Anyone who accepts the first three denials -- of God, spiritual beings, and immortality -- might be called a naturalist in the board sense, and anyone who adds to these the denial of freedom, values, and purpose might be labeled a naturalist in the strict sense, that is, they are a strict naturalist. Communists, for example, are not strict naturalists, for their world view includes a purpose in human history, and perhaps in whole history of the universe. Some religious humanists are not strict naturalists, for they argue for free will and even for values which are independent of known wants and needs. Some opponents of naturalism would argue that naturalism in the board sense are at least somewhat inconsistent and that naturalism in the broad sense leads logically to strict naturalism. Many strict naturalist would agree with this.
Those who reject naturalism in both the strict or board sense do so for variety of reasons. In addition to particular arguments against naturalism, some opponents of naturalism believe that there is a general argument which holds against any form of naturalism. These opponents hold that naturalism has a "fatal flaw" or, to put it more strongly, that naturalism is self-destroying. If naturalism is true, then human life must be the result of natural forces. Thus human life has no meaning nor purpose; and that there is no human life after physical death, no immortality of the soul.
The idea of the immortality of the soul as distinct from the resurrection of the body is an essentially Greek idea, as expressed, for instance, in Plato. Plato in his dislogue Phaedo, where he describes the death of Socrates, records Socrates' exposition of immortality before his death. This idea of immortality of the soul arose partly out of the belief that the body, being matter, was evil and therefore mortal. According to this view, all people are essentially immortal in their souls, but not in their bodies. Some scholars maintain that the Apostle Paul embraced this Greek view of immortality. But when Paul speaks of immortality he never relates to the soul. He explicitly states in I Timothy 6:16 that God alone has immortality. To Paul, death is the enemy that was conquered by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15: 51-57). To the Greek philosophers, death was a release from the prison house of the soul (that is, the body was the prison house of the soul), but for Paul man was created immortal and that sin brought mortality (Rom. 5:12). In the OT as well as in the NT, the dead are described as going down into Sheol, a place of obscurity, forgetfulness, and relative inactivity (Job 10:20-22, 14:13ff; Psa. 88:10-12; et al). But Sheol was not outside the Lord's purview (Psa. 139:8; Amos 9:2), and it was indicated through some of OT writers that there would be deliverance from it (Job 19:25-27; Psa. 16:10; 49:14ff.). This deliverance would take the form of a resurrection from the dead (Dan. 12:2). In the NT, the full meaning of this resurrection and of immortality was now "manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (II Tim. 1:10). For Paul immortality is the resurrection of the body at the coming of the Lord of those who had received Christ Jesus as their resurrected Lord. Thus immortality is considered to be a gift of God to be received by faith. The notion that Paul held to the Greek view of the afterlife and immortality must be rejected in the light of his total teaching about salvation as from death to life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Biblical view of life after physical death asserts that man's life does not end with his physical death; there is life after physical death. There has been among Christians four historical views of man's life after physical death.
The word "hades" does not occur in the English Bible (KJV), either as a general or proper name, but it is found several times in the original Greek New Testament (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14; I Cor. 15:55, but in the last passage the true reading is thanator, death.). Hades is used in the Greek N.T. to refer to the underworld, the region of the departed. It defines the intermediate state between physical death and the future resurrection. Of the eleven times the word occurs in the N.T., it is rendered as "hell" in the KJV with one exception (I Cor. 15:55, where "grave" appears). Hades seems to be the gathering place of all souls (see Acts 2:27, 31, where it is the Greek translation of "Sheol" in Psa. 16:10). In Luke 16:23-26, all of the dead are located in the underworld, but the word "Hades" itself is used only of the place where the wicked are punished.
Gehenna, from the Greek geenna, is the eternal abode of the wicked. Whereas Hades is an intermediate state, Gehenna is eternal hell. Wherever it is used in N.T., Gehenna always means the place of eternal damnation.
