What is "Death"??

This has come up in several other topics, so I thought I'd start a thread about it.

Is "death" really the same as "separation"? The separation tends to be between different things, depending on which passage one is talking about. "Spiritual death" is seen as "separation from God", and is often applied to the state of unbelievers. The "second death" spoken of in Revelation 20, is seen as a final and irrevocable separation from God.

Or is it more likely that "death" is really complete cessation of function, thought and action.

The former is what I was taught growing up (Southern Baptist). I'm not so sure now. Part of the reason it is difficult to determine which is right is that the scriptures that talk about death are often applied only to the death of the physical body, which leaves the spiritual aspects unclearly defined, and implied from other passages.

What happens to our "soul" or "spirit" at death is a big part of this discussion, obviously. Most of the time those two terms are conflated when talking post-death scenarios. Along with that conflation, there's a confusion as to whether "spirit" means the life-breath of someone (which would be gone at death), or does it mean a ghostly part of the person (which would have to go somewhere at death). The "soul" is often described as the real person, occupying the body, and it, too, is thought to go somewhere at death, usually to "hades" for the wicked and old testament saints, and to heaven (in Jesus' presence) starting sometime after Jesus died.

I'd like to challenge folks entering this thread to consider the alternate views before posting--don't just defend what you've been taught, but consider why someone might h0old that alternate view.

I've done some of this (consider the alternate view), and I have to say that it makes some sense of a lot of passages that had to be relegated to only one part of death. For instance,

This is talking about animals (I believe), but it addresses how God's "spirit" gives them life. The Hebrew word "ruwach" is used in both, once for "their breath" and again for "thy spirit". I'm no reader of Hebrew--just getting info from Blueletterbible.org.
[Psa 104:29 KJV] Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
[Psa 104:30 KJV] Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

And this is talking about 2 of the three parts mentioned above, the body and the spirit, but the spirit here appears to be God's gift of life/breath, and not a ghostly substance.
[Ecc 12:7 KJV] Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Here are 2 more about the source of humans. God calls Adam (not just his body) "dust", and says he will return to dust. Abraham in humility calls himself dust--not dust plus an eternal spirit/soul!
[Gen 3:19 KJV] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.
[Gen 18:27 KJV] And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which [am but] dust and ashes:

And one about "life" after the fall:
[Gen 3:20 KJV] And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
If she's mother of all "living" then is that "living" only talking about a physical body, or about living beings, which would counter the "born spiritually dead" concept.

 

Presume for a moment that death actually means the cessation of all function, mental, physical, spiritual.

Now presume that God meant that when He said Adam would die in the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Let's allow "in the day" to mean any of several biblically viable options that don't mean a single 24 hour day.

Now what does that mean to the rest of biblical interpretation?

1. It affirms annihilation--BUT in a radically different way. Annihilation occurs before resurrection. Resurrection actually recovers someone from annihilation.
2. It affirms the resurrection to be the restoration of the whole of the believer's life, and not just the life of the body.
3, It doesn't violate any of Jesus's promises, but it congeals all of the resurrection promises into one event. (One possible exception--that the one who "lives" and believes in Him would never die. But that was coupled with the one that said if someone dies, then he would be resurrected. Here's the passage:
[Jhn 11:24 KJV] Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
[Jhn 11:25 KJV] Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
[Jhn 11:26 KJV] And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
But I can make sense of it in this scenario--that the one who is alive "at the resurrection", as Martha is talking about in vs 24, will never die.)
4. It give fresh perspective to Paul's words in 1 Thess 4, where he tells the church to "comfort one another with these words", that they shall not precede those who have fallen asleep in Christ, but that the dead in Christ shall rise first, and those that are alive shall be taken up next.
5. It explains why a bunch of unbelievers are resurrected in Rev 20 (the second resurrection) only to be cast into hell--they are being judged. It doesn't make sense to resurrect the bodies of those that have already been judged and and whose souls are already suffering in the fiery part of Hades. What good do a bunch of bodies do in the lake of fire, if souls can be tormented just as easily.

(The reason for #5, that Jesus' death paid the price for all TO BE RESURRECTED, but not necessarily to live with Him forever, explains why Jesus is the savior of the whole world, but especially those that believe, 1 Tim 4:10.)

 

This is good advice all around! But what if I use the word "presuppose". Does that change anything? We all have some kind of presupposition when we approach bible study. That was my point in the OPs--my presupposition earlier in life was the one I'm reconsidering today. It's not a bad thing to reconsider presuppositions. If we can't get unbelievers to reconsider their presuppositions, they will never believe. If we can't get Christians who are wrong in a particular area to reconsider their presuppositions, we can never come to an agreement.

