Spir Dynamics 1036 3/23/97; Eph 1173-4; Rev 675
DOCTRINE OF DEATH
Eight Categories of Death in the Bible
A. Spiritual Death of the Human Race
. 1. Spiritual death was the penalty of sin, and was so given as the warning to mankind in the garden. Gen 2:17, “dying you will die.” “Dying” refers to spiritual death at birth or the fall of man; “you shall die” refers to physical death. The origin of spiritual death was the original sin of man in the garden.
2. The penalty was imposed at the fall of man and is perpetuated in the human race through the imputation of Adam’s original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature after birth, simultaneously with the imputation of human life. The old sin nature is transmitted through the twenty-three male chromosomes which fertilize the female ovum. We are not condemned by our personal sins.
3. Spiritual death occurs at the moment of physical birth. The entire human race is born physically alive and spiritually dead because of the two imputations which occur at birth.
a. When biological life emerges from the womb, God creates soul life and imputes it to biological life. This is when we become a human being. Life does not begin at copulation, but when God imputes the spark of life after birth.
b. Simultaneously, the sin nature emerges from the womb and there is the imputation of Adam’s original sin to the old sin nature. This causes spiritual death.
c. From birth the status of the human race is spiritual death. Eph 2:1, “And you, being dead in your transgressions and sins,” (not “because of your transgressions and sins”) .Personal sins are only a sign that you are spiritually dead.
4. Rom 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death [spiritual death] through that sin, so [spiritual] death spread to all men because all sinned [when Adam sinned].”
a. This means we are born physically alive and spiritually dead, so that if we die before reaching accountability, we automatically go to heaven. Adam made a decision for the entire human race. Our sins are not imputed to us, but to Jesus Christ on the cross.
b. Spiritual death is perpetuated in the human race at birth.
c. This means that mankind is not condemned by personal sins.
(1) The condemnation of mankind is not based on personal sin, but on imputed sin. Mankind is not condemned by the imputation of his personal sins, but by the imputation of Adam’s original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature. Condemnation is based on our personal sins; they are the result of spiritual death. Condemnation is based on imputed sin.
(2) Personal sin is the result of imputed sin at birth. Hence, personal sin is the result of spiritual death.
(3) Personal sin is not the means of spiritual death, but the result of spiritual death, i.e., the result of having an old sin nature.
5. There are two categories of spiritual death.
a. Real spiritual death. This was the actual spiritual death of Adam, who made the decision for the entire human race. We are all really spiritually dead at the moment of physical birth.
b. Substitutionary spiritual death. This occurred on the cross, when our Lord bore our sins in His own body and were judged. Our personal sins were never imputed to us for condemnation, but to Jesus Christ as our substitute, 1 Pet 2:24, 3:18; 2 Cor 5:21; Isa 53:6; Rom 5:8.
6. The solution to spiritual death is stated in Rom 6:23. “The wages of sin is death [spiritual death], but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We obtain spiritual death at the moment of physical birth. Spiritual death is resolved at the moment of spiritual birth or regeneration. Being born-again solves the problem of spiritual death.
7. Jesus made a paronomasia out of spiritual and physical death in Mt 8:22, “Follow Me; let the [spiritually] dead bury their own [physically] dead.”
8. Spiritual death is the subject of 1 Cor 15:22, “For as in Adam all die [spiritual death], so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
a. No member of the human race, born of woman, is condemned on the basis of personal sins. Personal sins are the result of being spiritually dead.
b. Only Adam and the woman were condemned on the basis of original sin.
9. Summary.
a. Spiritual death means the status of dichotomy. We have a soul and no human spirit. Therefore, we cannot understand the gospel or anything about God.
b. Spiritual death means the status of total depravity. Total depravity means we are in either moral or immoral degeneracy in the status of sin.
c. The status of total separation from God cannot be ignored. The status of total helplessness to do anything about it brings in the issue of the grace of God.
d. The Holy Spirit can make faith alone effective for salvation. Anything added to faith in spiritual death means no salvation. Faith plus anything else is salvation by works, which eliminates the work of the Holy Spirit in efficacious grace.
