Funny. A recent thread on spiritual death just vanished. I thought the topic started a worthwhile discussion and one that can give us insight on the topics of sin and the new birth. The principle of spiritual death is certainly biblical. Paul told the Ephesians, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Obviously Paul was referring to physical death because the Ephesians who read his letter were still alive. Paul was making the point that before they came to faith in Christ they were "dead in their trespasses and sins". Paul used similar language in Colossians 2:13. It is interesting that Paul uses the Greek word nekros in both passages. This is not the word for the state of death (thanatos), but the word for a dead body. The illustration it provides is stark. The sinner is alive physically but dead spiritually. This does not mean that the sinner does not have a spiritual nature. Quite the contrary. Every human being has a spiritual nature. The question is to what does that nature pledge its allegiance?
The thread I cannot seem to find started the discussion in Genesis 3. This chapter recounts the fall of man which was the birth of sin in the human race. From that point on all of humanity has been tainted by sin. We are not born in union with God, we are born at enmity with God. On our own we have no proclivity for the things of God. Luther wrote about this in his Bondage of the Will. When we are born we are literally dead men walking. We are in a state of spiritual death moving, towards physical death, and culminating in eternal death. This assumes we are never rescued from our fatal journey by the grace of God.
This is a wonderful topic to discuss and thank you for beginning in Gen 3.
If God through Christ is restoring what Adam lost, and I think that is the idea if one compares the first chapters of Genesis with the last two chapters of Revelation. Here are two things that Adam did not seem to know before his fall. 1) That he was naked, and 2) good and evil. One has to wonder why he did not know he was naked. He walked with God. He was in his image. Intelligence wise, he must have been the smartest man who ever lived, at least until Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. God sure mentions restoration and regeneration in his New Testament. All things sure point to a renewal of the original status of God and man. So, why did he not know he was naked?
One must consider his creation. Soul and body and Spirit. The spiritual nature of Adam was his soul. The physical nature of Adam was his body. The divine nature of Adam was not of himself but was of God. God and Adam were in full accord through the Spirit and communed and had fellowship together. I am reminded just now of the last verse in 2 Cor, which says;
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
Of course he is not speaking to all men but all men in Corinth and by extension, all men everywhere who have the Holy Ghost dwelling in their bodies. Obviously men who did not have the Holy Ghost indwelling them through the new birth could not commune with him. The point is that the logical conclusion is that Adam and God communed through the Spirit that was in him in the garden. He was said to be the son of God. Lk 3:38.
The question now is, what kind of body did Adam have? I am going to suggest that his body was like the body of the glorified Jesus Christ. It makes sense to me considering that the hope of the Christian today who has the :earnest" of the Spirit while he waits for what scripture calls the "blessed hope' of the Christian, and the final stage of his salvation, the new body that is like unto the glorious body of Jesus Christ. The apostle John, said in 1 Jn 3
Beloved, "now" are we the sons of God, and it doth
not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
Paul says this:
Ph 2:20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
A glorious body is a glorified body. If it is like the body of Jesus then it will shine brighter than the sun.We have him described in several passages of the Scriptures.
1 Tim 6:16
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
In Malachi 3 he is called the Sun of righteousness and when Moses was in his presence, hidden in the cleft of the rock, we have this said;
2 Cor 3:7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
No one should think God cannot accomplish his eternal purpose because of the weakness of man or the wickedness of Satan. What he began he can accomplish and it is through the last Adam, the second man that he does it.
The glorious Adam was clothed with light until he sinned.
What do you think?
