 By James H. Cagle |
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6: 23 KJV).
There is only life and death among the living. We think of life as being alive and living and death as being alive no longer and the end of living. But in light of Scripture nothing could be further from the truth.
Life and death are choices only the living can make. Israel was told to choose between life and death. Life meant choosing union with God as Israel obeyed God’s commandments and He bestowed His blessings on them. Death meant separation from God as Israel lived in disobedience to God’s commandments and He brought His curse upon them (Deut. 30: 15-20). “See I have this day set before you life and good, and death and evil” (Deut. 30: 15). Life is union and fellowship with God, death is living in separation from God.
There are only three kinds of death spoken of in Scripture, and the element common in all three is separation. There is physical death, which is separation of soul and body. There is spiritual death, which is separation of soul from God while one is living (Eph. 2: 1). And there is eternal death, which is separation of soul and body from God for all eternity, and this is the “second death” (2 Thess. 1: 9; Rev. 20: 11-15).
There are also only three kinds of life spoken of in Scripture, and the element common in all three is union. There is physical life, which is the union of body and soul. There is spiritual life, which is the union of the soul with God while one is living (Eph. 2: 5). And, there is eternal life, which is union with the soul and body with God for all eternity (Jn. 10: 27-30). Eternal life is the spiritual life of union with God that we get now as the gift of the renewing of our souls, and which finds its completion in the redemption of our bodies when we are given a glorified body like Jesus’ (Phil. 3: 21).
When Adam sinned he died as God said he would. He did not immediately die physically, but he died spiritually because he immediately lost union with God and became separated from Him because of his sin. God shed the blood of an animal to redeem Adam and Eve so that they would not experience eternal death or eternal separation from God, though they did eventually die physically.
Jesus said of the Pharisees, “Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life” (Jn. 5: 40). The Pharisees were not dead physically. They had intellectual, emotional, and physical life. But they were dead spiritually because they were separated from God in spite of all their religion. And the only way they could escape eternal death, or the second death, was by receiving eternal life and union with God through faith in Christ.
Because of our nature and conduct, we all have earned physical, spiritual and eternal death. But eternal life, or union with God for eternity, is a free gift to all who come to Jesus in faith because He paid our sin-debt when He died for our sins at Calvary.
