In Adam all die

[agedman]

nekros may mean spiritual dead

1. properly
   1. one that has breathed his last, lifeless
      
      
   2. deceased, departed, one whose soul is in heaven or hell
      
      
   3. destitute of life, without life, inanimate
2. metaph.
   1. spiritually dead
      1. destitute of a life that recognises and is devoted to God, because given up to trespasses and sins
         
         
      2. inactive as respects doing right
   2. destitute of force or power, inactive, inoperative

It is not a translation issue

All dictionaries (even those of in finding biblical words) give the "common" or typically used definition.

For example: Back in the day "Pot" - That which someone cooks in was not used for that which people smoked, and rarely used in socially acceptable circles as that which is collected in a manner of gambling since such was outlawed.

Therefore, it is not unusual to find such as you have given for "nekros." For in the modern (from about the 200AD, philosophies that infiltrated the church, the terms have gradually become modified.

HOWEVER, the term in the purest definition that which is dead, a corpse, or one in which death has been pronounced. It has no "spiritual dead" yet one living definition.

It is not ever used in Scriptures to indicate "spiritually" dead, but ALWAYS applies to one who is condemned - "Dead (nekros) in trespasses and sins." Ephesians. As one considered as already dead, a corpse. They may be breathing, but are in fact dead and worthless except for decay.

Or as Colossians states, "When you were dead (nekros) in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh..."

Or, again in Ephesians, "Even when we are dead (nekros) in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ..." Quickened, is not just a "spiritual" alive, but as the Christ states, "They that believe in me shall never die."

Again, it is ALWAYS pertaining to the physical, unless someone can show specifically what Scripture aligns the "spiritually dead" outside of that person also being "physically dead" using the definition of one "Condemned already" (as our Lord stated of the unbeliever's condition) that is already dead.

 

[agedman]

I think it is evident in the text. The Reformers and Puritans posited as much, so I am in good company with my "type of thinking".



That is my point. I was referring to the Ephesian believers prior spiritual condition, i.e. before they were converted. Prior to becoming believers, they were dead, spiritually speaking. I certainly am not referring to believers as being spiritually dead. But they were not just "bound to the death of the body", they were also dead in the inner man (spiritually) which is the point of Ephesians 2:1. It is the Synergist position that must insist the sinner is not spiritually dead but rather spiritually sick. Why? Because Synergism needs the sinner to believe prior to regeneration and that is an impossibility if the sinner is dead spiritually.



We simply disagree and that is fine.

I understand the thinking behind using the term "Spiritually dead."

I am attempting to figure out why we as believer (especially those of us who hold to the Doctrines of Grace) are willing to move to one being alive yet spiritually dead, when the Scriptures point to the ungodly one as dead or as condemned as dead already.

Is there anywhere the ungodly are presented as having life that is actually alive?

For example, one of the verses I was looking at was John 12:25:

Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.
​

Because it uses the word eternity, I wondered what "life" it was that was a determination of gaining eternity or not in that specific verse.

So, I find that the word life is "psuché" which refers to, the soul, the breath of life, ...

In my ADD brain, I move to consider the statement of "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life."

And, that is a different word (bios) which is the manner of life.

The matter of "spiritually dead" must also have "spiritually alive."

But, again, I am finding that there is no "spiritually alive."

Is this accurate?

Is the thinking that one can be "spiritually alive" found in the Scriptures?

Or is it that humankind must think that in some grand scheme they are actually alive without the Christ?

The doctrines of grace become ever more secure when removing "spiritually" from the statements.

One is dead in trespasses and sin waiting for the decay to set in (not just spiritually dead) and the believer is made alive in Christ (never die but have everlasting life).

Though the wages of sin will eventually pay the believer earthly body to cease support, they pass from (through) this estate into life eternal and do not even taste death. They pass from life to life, not death to death as the ungodly do.

Does not that presentation bring greater hope and comfort then talk of "spiritual" life and death?

 

[percho]

I do not believe you will find, spiritually, spiritual, or spirit along with dead relative to anyone in the word of God.

You have to assume in your mind that it is there, It isn't.

 

[loDebar]

The definition was from Strong's

The Christian being quickened, or alive shows the non believer as not alive.

thnēskō is translated dead

1. to die, to be dead
   
   
2. metaph. to be spiritually dead
   

 

[agedman]

The definition was from Strong's

The Christian being quickened, or alive shows the non believer as not alive.

thnēskō is translated dead

1. 
   
   
   • to die, to be dead
   • metaph. to be spiritually dead

You did good until that last sentence.

The Scripture do not seem to present one alive and yet not alive at the same time.

They present one as dead or one as alive.

Christ speaking to dead people said,

9“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.​

“That they may have life” is a statement that they were previously dead.

Not spiritual life and death, for the life is everlasting.

 

[loDebar]

The lost are currently spiritually dead but physically alive. We have three parts, the body can be alive yet the "soul" dead. Thus Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead" or The spiritual bury the physical/

We are bought to spiritual life when redeemed from spiritual death,

 

[Aaron]

Often one will talk of “spiritual” death.

However, the Scriptures present the lost as “dead” and “as perishing” but I cannot find a verse that states one as “spiritually dead.”

For example in Titus this is stated: “But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives.”

In light that the Scriptures do not seem to present three deaths, but two, can you find the third?

Oh my achin' back.

