32, 35, 42, 52; 2 Cor 1:9; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:20; 2:1, 5; 5:14; Phil 3:11; Col 1:18; 2:12f; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:16; 2 Tim 2:8; 4:1; Heb 6:1f; 9:14, 17; 11:19, 35; 13:20; Jas 2:17, 26; 1 Pet 1:3, 21; 4:5f; Rev 1:5, 17f; 2:8; 3:1; 11:18; 14:13; 16:3; 20:5, 12f

Spiritual death is probably the most difficult truth in all of Scripture for human beings to believe (or accept). The unsaved think we as believers have lost our mind talking about the "walking dead"! They don't accept the divine judgment that because of sin every person born is separated from God. They refuse to believe that dead mankind is unable to know God personally and can’t do anything about the condition. Worst of all, they are dead and don’t know it! To be dead is a hopeless condition and later in this chapter Paul specifically says the Gentiles were those "having no hope."

Moule adds that Paul uses the analogy of physical death which is something everyone is painfully aware they must one experience (unless they are living in "the Rapture generation"). He writes that this analogy on the whole consists in this that…

(1) It is a state in which a living principle, necessary for organization, growth and energy, in reference to God and holiness, is entirely lacking; (2) it is a state which has no innate tendency to develop such a principle of life. The principle must come to it altogether ab extra. -- The latest researches into nature confirm the conviction that dead matter has absolutely no inner tendency to generate life, which must come into it ab extra if it is to live." (Ephesians Commentary 2)

 

pt4;
The KJV Bible Commentary - This truth is denied in these days. Men speak of “the better self” and “the good spark.” Man needs a new heart, not just a new start; a new life, not just turning over a new leaf; a resurrection, not just reformation. Signing a pledge card will not suffice. No one can live a life for God until he first receives life from God. (Dobson, E G, Charles Feinberg, E Hindson, Woodrow Kroll, H L. Wilmington: KJV Bible Commentary: Nelson)

Spiritual death defines all of mankind's condition. Furthermore, as explained in chapters like Romans 6, all unbelievers are in a state of bondage or enslavement to the power of sin. Jesus declared…

"Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits (present tense) sin is (present tense) the slave of sin." (John 8:34)

We commit sins because we are born sinners in Adam. We are all born with the "sin virus!"

From a human standpoint, it appears that people might be able to do good, but God through His prophet Isaiah explains that

“all our righteous deeds are like a filthy (Hebrew = menstruation a picture of ceremonial uncleanness and undesirable filth) garment” (Isa 64:6)

Paul affirms this truth writing that…

ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." (see note Romans 3:12)

In another passage Paul explains that unbelievers are not even able to understand the things of God, for

a natural (unsaved, still "in Adam", not "in Christ") man does not accept (dechomai = deliberately and readily, receive kindly, they do not "put out a welcome mat"! = present tense) the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness (moria = that which is considered intellectually weak, irrational) to him, and he cannot (dunamai = present tense = have intrinsic power - natural men lack the inner, inherent ability and resources on their own to) understand (verb ginosko = know by experience) them, because they are spiritually appraised (anakrino = sift up and down and so to scrutinize, to examine accurately and carefully with exact research like in legal processes)." (1Cor 2:14)

This explanation is clear as they work through the biblical text

 

Yes Reformed,
I am thankful for your consistently biblical posting on this topic.
About one year ago you posted a very clear quote by Matthew Henry which if you do not mind I would like to reshare that beneficial post later on from my laptop.

 

I have found that most theological error stems from a defective view of the fall of man into sin as and death, both spiritual and physical death.
Trying to get dead sinners to act as Christians, is a moral reformation that comes far short of regeneration.
In a previous post [post #14]
those bible commentators did a fine job of showing the spiritual impossibility of sinners to rightly understand spiritual truth.
No Reformed, if it is milk or meat they cannot savingly comprehend it.

 

Reformed, it might be in this link, or the part 2
Change of man's MORAL nature in the Fall