Spiritual Death

Romans 6:13 -- PRESENT YOURSELVES TO GOD AS THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BROUGHT FROM DEATH TO LIFE

In our last lecture we looked at physical death, and at the fact that the universality of death indicates the universality of sin. We saw that death in all its forms is penal; it is the penalty following our condemnation as sinners. But physical death is symptomatic of something else; it is a reminder to us of our spiritual deadness and of our need to have the saving life of God in our souls.

That is the point of Romans 6, as Paul continues to draw out the implications of his doctrine of justification. Our status before God as justified sinners is solely the result of God's grace, abounding beyond the measure of our sin. It is free, and it is full; it is the definitive statement about us -- in Christ we are justified.

But this begs the question about our actions in the present; do we have licence to sin in order that God will demonstrate the riches of his grace to us? Not at all. Those who are justified are being sanctified; they have an aversion to sin and are freed from its tyranny. Indeed, Paul's language is that being justified implies a death with Christ to sin (6:6-11). Union with Christ means nothing if it does not mean a change relationship to sin. Instead of living as those whose bodies are presented to sin 'as instruments for unrighteousness', we are to present ourselves to God, 'as those who have been brought from death to life' (6:13). To be dead to sin means being alive to God. The change of our relationship is marked by a change of lifestyle, of motive and of principle; we, who were spiritually dead, are now spiritually alive.

The personal transformation which union with Christ effects is often described in this way in Scripture, as a transition from a state of death to one of life. Consider the following Scriptures:

1 John 3:14 -- We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

According to John, the order of our experience is that we pass from death and into life, and the consequence is that we love our brothers in Jesus Christ. That means that we can reason back from that love to the reality of the transformation that has taken place; love for the brothers only truly accompanies the resurrection miracle of which John speaks.

Luke 15:32 -- it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost, and is found.

The parable of the Prodigal Son epitomises the mission of love and salvation which Jesus accomplishes. He welcomes to his embrace those who have wandered far away from God. While others grumble and complain about the lavishness of the welcome and the full, free and unconditional acceptance of the returning prodigal, God welcomes him in. For the father in the parable, nothing short of a miracle of resurrection has taken place. The one who was dead is now alive.

It would probably be going too far to say that Christ is here teaching the doctrine of spiritual death, but the sentiments are consistent with the idea that returning to God means that we are transformed from a state of spiritual death to a state of spiritual life.

That doctrine is clearly enunciated in the Pauline epistles.

Colossians 2:13 -- and you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

In this context, Paul is declaring the completeness of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the fulness of godhead dwells. This is by way of polemic against those who would wish to supplement the work of Jesus with 'philosophy and empty deceit'. You have been filled in him. There is an emphasis here on the completeness of the atonement; we are not scrambling to secure a place in Heaven through our own efforts; the place has been assured us. It is here already. Although we once lived 'in the uncircumcision of our flesh', the 'body of our flesh' has now been definitively excised and 'cut off' by a circumcision not made with human hands. There is a break with sin which Paul can only describe in terms of our being made spiritually alive.

The parallel passage in Ephesians 2 clarifies this further.

Ephesians 2:1-3 -- And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Every time I read Ephesians 2, I think of Lazarus. We are told about Lazarus in John 11-12 that he died, and was raised to life, and then sat down for supper with Jesus. The language Paul uses here is highly reminiscent of that: Paul says that we were dead, and have been brought to life, and are now seated with Jesus, not reclining in a Bethany lounge, but seated in the heavenly places. What took place physically with Lazarus is analogous to what takes place spiritually with us.

But Paul goes further in Ephesians, and explicates the meaning of this spiritual death from which we have been raised. It seems to me that Paul identifies four distinct characteristics of spiritual death.

First, spiritual death is characterised by a lifestyle which conforms to the present age of this world. It means that our lives flow with the stream; we simply allow the world around us to dictate the way we live. We raise no objections and brook no alternative.