Were you dead in sins or not? Eph. 2:5

 

[agedman]

Oh my achin' back.

Were you dead in sins or not? Eph. 2:5

Why would you be in such pain? Did you strain in the labor?


Why would you assume that all are not dead in sins?

Does not Ephesians 2 state:

1And you were dead (nekros- corpse) in your trespasses and sins, 2in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead (nekros - corpse) in our transgressions, made us alive (suzóopoieó - made alive together) together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
​

Do you not see that the very determination of one not being "spiritually dead" but considered as a corpse or one determined as dead actually makes the work of Christ even more aligned with the Doctrines of Grace?

If the non-cal folks understood that the Scripture does not place one as spiritually dead or alive, but in fact in all aspects as dead or alive, it would silence a huge abounding disagreement.

When one is dead IN trespasses and sin, it doesn't mean that they are alive and performing trespasses and sin, rather that person is as a corpse subject to all external forces of "the prince of the power of the air, and the spirit that is now working in the sones of disobedience." The ungodly are actually controlled not by their own "aliveness" but as dead corpses shoved about and manipulated by the evil one.

When made alive, such is no longer a manipulation of the dead, but that which is alive and purposed by God.

 

[Aaron]

Dead in sins = spiritually dead. Certainly you would not say they are physically dead.

As to your corpse/puppet analogy, it's false. Yes, the unsaved are taken captive by the Devil at his will, but they aren't indifferent to darkness. They love darkness and hate the light. Love and hate do not dwell in corpses.

 

[agedman]

Dead in sins = spiritually dead. Certainly you would not say they are physically dead.

As to your corpse/puppet analogy, it's false. Yes, the unsaved are taken captive by the Devil at his will, but they aren't indifferent to darkness. They love darkness and hate the light. Love and hate do not dwell in corpses.

John records, the unbelievers are "condemned already" - one already separated out. One who is not living is separated out from those who are living.

From the view point of God, that person is dead.

The Scriptures do not ever consider the dead as "spiritually dead". That is a human insistence because we consider things from a fleshly standpoint.

The ungodly that seems to have life from the standpoint of physically live appears to us as alive and "spiritually dead." However, the things that appear and are are not all that of consistence. God looking upon the heart (the inner person) determines life and death.

Remember Lazarus, the Christ said, "He sleeps." But, the apostles did not understand that according to the flesh Lazarus is dead, and the Lord had to "plainly tell" them.

Remember Paul writing to the Corinthian church said, "some of you are weak and sick, and some of you sleep."

When the believer is made alive, they are not "alive in Christ" but "alive with Christ." That is they are no longer a corpse but living.

Can you find a time the Scriptures ever present one as "spiritually dead" yet alive at the same time?

Earlier I pointed to 1 Timothy 5:6 which gives exactly how the person is pictured:

"But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead (thnéskó) while she lives."​

thnéskó - to have died, be dead, ...

1 Timothy is the closest I have found to suggest by illusion one can be alive in the flesh yet "spiritually dead," yet that isn't the purest rendering of the verse, as you can see in the above definition.

 

[loDebar]

There are two illustrations being used. One is a Christian who should not be responsive to sin, as a dead person.
The other is a a pre salvation "spiritually " dead person who has rejected or not accepted Christ. Not spiritually quickened.

The words are the same but the ideas are presented separately. All are condemned already or spiritually dead are then quickened.

 

[JamesL]

Most people have an error in the use of suffix.

I suppose it's maybe just the way it works in English, but spiritual is in no way contrasted against physical or material.

Scripture contrasts spiritual against NATURAL.
Spiritual = MATURE and godly
Natural = immature and ungodly


Spirit is contrasted against body, or flesh.
Immaterial versus physical

Romans 8:10
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness

See?

 

[Joel.alexander]

A good verse to bring up about spiritual death is from Romans 7:9-11 "Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. "

To me Paul most definitely is talking about spiritual death.

 

[agedman]

The motif of "Christus Victor" is seen in such verses as Romans 5:

8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.​

Unlike the theories in which the total of all the wrath of God is poured out upon the Son, Paul sees the believer is "saved from the wrath of God." That the wrath that God will pour out was not poured out already, but that the Lord Jesus Christ being the just and justifier redeems the believer away from such wrath.

Look how such takes place. The believer "shall be saved by His life." This is part of the total reconciliation package in which Paul is addressing in this portion of Scriptures.

In the Greek, the word "lytrōsis" is used and it is used in these ways:

Luke 1:68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption (lytrōsin | λύτρωσιν | acc sg fem) to his people.
Luke 2:38 At that very hour she came up and began to give thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all who were waiting expectantly for the redemption (lytrōsin | λύτρωσιν | acc sg fem) of Israel.
Hebrews 9:12 he entered once for all into the Most Holy Place, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus obtaining an eternal redemption (lytrōsin | λύτρωσιν | acc sg fem). (λύτρωσις | billmounce.com)​

Christus Victor presents that which Christ obtained not at the expense of seeing God as vindictively judgmental upon Himself, but as that just one who is also the one who is able to justify as only a Holy God (as Christ) could accomplish.

His wrath is not poured out upon the Son, for such wrath remains. Christ redeemed (saved, justifies) the believers from such an appointment by "means of his own blood."

Hence, the truth of the statement of the Lord Jesus Christ, "No one can come to the Father except by Me."