Dead again?

[Guest]

Ok here is a little poll that may help spur the conversation.

[Guest]

There is a more important question. If the choice is "spiritual death," then what does that mean, in terms of subjective condition and limitations—and from whence does one garner support for one's answer?

[Guest]

i chose "spiritual" but i dont think too hard about it.

my understanding is that when adam sinned, his spirit died.

we, as fellow sinners, have dead spirits that must be regenerated.

however, I do not conclude that our dead spiritual condition makes us unable to respond to God's calling; i.e. i dont believe that the belief that we are spiritually dead means that we are totally incapable of responding to God. i know. i know. some would say that dead folks dont do anything. true, but we are only spiritually dead, not dead in toto.

TK

[Guest]

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ... and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. [Eph 2:1-3]

If I believed in eternal suffering in the Lake of Fire, or in Annihilation, then I would think that "doomed" is the consequent (but not the meaning) of being dead in trespasses and sins. Since I believe in the reconciliation of all to God, I think the consequent is corrrection in the Lake of Fire.

I think the word "spiritual" placed before "death", or to many other words or terms to which we affix the word "spiritual", has the effect of nullifying, or at least mitigating the meaning of the main word or term.

Though "death" in this passage does not refer to physical death, it nontheless refers to real death, rather than some "spiritual" dishwater. If one is dead in trespasses and sins, he has no real life in this world.

[Guest]

I think that spiritual death is derived from the passage itself and looking at the life that comes in verse 5. That life is indeed real and spiritual, not figurative life or only of a sentance of life but a possesion of life.

When we are born again there is a new life where there once was death, sight where ther was blindness, deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit and now followers who hear His voice.
All things are made new! We touch, taste, smell, hear, and see in ways that we never experienced or were never capable of. We are no longer alienated from the life of God-Eph.4:18 but we have acces to the Father who is the real life.

I would also add that Adam really died and brought death, and Christ rose from the dead and brought real life.

[Guest]

I believe that the term "dead in sins" is speaking of a future state but it also speaking of our relationship with God.

Col 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,

Looks to me that people were dead to God because they lived a life of sin, but God has forgiven us which makes us alive. This can and does fall under the catagory of "this is my flesh" does it truly become Jesus flesh. Why take one literal and another symbolic?

Eph 2:1 And He has made you alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins,
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us
Eph 2:5 (even when we were dead in sins) has made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved),
Eph 2:6 and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,

because we all have sinned, we deserve death and have earned death, but by Grace of God, which only he can do, he has cancelled the death penalty. He and He alone chooses who will ultimately have life. Nothing here again about the spirit being dead.

I see in scripture were it is God who initiates reconceliation of the relationship, and it is only God who can rightfully initiate our relationship. It is we who sinned, not God. It is we who severed the relationship, not God. So it is only God who can ultimately accept us or reject or apology and give us forgiveness. Only when He forgives has the circle of reconciliation been completed. For example if I sin against a friend, he is the only one who can finish the reconciliation of the friendship after my repentance because it is he who was sinned against. Wether or not the relationship continues is completely under his control and authority in which he may choose not to continue or he may choose to accept and continue. The circle of reconcilliation has been completed at this point. Or he may actually make a sacrafice, showing his great love for me, by starting the reconcilliation process.

[Guest]

Perhaps Paul's metaphorical usage of the word "dead" is to be understood relationally. For example, when we read Paul saying:

• And you were dead in your trespasses and sins...

we realize that being dead here is qualified. It's not that we were dead, but dead "in trespasses and sins." It was in this sense that we were dead, and consequently were relationally separated from God, or, to put it another away, we were dead to God. Though Paul doesn't specifically say "dead to God" here, I think this is the idea he has in mind. That he continues to describe what what he means when he says "you were dead in your trespasses and sins" in verses 2-3 supports this.

It is certainly true that when one is

• 1) dead in their trespasses and sins,
  2)walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
  3) is a child of disobedience.
  4) lives in the lusts of our flesh,
  5) indulges in the desires of the flesh and of the mind and
  6) are by nature children of wrath

they are relationally separated from God, and have no relationship with Him. We know this much is true from what we can gather from 1 John 1.5

• This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

In conclusion, I believe this is another way to understand what it means to be "dead." When one is dead (even while they live), they do not know God, and are both dead to God & relationally separated from Him. Evidence for this can be seen by observing the quality [or kind] of life one lives This may well be what Paul has in mind behind the word "dead."