B. Positional Death of the Believer.
1. While spiritual death occurs at physical birth, positional death occurs at the second birth, the new birth or regeneration.
2. Positional death occurs through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation. The believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. Rom 6:1-14
3. Positional death, also called retroactive positional truth, is the believer’s identification with Christ in His death. For just as Christ rejected human good and evil on the cross, so positionally we have done the same. Therefore, we must avoid them by residence and function in the divine dynasphere.
4. Positional rejection of human good and evil as the policy of Satan is part of the believer’s residence inside the divine dynasphere at salvation, Col 2:11-12. Positional rejection is the basis for experiential rejection.
5. Positional death is the subject of Rom 6:1-5. “Therefore, what are we to continue? Are we to continue under the sin nature that grace might increase? Emphatically not! We who have died to the sin nature, how shall we still live in it? Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His [spiritual] death? Therefore, we have been buried together with Him through baptism into His death, that as Christ has been raised up from the dead to the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. So if we have become intimately united in the likeness of His death, not only this but also we shall be intimately united in the likeness of His resurrection.”
6. Retroactive positional truth or positional death is identification with Christ in His death. Positionally we have died to sin, human good, and evil. Now we must do so experientially.
a. Two things happened in the spiritual death of Christ on the cross: He was judged for the sins of the world; and He rejected human good and evil.
b. Therefore, human good and evil are still a part of the angelic conflict as far as their judgment is concerned.
c. By rejection of human good and evil on the cross, Jesus Christ rejected Satan’s policy for the rulership of this world.
7. Positional death is related to God’s gift of the divine dynasphere. Inside the divine dynasphere we are filled with the Holy Spirit and cannot sin. Therefore, to make a decision to sin, the believer has to leave the divine dynasphere. We can only sin outside of the divine dynasphere. All personal sin places us inside the cosmic system. Inside the cosmic system of Satan we produce human good and evil.
8. Positionally the believer is dead to human good and evil. Experientially the believer does commit sin, human good, and evil. But rebound only deals with sin, not human good and evil.
C. The Carnal Death of the Believer: Cosmic Death or Carnality
1. The carnal death of the believer deals with three categories of failure:
a. Post-salvation sinning.
b. Post-salvation human good.
c. Post-salvation evil.
2. The carnal death of the believer is the subject of the phrase in Eph 5:14, “Therefore, it says, `Wake up, you sleeper. Stand up out from the acts of sin.”
3. The carnal death of the believer may also be classified in three ways:
a. The temporal death of the believer, which describes the believer out of fellowship with God. This might be described as the status of committing an occasional sin with some elapse of time in between sins.
b. The cosmic death of the believer. This is the believer involved in either cosmic one or cosmic two or both.
c. The fragmented death of the believer, which is the believer involved in either moral or immoral degeneracy.
3. 1 Cor 3:1 describes carnality. “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual persons, but as to carnal persons, even as to babies in Christ.”
4. Carnal, temporal, cosmic, or fragmented death refers to the function of the believer’s volition in converting temptation from the sin nature into sinfulness.
a. Whether the believer knows he is being tempted or not is never the issue. The issue is that you wanted to do that sin and you did it; therefore, ignorance is no excuse.
b. The believer cannot sin inside the divine dynasphere. Therefore, the decision to sin is made outside the divine dynasphere.
c. The decision to sin automatically places the believer inside the cosmic system. Living inside the cosmic system classifies that believer as living in temporal or cosmic death.
d. For the believer, cosmic involvement through sin is always cosmic death. When in the cosmic system, you are in cosmic death.
e. James 1:15, “When lust has become pregnant, it gives birth to sin. Furthermore, when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” Lust is temptation trying to penetrate the soul.
5. Volition is the guardian of your soul.
a. Temptation is not a sin, but the act of volition which follows. When you say “yes” to the temptation, the old sin nature controls your soul.
b. The sin nature dwells in the cell structure of the body and the Holy Spirit indwells the body. The question is: Who is going to control the soul?
c. The believer’s decision to sin automatically gives control of the soul to the sin nature. And the believer’s decision not to sin gives control of the soul to the Holy Spirit.