And most importantly, if we are wrong in any area of doctrine, then we can only find truth by reconsidering our presuppositions in that area. But how do we know which area to reconsider? Maybe forums can help us know where to reconsider.

Someone else said this, too--that death is the opposite of life. I'm not so sure. Is a rock dead? or is it merely lifeless?

I don't understand how your premise leads to the conclusion that death is separation from life.

These are good scriptures to bring up.

[Mat 10:28 KJV] And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The word for "kill" is not the same as the word for "destroy". So It's possible Jesus is pointing out the painful and everlasting nature of hell. But I addressed this a bit in #5 of my second OP. The idea that a body needs to be resurrected for casting into hell, when painful suffering is already occurring to the soul in Hades, doesn't make sense to me. Some say the body will be burned up immediately, and then the soul will suffer forever, but that's back to where it was before the resurrection of the unbeliever's body.

[Luk 20:35 KJV] But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
[Luk 20:36 KJV] Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
[Luk 20:37 KJV] Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
[Luk 20:38 KJV] For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

Vs 37 and 38 hold the key to Jesus' point here: it is regarding RESURRECTION. "Now that the dead are raised..." tells us Jesus is specifically talking about what is going to happen in the resurrection, and He explains the God is God of the living. That doesn't mean they were alive when jesus said this, but that they were going to be raised. This is the only way the passage makes sense.

The soul in Hades is not "resurrected", so Jesus isn't talking about that aspect of "living". (It doesn't necessarily negate it, either--just can't be used as a proof text for the bodiless soul in Hades model.)

 

I have a hard time deciphering some of your posts, Tim. And they are too long to respond to all of it.

I'll respond to this part: "We are not told what happens to the spirit with God."
I offered one verse about the spirit in my OP. "[Ecc 12:7 KJV] Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

This is an animal spirit, so it's not completely applicable. But if the animal's spirit is given by God and returns to God, then what does the animal's spirit comprise?

Here's the verse that connects them: [Ecc 3:19 KJV] For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all [is] vanity.

The word for "breath" is the same as the word for "spirit".

So if we take it as a separate part of man, Ecclesiastes doesn't talk like that. The "spirit" in Ecclesiastes appears to be something of a life force (breath of life) that is provided by God for both animals and humans, and that life force returns to God upon death\ of animals and humans.

[Gen 2:7 KJV] And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

You have made a lot of assertions, some of which are pertinent to this discussion. Truth is definitely bigger than one post, but we don't need to put all of truth in every post.

But we also need to make sure we get God's truth into our posts, and verify it with scriptural references. I was trying to do that, and I'd appreciate if you would do the same.

On the issue of unbelievers' spirits turning into demons, I don't believe there is any biblical warrant for such a view.

God's spirit is specifically given to animals according to the verses I cited: [Psa 104:29 KJV] Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
[Psa 104:30 KJV] Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

Solomon made this statement:
[Ecc 3:21 ESV] Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?

One reason he might have thought animals' spirits went down into the earth is that the earth brought forth the animals, according to this: [Gen 1:24 KJV] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
But God breathed into man the breath of life, just as Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22), probably indicative of the new birth.

 

Good reply, 3!! (May I call you "3"?)

Therefore death is the loss of life, and not the opposite of life. It sounds like we are in agreement on this.

Here's the whole of vs 9:
[Ecc 9:9 KJV] Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that [is] thy portion in [this] life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

The context is important, because the author talks about life "under the sun" and compares it with death "in the grave" in vs 10. I appreciate you bringing up this verse, because it helps us understand the things the "soul" might be doing in the netherworld. The soul is NOT working, nor devising, nor exercising any wisdom. If the soul is active there in any way, you can't tell it from this verse, nor does it seem any activity is possible without "knowledge" of some type. Is the soul then asleep?? Certainly this verse seems to contrast with the activity Jesus mentioned in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. We should definitely consider how these two disparate reports can be made to work together.

If both body and soul perish, and only a "worm" is left, what is that "worm"? And Why would it be necessary for God to rais someone from the dead (reunite each person's soul with a newly reconstructed body) in order to then cast them into the fire where their body wold be burned up? Why not just cast the soul from Hades into the fire?? This seems like a waste of re-creative energy.

 

Not the recreative part. That’s a reversal of judgment. Death of the body was a judgment, and bringing that body back to life is a reversal of that judgment. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Even life that’s not eternal is a gift of God. Why would God give that gift of physical life to those whom He already knows are guilty (because they were in the bad part of Hades, they had already been judged).


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If Jesus said, “Fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell,” how can you say no body goes to the place of death?


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