According to Paul's testimony that absent from the body is to be present with Christ (II Cor. 5:8). Those who die in the Lord in this age go immediately into the presence of the Lord. Those who die without Christ go to Hades, where there is torment (Luke 16:19-31). They will later be brought from Hades to appear before the great white throne of judgment after which they will all be cast into the lake of fire and experience eternal damnation (Rev. 20:11-15).
A further reason for the absence of comments on the intermediate state could well be the profound awareness of the human wholeness that salvation in Christ provided. Salvation was never presented as a extrication of the soul from the body for participation in ethereal bliss. We can see this awareness in II Cor. 5:1-10. Paul there refers to the intermediate state paradoxically as being "unclothed" (verse 4) and as being "at home with the Lord" (verse 8). Paul's true longing and expectation is the parousia at which he will put on his "heavenly dwelling" by being "swallowed up by life" (verses 2-4). To die is "gain" because it is a departure to "be with Christ" (Phil. 1:21-23), yet Paul is only too clear that his hope is set upon the triumph of Christ when the last enemy, death, is destroyed (I Cor. 15:20-27). Salvation is ultimately resurrection from death to life (Rom. 8:18-23) [5].
The suffering in purgatory vary greatly in intensity and duration, being proportioned in general to the guilt and impurity or impenitence of the sufferer. They are described as being in some cases completely mild, lasting perhaps for only a few hours, while in other cases little if anything short of the torments of hell itself and lasting for thousands of years. But in any event they are to terminate with the last judgment. Gifts or services rendered to the church, prayers by the priests, and Masses provided by relatives or friends on behalf of the deceased can shorten, alleviate, or eliminate the sojourn of the soul in purgatory.
Protestantism rejects the doctrine of purgatory since the evidence on which it is based is found not in the Bible but in the Apocrypha (II Macc. 12:39-45) [4]. The doctrine of purgatory in the Roman Catholic thought developed during the Middle Ages and hardened into dogma in reaction to the Protestant rejection of it. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) declared that those who rejected the doctrine of purgatory are "anathema," accused. Recent Roman Catholic thought has seen purgatory in more positive terms as a preparing, cleansing, or maturing transition from life on earth to the joys of heaven.
The doctrine of purgatory reflects pastoral problems relating to an earlier age in which church and society were conterminous and all baptism was of infants. How are postbaptismal sins to be dealt with and how is divine justice to be related to this form of sin of those who are dead? The theory of purgatory said, "You will not be lost, yet God will be just." At the present time, with much awareness of life as a process or evolution, purgatory has also allowed for speculation about the continued development of the soul. As such, it continues to be attractive for some in a greatly modified form [5].
| Hebrew-Christian | Medieval Synthesis | Greek-Roman | |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Creator | Supernatural - Grace | The rational |
| World | Created | Natural - Nature | The non-rational |
| Man | spirit (person) & body |
spirit (moral) & soul (rational) & body (animal) |
mind (rational) & body (non-rational) |
According to the Biblical view of reality, ultimate reality is not Reason, the universal and necessary, and this Reason is not man's ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This basic incompatibility between the Greek and Biblical view of God and man explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith, and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood.
And this is what happened in the early church as it sought to explain the relationship of the divine and human in the God-man Jesus Christ. They misunderstood the rational soul of man as the third part of man, the spirit and body being the other two parts. But the rational soul of man is not the third part of man, but it is the expression of man's spirit or person in and through his body.
"Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground,When God breathed into the nostrils of the body of man the breath of life, He created man's spirit and man became a living soul. The soul of man is the union of this created spirit and the body formed from the dust of the ground. Thus man is a diparite being having two parts, spirit and body; the soul is not a third part of man but is the union of man's created spirit and his body.
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul (nepesh)" (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
Thus the Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of a spirit and the body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a diparite being having two parts of a body and rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, an animal soul, and a rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis that man is a triparite being having three parts of a body, rational soul, and spirit. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of the spirit in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
In the incarnation, the divine Word, the Son of God, took the place, not of the human soul (psuche), but of the human spirit (pneuma) in the man Jesus. His human soul is the union of His divine spirit and His human body. Thus Jesus is one person with two natures; His divine nature is the divine Word, the Son of God, and His human nature is His human soul and His human body where His human soul is the expression of His one divine spirit or person through His human body.