6. Scripture.
a. Jam 1:15, “Then when lust has become pregnant it gives birth to sin. Furthermore, when the sin is born [completed], it brings forth death.”
b. 1 Tim 5:6, “But that widow who constantly indulges in wanton pleasure has died while she is living.”
c. Rev 3:1, “I know your production, that you have a reputation that you are living, but you are dead.”
d. Rom 8:6, “For the mindset of the flesh [old sin nature] is death [cosmic death], but the mindset of the Spirit is life and prosperity.”
e. Rom 8:13, “For if you are living according to the flesh [old sin nature], you must die [cosmic death], but if you through the Holy Spirit are putting to death the production of the flesh, you live.” When you say “no” to temptation you are in the divine dynasphere, which is life.
f. 1 Jn 3:14, “We know that we have changed our residence from the realm of death [cosmic system] to [the Christian way of] life.”
7. The believer who is positive to Bible doctrine understands how to recover from carnal death and keep moving, and does so. The negative believer continues under the control of the sin nature and is in the status of death while he lives. The negative believer eventually becomes a loser of his escrow blessings.
8. The believer who spends his life in carnal death usually dies physically from maximum divine discipline, the sin unto death.
1 Jn 5:16; Ps 118:17-18; Acts 5:1-10; Rev 3:16.
D. Production Mortality of the Believer: Dead Works.
1. This can be classified as operational death or “dead works,” according to Heb 6:1. “Therefore, graduating from the elementary teachings about Christ, let us advance to maturity, not laying again the foundation of a change of mind about dead works and faith toward God.”
2. Dead works include all facets of Christian service performed outside the divine dynasphere.
a. Dead works is analogous to human good. Dead works are all the function of human good apart from the filling of the Holy Spirit.
b. Works produced in the cosmic system are dead. Morality is virtue only when produced inside the divine dynasphere. In the cosmic system, works are legalism, self-righteousness, and arrogance and parlayed into evil.
c. This category combines the arrogance of Christian service with the function of human good. There is no momentum from Christian service; Christian service is always a result.
d. Dead works can include the function of crusader arrogance combined with the modus operandi of cosmic panaceas. Dead works include all Christian activism.
e. Dead works refers to the production, Christian service, or good works of the believer performed when he is inside the cosmic system.
f. Anything related to the cosmic system is outside the plan of God, including production performed inside the cosmic system, 1 Cor 13:1-3.
g. The believer in moral degeneracy can perform hundreds and hundreds of acts of Christian service, all of which are dead works.
3. All works, production, and Christian service of the believer in the cosmic system is dead, and will be burned at the Judgment Seat of Christ, 1 Cor 3:12-15. All Christian production will be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ, Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10.
E. Sexual Death.
1. Sexual death in the male refers to inability to copulate and procreate. Sexual death in the female refers to inability to procreate.
2. This category of death is only used in relation to Abraham and Sarah, as found in Rom 4:17-21 and Heb 11:11-12.
F. Physical Death of the Human Race.
1. Physical death is defined as separation of the soul from the body so that the person no longer lives on planet earth. The soul never dies, it lives forever.
2. After death, the soul of the believer resides in an interim body until the Rapture, at which time it leaves the third heaven, goes to the second heaven and receives a resurrection body.
a. The soul of the unbeliever leaves the body and goes to Hades. There it remains in torments until the end of time. Then it is resurrected, brought before the Great White Throne, judged, and cast into the lake of fire, providing eternal agony.
b. Death is always God’s victory. God gives this victory to all believers through our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Physical death cannot separate the believer from God, Rom 8:38-39. Nothing can separate us from divine love.
4. Physical death is a matter of the sovereign decision of God, based on His perfect knowledge of all the facts, Ps 68:19-20. No matter how you feel, when the Lord decides to take you, that’s it. It is blasphemous to question His decision.
5. God can and does prolong physical life, Ps 102:19-20, 23-24; 118:18; Prov 14:27.
6. God also delivers the believer from death, Job 5:20; Ps 33:19, 56:13; 116:8.
7. The believer who attains spiritual maturity departs under dying grace, Ps 23:4. Ps 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” This is not necessarily freedom from pain, but pain is negated as a factor.
