DEATH, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, THE RESURRECTION AND THE FINAL DESTINY — page 3

DEATH

Man is a triune being – that is, he is composed of three parts. The Bible says: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). His spirit is the intelligent part of his being that is conscious of God (Job 32:8; Isa. 29:24). His soul is the seat of his emotions, appetites and desires (Gen. 27:4; Song 1:7). And his body is, evidently, the physical part of his being. Physical death occurs in a human being when the soul and spirit are separated from the body. James says: “The body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). Scripture defines it as “... absent from the body” (2 Cor. 5:8). See also Genesis 35:18; 49:33; Job 14:10; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59.

“Death” is used in Scripture in at least seven different ways. In all of them, it carries the thought of separation, not of extinction, as men think:

• Physical death is having the soul and spirit separated from the body (James 2:26).

• Spiritual death is being spiritually separated from God by not having a new life (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13).

• The second death is being eternally separated from God in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:6, 14).

• Apostate death is being separated from God by abandoning the profession of faith (Jude 12; Rev. 8:9).

• National death is no longer being recognized as a nation on the earth (Isa. 26:19; Ez 37; Dan. 12:2).

• Judicial death is being positionally separated from the whole order of sin headed by Adam through the death of Christ (Rom. 6:2; 7:6; Col. 3:3).

• Moral death is being separated from the communion of God (Rom. 8:13; 1 Tim. 5:6).

It is troubling to think that sin is the cause of all these aspects of death! Truly, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

The Bible tells us that there are only two states in which a person dies (physically). Scripture speaks to us of those who “die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13) or speaks of “you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). To die in your sins is to leave this world without having your sins set aside before God, judicially, by the work of Christ on the cross. The person who dies in that terrible condition will be responsible for paying the price of their sins under the just judgment of God for all eternity. To die in the Lord is to die safe and protected from all judgment under the shelter of the blood of Christ, the Son of God (John 5:24; 1 John 1:7).

The death of a believer “is precious in the sight of the LORD” (Ps. 116:15), while the death of an unbeliever is something in which God has no pleasure, for He said: “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11). God does not want “any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9)