Did Jesus have a human spirit? The answer is "No" and "Yes". No, the divine Word of God took the place the human created spirit in the God-man Jesus. And yes, the Word of God took upon Himself the limitations of a created human spirit. As Paul indicates in Phil. 2:5-8:
"5 Have this mind among yourselves,That is, in Jesus, the Word of God took the place of the created human spirit, but he took upon Himself the limitations of that human spirit; "he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being in the likeness of man." Thus Jesus was the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), that is, a divine person or spirit in a human body with all its limitations. but without sin.
which you have in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of man.
8 And being found in human form he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
What is a person?
A person may be defined as a
being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined,
who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose.
Now within the self, existence is known in the act of decision.
To exist is to decide. This is particularly apparent in those
momentous passionate decisions of a crisis. In fact, every act of decision,
whether in a great crisis or not, is the place where existence can be
found. The act of decision itself is also an act of existence. That
is, to be is to choose. This was partially apprehended in Descartes'
phrase: cognito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am.
Descartes saw that the act of thinking or even doubting is to exist.
For one to think or doubt he had to exist. However, since he sought
to fit this into an Greek philosophical scheme of thought, Descartes did not
recognize that thinking and doubting are basically acts of decision.
Not only to think or doubt but to decide is to exist. Any act of
decision is an act of existence: decerno ergo sum, I choose,
therefore I am. A person therefore should be defined as a
being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who
has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be
distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an "it," which is a
being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom,
no free will, no ability to choose. Thus the existence of a person
is found in his ability to choose, to make decisions.
"I choose, therefore, I am", not, "I think, therefore, I am".
To be is to choose, not just to think or to preceive.
Man's reason is a function and an expression of his will.
This freedom of decision of man, not his reason, is what distinguishes
man from the rest of creation; this is what gives to man his existence
as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character.
Now a careful analysis of decision reveals that every act of
decision involves three elements:
(a) the agent making the decision,
(b) the alternatives to be decided between, and
(c) a criterion to decide by.
This third element of every decision, the criterion by which the
choice is made, means that every human decision involves a reference
to a criterion in or beyond the self. In other words, behind every human
decision as to what a person should do or think, there must be a reason.
That is, the choice between the altenatives is made with reference to
some criterion of choice, and choice cannot be made without this reference.
Now the criterion of a choice must be also chosen, and that choice
is made with reference to an ultimate criterion, an ultimate reason for
the choice of the criterion. That is, the ultimate reason for any
decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular
criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond
the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion
is that person's god. In this sense, every man must have a god, that is,
an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his
freedom-of-decision, man shows that he is such a being that must
necessarily appeal to an ultimate criterion, a god.
In fact, his every uncoerced decision implies this ultimate criterion.
Since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self,
to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal,
a being who must have a god.
According to the Greek thinkers, Reason, the universal and necessary, is the divine or God. The divine, according to the Greek conception of reality, is that which is not subject to change, decay or death; the gods in Homer are "immortals." The divine, therefore, cannot be known through the senses because that which is known through the senses is a world characterized by change, decay or death. But since the objects of reason are always and everywhere the same, the divine can be known through reason. This eternal, unchanging realm of the Ideas, the Universals, the objects of Reason, are the divine. Both Plato and Aristotle held reason to be divine. God is the divine or eternal realm of the Ideas in Plato's philosophy, or he is a self-thinking thought of Aristotle's philosophy. But since the concepts of God and man are correlatives, the Greek concept of man reflects the image of this god. Since reason is god, man viewed in the light of this god, is a rational animal. Reason is the divine part of man. This view of man is the underlying assumption in the all of the historical attempts to relate the human to the divine in Christ. This Greek view of man is the cause of the problem of the nature of Christ.