8. Resurrection is victory over death. Whatever the failures or glories related to your death, we all revert to the principle of divine impersonal love in resurrection. Resurrection supersedes whatever you were in dying. Therefore, it is victory for all believers, 1 Cor 15:54-57. There is no victory for the grave because all believers will have a resurrection body. The victory of physical death is for believers only.
9. Death is defined in terms of the believer as follows.
a. Death means no appointment with judgment, Heb 9:27. The first appointment is physical death; the second, for the lake of fire, is cancelled.
b. Death means being face to face with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:8; this implies an interim body.
c. Death means the end of pain, Rev 21:4. There is no mourning, crying, or pain in the interim body. Believers who die the sin unto death don’t lose out until the Rapture. They have a ball in the interim body.
d. Death means an eternal inheritance, 1 Pet 1:4-5.
e. Death means a new home, Jn 14:1-6.
f. Death means realization of eternal life, Jn 11:25, 10:28, 20:31; 1 Jn 5:11-12.
g. Death means waiting for the resurrection in an interim body, Jn 11:25; 1 Thes 4:13-18; Job 19:25-26; Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 5:51-57.
10. For the believer whose momentum carries him to spiritual maturity, death is going to be profitable forever. Phil 1:20-21, “For me living Christ, dying profit.”
11. For the believer who spends his life in the cosmic system, death is horrible. However, better an end with horror than horror without end. The believer living in the cosmic system dies under maximum discipline of the sin unto death, 1 Jn 5:16; Rev 3:16.
12. The only preparation for the believer’s death is the spiritual life.
a. God’s timing, manner, and place of death is related to the whether we execute this spiritual life or not.
b. God’s decision as to the time, manner and place of our death is always based on the integrity and love of God.
c. Every believer’s death is always God’s victory, 1 Cor 15:55- 57. The word “victory” refers to the death of the winner believer. The word “sting” refers to the sin unto death.
d. Living is Christ and dying is profit for the winner believer, Phil 1:21. In life we are guarded by the power of God, 1 Pet 1:5. This is our wall of fire protection.
e. In all matters of life and death, God’s timing is perfect, because God is perfect. For the winner believer, dying is the most wonderful part of life. Dying for the loser believer is most awesome and horrible time in life.
f. In dying, God’s decision glorifies God and at the same time brings the greatest blessing in life to the dying person. For the believer who has harmonious rapport with God through his spiritual life dying is far better than any blessing in living.
13. See the doctrine of Life and Death.
G. The Second Death, Rev 2:11.
1. The second death is for unbelievers only. It is the final judgment of those who reject Christ as Savior. It is eternal separation from God and final judgment in the lake of fire. It is part of the second resurrection.
2. It occurs at the end of the Gog revolution at the end of the Millennium. It is the final judgment of all unbelievers, Heb 9:27; Rev 20:12-15.
3. Each unbeliever is judged according to his good deeds which add up to unrighteousness. The unbeliever is cast into the lake of fire because of rejection of Christ. He is not judged for personal sins since these were already judged on the cross.
H. The Sin unto Death.
1. This refers to the manner of death for the believer who rejects rebound and stays in the cosmic system. It is dying a horrible death with maximum pain, suffering and agony.
2. Believers in the divine dynasphere receive dying grace.
3. There are four ways to transfer into eternity.
a. Dying grace.
b. The sin unto death.
c. The Rapture.
d. Transfer from time to eternity by surpassing grace blessing for Old Testament believers, for example, Enoch, Heb 11:5.
4. No believer suffers after the sin unto death because he is in an interim body, Rev 21:4.
5. David’s discipline is an example of Old Testament sin unto death, Ps 32, 38.
6. Military disaster is a part of the sin unto death, 1 Jn 5:16; Jer 9:13-16, 44:12.
7. Depression, famine, and criminal violence is a part of the sin unto death. Phil 3:18-19, “whose termination of life is ruin.”
8. Rev 3:15-16 describes the sin unto death as a lukewarm believer, whom the Lord is about to vomit out of His mouth.
9. The sin unto death is God’s last punishment for the believer who lives out his life in the cosmic system.
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