It seems to me that there are several implications to Paul's doctrine here which we must emphasise. The first is that it is impossible to understand the world and its lifestyles apart from the biblical doctrine of sin. The world is not inherently wicked, but is actually fallen. The lifestyles men adopt say much about the spiritual condition of contemporary man. That is why so much of what the New Testament has to say about the 'world' is negative: 'do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind' (Romans 12:2); 'do not love the world or the things in the world' (1 John 2:15). The apostles are not calling for cultural disengagement or for a hermit-like withdrawal; they are simply reminding us that the world is to the Christian what the sea is to a human: it is an alien element which is to be guarded against, a place of danger which can overcome us if we do not overcome it.

Paul is applying that idea here. When you were spiritually dead, he says, you went with the flow. Everything in the world is modified and compromised by sin and rebellion against God.

The second implicate in his statement is that spiritual death is manifested in lifestyle. In other words, it is not a neutral thing. To be spiritually dead does not mean that a person is in some spiritual limbo, some middle ground; it means adopting a way of life which is going further and further away from God. It is manifest, just as surely as the work of grace is manifest, so to is the power of sin in the life of fallen man.

Second, spiritual death is characterised by a subservience to the ruler of the power of the air. We are enslaved by the devil, and are captive to him.

One commentator makes the interesting observation that

Ephesians ... contains more about the principalities and powers than any other New Testament letter and provides the most detailed response to these spiritual authorities. Further, it draws special attention to the ultimate authority of evil lying behind them, namely the devil (4:27; 6:11) or evil one (6:16) who is here called the 'ruler, or prince', a term used in the OT for a national, local or tribal leader, and refers to him as the chief or leader among these powers of darkness. (P.T. O'Brien, Pillar NT Commentary, p159).

Paul has introduced the topic of spiritual forces in 1:21, stateing that Jesus has been seated at God's right hand in the heavenly places, 'far above all rule and authority and power and dominion'. And I think it's interesting that in chapter 2, although formerly we lived according to the power of the ruler of the air, now, Paul says in 2:6, we have been given a place in these heavenlies, far above the rule and dominion of Satan. Further, the gospel is the only power which is able to shatter this dominion (3:10).

The power of the devil and the captivity into which he has brought men and women is further elucidated by the description of him as 'the spirit that is now at work in the children of disobedience' (2:2). Habitual disobedience to God, therefore, is the hallmark of subjectivity to Satan and spiritual deadness; I say 'habitual' because even those who are spiritually alive sometimes disobey God. We cannot, however, dilute the force of our Lord's own words, that 'everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin' (John 8:34).

Third, spiritual death is characterised by a fulfilling of our own sinful desires. While we were spiritually dead, Paul says, 'we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind' (2:3).

So spiritual death for us did not mean that we were incapable of making choices; but it did mean that the choices we made had only motivating and driving force: our own passions and desires. Paul uses the word in the same way again in 4:22 where he urges us to put off the old self, 'which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires'.

What is the meaning of the word 'flesh'? In his recent exegetical commentary on Ephesians, Harold Hoehner reminds us that of the 147 usages of the word in the New Testament, 91 of these are in Paul. And although Paul uses the term in a variety of ways, his primary usage is, in Hoehner's words, to denote 'the moral dynamics of fallen humanity' (Hoehner, p320). Although it can refer to the material substance of the body, it often has 'a moral dimension, which speaks of the natural inclination of the whole person to oppose God's will and ways' (Hoehner, p320).

So spiritual deadness can be defined as a 'doing the wishes of the flesh and the reasoning processes'; the flesh is not only possessed of certain desires, but the person acts on these desires. Further, it is not merely some kind of spontaneous action; Paul says that we use our faculty of reason, our mind, in the process. The action which leaves us guilty before God is premeditated.