This is not the Bibical view of God or of man. God is not Reason, the universal and necessary. And Ultimate reality is not the universal and the necessary. That is, Reason is not God. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; it is not the universal ideas in God's mind that determine how or why God will create man and the world, but His unlimited sovereign will ( Rev. 4:11). Since reason is a function of the will, God is rational and His reason is a function of His will. Thus the world that God has chosen to create is rational.
Man is also a person (or more accurately, man is a spirit [person] in a body - see Gen. 2:7) whose existence is also to be found, not in his reason, but in his limited free will and decision. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god. Reason is not the divine part in man but is a function of the will of the person. To be is to choose, not to think or to know. Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real. It is upon decision that any knowledge finally depends.
The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, used their freedom of choice to disobey God and choose a false god, wisdom and knowledge; that is, Reason. The basic sin is turning from the true God and to faith in a false god of some kind; it is idolatry. Sin is any choice contrary to ultimate allegiance or faith in the true God (Rom. 14:23). The consequence of Adam's sin was death (Gen. 2:16-17): physical death (the separation of their spirits from their bodies) and spiritual death (the separation of their spirits from God). In other words, they lost their fellowship with God and with each other (Gen. 3:7-8) and their dominion over creation. But even though they have fallen from the image of God, they still are persons and still have the freedom of choice.
The descendants of Adam are born not in the image of God but in the image of Adam, the man of dust, the old man, and as such are subject to death, physical and spiritual. Death has been inherited by all men ( Rom. 5:12). And since they have been born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing personally the true God, and since they must have a god, an ultimate criterion of decision, they choose a false god as their God and thereby sin (Gal. 4:8). The creation, man himself, contains a knowledge about the true God which leaves them without excuse for the sin of idolatry (Rom. 1:19-20). But this knowledge is about the true God and it is not a personal knowledge of the true God which comes from an encounter and fellowship with God.
The purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God is salvation. Since salvation is basically from death to life, Christ on the cross entered into our death, both spiritually and physically, in order that man can be made alive with Christ in His resurrection. By faith we can then say; His death is my death and His resurrection is my resurrection. On the cross, Christ died both spiritually and physically. His body died physically on the cross when He gave up His spirit (Matt. 27:50; John 19:30). Thus physically His spirit was separated from His body. But before He died physically, He died spiritually.
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,This cry was misunderstood by the bystanders as a calling upon Elijah (Matt. 27:47-49; Mark 15:35-36). But it was not a calling on Elijah; it was His spirit as the Son of God calling upon God His Father. He had entered into our spiritual death that was inherited from Adam and His spirit was separated spiritually from God His Father. This spiritual death was not a non-existence of His spirit, but was a separation between His spirit as the Son of God from God His Father. This is only time in all eternity that He as the Son of God was separated from God His Father. It happened because He had entered on the cross into our spiritual death inherited from Adam ( Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). But this raises the problem of how is this possible. As it was expressed by those who mocked Him, saying
'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'-ni?' that is,
'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"
(Matt. 27:46; compare Mark 15:34)
"He saved others; he cannot save himself.Can God die? The obvious answer is "No, God cannot die."
He is the King of Israel;
let him come down now from the cross,
and we will believe in him.
He trusts in God; let God deliever him now, if he desires him;
for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matt. 27:42)
"6For I, the Lord, do not change;If Israel turns from their sins, then they will not be consumed because the Lord God is unchanging in keeping His promises not to destroy them if they will return to Him. Thus the Biblical God is unchanging, not because He is a timeless unchanging super-It, but because the Biblical God, who keeps His promises, is three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are without beginning or end. The Biblical God has time, but His time has no beginning nor end. His time is an absolute time, not like our created time which had a beginning.
therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
7From the days of your fathers
you have turned aside from my statutes,
and have not kept them.
Return to Me, and I will return to you,"
says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:6-7 NAS)
God created the heavens and earth by an act of His will.
