What does it mean to be spiritually dead?

[Homer]

Dizerner,

You wrote:

I see prevenient grace as working solely by grace, and that there is not one thing good in us in Adam, such that if there is spiritual sight or a desire for righteousness, it is only traced back as an extension of God's grace in Christ. This would seem a fundamental Pauline concept, that all our righteousness is as filthy rags and the only goodness is what Christ may work in us. I think as a balance to this whole thread we should address the error of self-righteousness and religious works, which error Pelagius tended into, along with other things that minimize the power of every spiritually good thing coming to us only through faith in the work of the cross.

How do you explain the righteousness of Job, Zacharias, and Elizabeth prior to Jesus' death on the cross?

Job 1:1, (NASB)

1. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.

Luke 1:5-6, (NASB)

5. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6. They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.


You mentioned the filthy rags passage in Romans but the "seeks" and "does" are present participles expressing continuous or repetitive action, in v. 11-12.

Romans 3:11-12 (NASB)

11. There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
12. All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”

It seems to me, given the above scriptures, that Paul was making use of hyperbole.

[dizerner]

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[dizerner]

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[jriccitelli]

it's simply the word "die" we can't insist that only means the kind of "die" that an unsaved person would think of by that word today.

Maybe a religious or philosophical person may think of the word as having symbolic meanings or application, but death is quite universally understood as dead.
I have no time this morning, but i will say the that i believe that the answer and meaning may be in the word 'day' (note i also hold to a 100,000yr old earth). And second, the death is a process, and it is a judgment that started literally that day, and like i noted the term day 'i think' may have a fulfillment in the 'Great and Terrible Day' noted later in scripture... God bless your deep thinking, and a 'great and wonderful' day to those who will escape the other day!

[dizerner]

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[Singalphile]

Does anyone know where the idea came from that Adam & Eve "spiritually died" in the 24-hour period (but not the actual moment?) that they ate the fruit? The Jewish commentaries and early Christian commentaries that I can find seem to state that Adam & Eve became subject to death when they ate, the end. And that seems pretty clear to me; in the day they disobeyed God, their access to the source of eternal life was cut-off, thus ensuring that they would return to the dust, just as God warned.

I could see some other possibilities (reinterpreting "day" or "die", or allowing for God's mercy), and I have no objection to the idea of "spiritual death" (whatever it might mean exactly), but I don't see any necessary reason to go beyond what seems clear enough to me from the account. If anything more is explicitly taught, then it seems to me that it's taught very poorly. (Of course any nuances of ancient Hebrew language and culture are lost on me.)

This - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_ ... ristianity - is no help.

[dizerner]

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[jriccitelli]

Look, you want to play games with the word "day" but I can't say the word "die" can mean anything else? How is that fair (Dizerner)

If God said Adam died the day He sinned, then I believe Adam died the day he sinned.
I don’t think you want to add to the definition of die and death either. I am sure Adam and Eve understood what death meant (if death didn’t exist yet, at least they ate plants, thus their definition probably meant something like what the plants experienced, an end of existence, living, or such, much like we understand death to be). I am not playing games with this subject. And in solemn respect for the hope of the human race, it was Satan that redefined what God had said, and in fact this event establishes the defining contrast between truth and lie. We cannot take away from the original meaning or change the meaning, so that what 'God has said' is no longer the definition. The Genesis lesson helps us identify Satan's tactic, and Satan's message.

I have neither changed the definition of day or die: on that day they died. And this definition agrees with all the references in the bible to the passage. The definition of Spiritual death ‘could’ be defined as the surety of death / the process of death / the penalty of death / the surety of eternal death / things that mean ‘death’. But more often the phrase Spiritual death ‘substitutes’ death for things associated with the curse, and the results, for example; Separation / blindness / pain / unhappiness / etc. (ask most Christians what Spiritual death means and you will get a long list, but is this what God actually said?)
So I am warning against the substitution of the phrase Spiritual death with sure death.
I am warning against the redefinition of ‘Death’ by the phrase ‘Spiritual death’.
I believe it is Satanic to leave out or redefine the clear warning of sure death spoken of by God.

You yourself noted the Hebrew; ‘in dying you shall die’ (in dying, die. מוּת: Die, bring death, certainly die, must die, mortally, surely be put to death,etc.). The Hebrew allows the process of dying not as an instant dead, but as dying. They were not allowed to eat from the tree of life ‘that day’ forward, and in ‘that day they were expelled’ from the garden. That day they became mortal. All these definitions of מוּת mean; death and dying, no definition of מוּת means; blindness, separation, unhappiness, etc.

[jriccitelli]

"When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19"Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity" (Ezekiel 3:18, and note chap.33)
The wording here by Ezekiel reflects the Genesis account, I believe.
'Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned’ (Romans 5:12)
'For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! (Romans 5:17)
'For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive' (1Cor. 15:21-22)
'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23)
'But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. 1Tim 5:6
'Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:15
'See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. Deut. 30:15
'For the LORD had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness' 'Numbers 26:65

“for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; or "in dying, die" (z); which denotes the certainty of it, as our version expresses it; and may have regard to more deaths than one; not only a corporeal one, which in some sense immediately took place, man became at once a mortal creature, who otherwise continuing in a state of innocence, and by eating of the tree of life, he was allowed to do, would have lived an immortal life; of the eating of which tree, by sinning he was debarred, his natural life not now to be continued long, at least not for ever; he was immediately arraigned, tried, and condemned to death, was found guilty of it, and became obnoxious to it, and death at once began to work in him; sin sowed the seeds of it in his body, (and here begins the effects of the curse, my note) and a train of miseries, afflictions, and diseases, began to appear, which at length issued in death. (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, Gen.2:17)
(Just to show I am not alone, not that i believe in commentaries. Many commentaries have a hard time with this passage because they are holding onto the presupposition of immortal souls and Eternal punishment, I presume)

[psimmond]

The question I'm wrestling with is this: Is "spiritually dead" just another way of referring to those who have not received salvation as a result of placing their faith in God, OR does it refer to Adam and all of his descendants after God caused a supernatural change that has caused every human to be born with a bias or tendency to sin that needs to be supernaturally neutralized by an act of God.

Romans 6:6-7 For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims.

It seems more scriptural to say the bias toward sin develops naturally over time as people ignore their God-given consciences to gratify their sinful desires.

Regardless of which one it is, since Adam and Eve did have faith in God (and probably repented of their sin regarding the fruit they ate), I don't know that they ever experienced "spiritually deadness." However, having their access to the Tree of Life cut off, they were surely dying.