Physical Death or Spiritual Death?

[Guest]

Steve (and others),
At times I have trouble discerning the actual meaning of the word "death" in scripture. It seems as though the same word is used to mean physical death as the one that describes spiritual death. The context isn't always helpful in determing the meaning either. Can you think of any clues to look for in determing which is meant by "death" in a given passage? I think it would be very beneficial to know the difference. Thanks.

[Guest]

Steve (and others),
At times I have trouble discerning the actual meaning of the word "death" in scripture. It seems as though the same word is used to mean physical death as the one that describes spiritual death. The context isn't always helpful in determing the meaning either. Can you think of any clues to look for in determing which is meant by "death" in a given passage? I think it would be very beneficial to know the difference. Thanks.

This is a very good question. I would like to add to it. When Paul said that "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Cor 15:26), was he referring to physical death (i.e., the resurrection of all), spiritual death, the second death, or perhaps all of the above? From the context one might assume he was talking about the resurrection but I'm not sure it is limited to that. Any thoughts?

Todd

[Guest]

Father-of-five, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one confused regarding this topic. I hope Steve can shed some light on this for us. The question occured to me the other day when I read through the book of Romans again and noticed how many times Paul refers to death and rarely defines what he means by it. To be honest, it's a bit frustrating trying to know what he meant in each case. That's why I was wondering if there were possibly some textual clues that give away the meaning.

[Guest]

Since the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom IMO the more important type of life or death is spritual not physical. Also Paul said eternal things are not seen meaning that spritual things are eternal in nature and physical are temporal i believe. Like when Jesus said "let the dead bury the dead" etc there are many examples where death really means spiritual also when God said to Adam "in this day you will die" is spritual death i believe. It's spiritual death that seperates us from God and that's of more concern.

[Guest]

I've also wondered about the punishment or result of the 'fall'.. is that physical or spiritual death or both? Haven't had time to really investigate yet..