As those in heaven sang,
"Worthy art thou, our Lord and God,God is three Persons by whose will all things were created and do exist. Now an act of the will, a choice, involves time:
to receive glory and honor and power,
for thou didst create all things,
and by thy will they exist and were created." (Rev. 4:11)
"Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said,His spirit did not cease to exist, but was released from His body when His body died physically; Jesus "yielded up his spirit" to His Father into whose hands He had commited His spirit. As He died physically, His spirit was separated from His body, but His spirit did not cease to exist. But He did not remain in this spiritual or physical death; God the Father raised the Son of God from the dead, not only physically from the dead, but also spiritually from the dead. And thus God provided for us salvation from death to life.
'Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!'
And having said this he breathed his last."
(Luke 23:46; compare Mark 15:37)
or as the Gospel of John said,
"When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said,
'It is finished';
and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:30)
or as the Gospel of Matthew said,
"And Jesus cried again with a loud voice
and yielded up his spirit." (Matt. 27:50)
And strange as it may seem, this is the situation behind the Romans 7 kind of experience of many Christians. As we observed above, the experience of Romans 7 is the experience of the man under law. And if a Christian is having this kind of experience, it is because he has placed himself under the law which God says he is not under, for he is under grace (Rom. 6:14). He is attempting to serve two masters at the same time: the law and the Holy Spirit. And it cannot be done (Gal. 5:18). It only creates psychological and moral problems: guilt on the inside and sin and failure on the outside. Being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Christian does not need to walk by the law but by the Spirit. The Christian's goal is not moral perfection but the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). The Apostle Paul's question in Galatians 3:3 is particularly relevant and right to the point: "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"
Paul's obvious answer to this rhetorical question is "no". For "as you... have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" (Col. 2:6). Moral perfection is perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law, and is contrary and opposed to the fruit of the Spirit and the righteousness of faith (Gal. 5:19-21). The weakness, if not the error, of most Christian preaching and teaching is that it is an exhortation of the Christian to perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law. Having begun in the Spirit, the Christian is urged to seek moral perfection. The Holy Spirit is brought into this kind of preaching, if at all, as the source of power to enable the Christian to keep the law. This Spirit-empowered law-keeping is not what Paul means when he speaks of "walking according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4; see also Gal. 5:16, 25). To walk by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Gal. 5:18). To walk according to the Spirit is to make all one's decisions with reference to the Holy Spirit as He personally guides, fills and empowers the believer. The walk in the Spirit is the moment by moment walk of faith and personal trust in the God who personally by His Holy Spirit reveals and communicates Himself and His love along each step of that walk. The "normal" Christian life is this walk according to the Spirit and not a legalistic Spirit-empowered law-keeping, but a biblical Spirit-filled law-fulfilling by love (Rom. 13:10).
Christian legalism not only ignores the clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is not under law (Rom. 6:14), but also the equally clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is dead to the law.
"Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the lawNot only is the Christian dead to sin but dead to the law. Through Christ's death he has died to sin and to the law, and now in the resurrected Christ he is alive to God.
through the body of Christ,
so that you may belong to another,
to him who has been raised from the dead
in order that we may bear fruit to God."
(Rom. 7:4; Gal 2:19)
"But now we are discharged from the law,The Christian has passed from under the reign of death and sin unto reigning in life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:17). The law was the rule in the dispensation of death (II Cor. 3:6-7); the letter kills and the law condemns. The Holy Spirit is the rule of life in the new dispensation of life (II Cor. 3:17-18). Since the Spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6), the dispensation of life is the dispensation of the Spirit (II Cor. 3:8), the Era of the Spirit. Since the Christian has passed from death to life, he has passed from the rule of the law to the rule of the Spirit. The law as the rule of Christian life has no place in the Era of the Spirit. And if the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit, legalism as an idolatry and misunderstanding of the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit either.
dead to that which held us captive,
so that we serve not under the old written code
but in the new life of the Spirit." (Rom. 7:6)
But Life is not a "thing," but is a person -- Jesus.
Jesus Christ, God's Son, is the life.
"Jesus said unto to him [Thomas],And to know Him personally is to have eternal life.
'I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father, but by me.'" (John 14:6).
"This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God,Knowledge is a relationship between the knower and that which is known; it is not a nature nor the property of a nature. Since Jesus is the life and the way to God the Father, to know Him personally is to have Him and eternal life.
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3).
"11And this is the testimony,If we have God's Son who is the life, we are alive to God; we have eternal life; and we have been raised from the dead spiritually.
that God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son.
12He who has the Son has life;
he who has not the Son of God has not life."
(I John 5:11-12)
"4But God, who is rich in mercy,And if we have been raised from the dead, we have life and we have passed from death to life. Jesus said:
out of the great love with which He loved us,
5even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ
(by grace you have been saved),
6and raised us up with him,
and made us sit with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,..."
(Eph. 2:4-6)
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my wordDeath is more than just the end of physical life, the dissolution of the body, the cessation of physiological functions of this organism. Physical death is the separation of man's spirit from his body. In this state of physical death, man awaits the judgment (Heb. 9:27). But death is more than the physical separation of man's spirit from his body. It is also the spiritual separation, the alienation of man from God; this is spiritual death. It is the opposite of spiritual life which is fellowship and communion with God, a personal relationship with God. Spiritual life is to know God personally as a living reality ( John 17:3); spiritual death is the absence of this spiritual life. In this state, man thinks and acts as if God doesn't exist, that God is dead. But it is not that God is dead; it is that man himself is dead.
and believes Him who sent me has eternal life;
he does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life." (John 5:24)
Spiritual death is the present reign of death which separates, alienates and isolates man from God. The reign of King Death is not only exercised in the inevitable physical death of man; King Death rules every moment of man's existence before the event of physical death. Just as man does not choose physical death, that is, whether he is going to die inevitably or not, so he does not choose spiritual death. Man is born into this world already spiritually dead. He is automatically under the reign of death. He has no choice about it. According to Romans 5:12, we receive death from our first parents, Adam and Eve.
"Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world,When Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually as well as physically. God said to Adam, when he gave him the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that in the day that they ate of it they would surely die (or literally, "dying, you will die", Gen. 2:17). Since they did not die physically on that day, they must have died spiritually on that day. And this is clearly what happened because they hid themselves from the presence of God (Gen. 3:8). Their fellowship or communion with God was broken and this is spiritual death. Later, after they were driven out of the garden away from the tree of life, lest they eat of it and live forever (Gen. 3:22-24), they eventually died physically (Gen. 5:5). And this death, both spiritual and physical, was passed onto the whole race of Adam's descendants, you and me. Because of Adam's sin, "death reigns over all men through that one man" (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14).
and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men,
because of which all sinned:--" (Rom. 5:12 ERS)
Unless man is delivered from spiritual death, after physical death and the judgment, he will be eternally separated from God. This is eternal death, the second death (Rev. 20:14; 21:6-8; Matt. 7:21-23).
But God has done something about this reign of death over the human race.
In His love for us, God the Father sent His Son to enter into our death so
that He might deliver us from the reign of death. On the cross, Jesus died
not only physically but spiritually.
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46)
He was forsaken for us; He died for us. He tasted death for
every man (Heb. 2:9). But God raised Him from the dead. That is why He
died; Jesus died so that He might be raised from the dead. He entered into
our death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made
alive with Him (
Eph. 2:5).
Christ's death was our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection.
We who have received Him are made alive with Him and in Him;
we have passed from death into life (
John 5:24);
we have been raised from the dead spiritually. Jesus said:
"Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is,God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves;
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live." (John 5:25)
Jesus Christ as our representative has acted on our behalf and for our sakes.
"14For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge,All have died in Christ, who represents all. Adam acting as a representative brought the old creation under the reign of death. But Christ acting as our representative brought a new creation in which those "who have received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life" (Rom. 5:17).
that if one died for [huper, on the behalf of] all,
then all have died.
15And he died for all,
that those who live might live no longer for themselves
but for him who for their sakes died and was raised."
(II Cor. 5:14-15).
"21For since by man came death,And if we have passed from death to life,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive"
(I Cor. 15:21-22)."Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new."
(II Cor. 5:17 ERS).Jesus said, "Because I live ye shall live also." (John 14:19)
"1That which was from the beginning,And if we have fellowship with God, we are reconciled to God; and we are saved. And since salvation is basically from death to life ( John 5:24), then Reconciliation is salvation from death to life. Acting through our representative, God has reconciled us to Himself in and through Christ.
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life --
2the life was made manifest,
and we saw it, and testify to it,
and proclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father and was made manifest to us --
3that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you,
so that you may have fellowship with us;
and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
(I John 1:1-3).
"18But all things are of God,We are reconciled to God when we receive the gift of life in Christ Jesus. For Christ is life (John 14:6) and we are saved when we receive Him.
who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ
and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
19that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,
not reckoning their trespasses against them,
and placing in us the message of reconciliation.
20On behalf of Christ therefore,
we are ambassadors for Christ beseaching through us:
We beg you on the behalf of Christ,
Be reconciled to God."
(II Cor. 5:18-20; ERS see also Rom. 5:10-11; I Cor. 1:9)
And we are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8),
since salvation is the gift of God's grace which is received by faith.
Salvation by the grace of God is first of all from death to life.
And when we receive the gift of life in Christ Jesus,
we are made alive with Christ, and we become new creatures in Christ
and are born again into God's family.
In the act of faith whereby we acknowledge Christ as Lord, identifying ourselves with Him in His death and resurrection, and receiving Him as our life, we are saved or delivered from sin and death. But this is only the beginning. Now we are being conformed to and transformed into the image of God (Rom. 8:29; II Cor. 3:18). The resurrected God-man, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, is the image of God (Col. 1:15; II Cor. 4:4). By the last Adam, the man of heaven, man is being restored to the image of God. In faith we have put on the new man which is being renewed according to the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:23-24). Finally, when Christ returns we will bear the image of the man of heaven -- Christ (I Cor. 15:47-49). For
"when he shall appear, we shall be like him;At the second coming of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:9), our bodies will be resurrected, if we die before He comes (I Thess. 4:14-17), or they will be transformed into one like His resurrected body if we are alive at His coming (I Cor. 15:51-52; Phil. 3:20-21; I John 3:2). Thus will physical death be replace with physical life just as spiritual death is replaced by spiritual life when we first repented and believed (conversion). What was begun at conversion will be brought to completion (Phil. 1:6) at Christ's coming. Spiritual life will become eternal -- eternal fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (in heaven) (Rev. 21:3). We shall reign with Him (II Tim. 2:12; Rev. 20:4) and be with Him (I Thess. 4:17; Rev. 22:4). Thus man will be restored to the image of God. Then the problem of sin (idolatry) and the problem of death (both spiritual and physical) will finally be solved. They will be His people and He shall be their God (Rev. 21:3, 7).
for we shall see him as he is." (I John 3:2).
[1] The text of the following paragraphs is taken from
J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), pp. 527-529.
[2] The text of the following paragraph is taken from
the article on Hell by Robert P. Lightner in
Walter A. Elwell, Editor, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1986), p. 506.
[3] The text of the following paragraph is taken from
the article on Ha'des by Merrill F. Unger in
Merrill F. Unger, Unger's Bible Dictionary
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1957, 1961, 1966), pp. 437-438.
[4] The text of the previous paragraphs is taken from
the article on Puratory by Loraine Boettner in
Walter A. Elwell, Editor, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1986), p. 897.
[5] The text of the previous paragraphs is taken from
the article on Intermediate State by Stephen M. Smith in
Walter A. Elwell, Editor, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1986), pp. 562-563.