Fourth, spiritual death is characterised by our being 'children of wrath, like the rest of mankind' (2:3). Clearly the wrath of God is in view here, to which sinful man is exposed. We could understand this in terms of man's destiny; he is destined for wrath. That would not lessen the solemnity of Paul's language; but nor would it do it justice. Paul's statement surely means that now, in a state of spiritual death, man is exposed to God's anger.

Boston on Man In a State of Nature

That point is brought out very clearly by Thomas Boston in the Fourfold State. He discuss man's 'entire depravity' in the second section of the work, Man in a State of Nature. Here, Boston is not using the word 'nature' to refer to 'human nature', but using it as the theologians often did in contrast with the word 'spiritual'. So in a state of nature, man is spiritually dead.

Boston deals with this theme under three headings. The first is the sinfulness of man's natural state, and takes as his text the words of Genesis 6:5, 'the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'. In this text, according to Boston, two things are laid to the charge of Noah's generation: the first is corruption of life -- the outward sins which characterised their lifestyle -- and the second is corruption of heart:

The soul whichwas made upright in all its faculties is now wholly disordered; the heart that was made according to God's own heart is now the reverse of it, a forge of evil imaginations ... Behold the heart of the natural man, as it is opened in our text: the mind is defiled; the thoughts of the heart are evil; the will and affections are defiled; the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart (ie whatsoever the heart frameth within itself by thinking, such as judgement, choice, purposes, devices, desires, every inward motion) ... is evil ... Now, such is man's heart, such is his nature, till regenerating grace change it (24-25).

Boston develops this by arguing, first, that such corruption can be proved from Scripture (one verse which Boston cites is John 3:6 -- 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit'). He also argues that it can be proved from experience (among his evidences he cites the early appearance of this in our children). It is evident that we all do what Adam did; our affinity to our fallen parent may be discerned by how easily we follow his example; we do what he did when he ate the forbidden fruit:

1. we allow sinful curiosity to lead us into sin

2. we naturally incline to sinful devices

3. we are ready to listen to the voice of error

4. the eyes of our head blind the eyes of our mind

5. we care for the body at the expense of the soul

6. we are discontented

7. we are influenced more by bad advice than by good

8. we try to cover our nakedness

9. we flee from God

10. we are loathe to confess our sins

11. we are ready to blame others.

Boston's second point here is that such corruption is total. It affects our understanding (Romans 3:10-11 -- 'none is righteous, no, not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God'). No one needs to be taught how to sin; we follow the desires of a darkened and carnal mind.

It also affects our will, which Boston describes as having turned traitor against God. The will ought to act, he says, as God's servant in our soul, but it is not turned against him, and man chooses sin for his natural element, refusing to close in with Jesus Christ. Of the will Boston says, 'call it no more Naomi, but Marah; for bitter it is, and a root of bitterness' (75).

This corruption also influences our affections, the desires of our heart. Boston describes man in sin as 'a spiritual monster: his heart is where his feet should be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart should be set on' (76). There are lawful enjoyments in the world, but under the dominion of sin we make too much of them.

Fourth, this corruption affects man's conscience, acting as a false light. It will check serious sins, but will not detect the subtle workings of sin. In fallen man, spiritually dead, the workings of conscience are not enough to 'set the eyes a weeping or the tongue a confessing'.

Fifth, our sinful condition affects man's memory. Instead of retaining good things, our sinful memory is often like a sieve, which lets good things disappear, and holds on to things that we would be better off letting go. We can remember injuries done to us years ago, but forget sermons which we heard a few days ago.

Sixth, this entire sinfulness affects man's body. For Boston, the body partakes of this corruption. The body becomes a snare to the soul; hence Paul describes it as a 'vile body' (Phil 3:21) which needs to be melted down in the grave and remodelled into something better. The members of the body serve the sin of our soul, an agent for the devil. Man is wholly corrupted.

Before leaving this section, Boston has a long discussion on the 'application of the doctrine of the corruption of our nature'. He says that the doctrine is useful for information, explaining why 'the grave opens its mouth for us as soon as the womb casts us forth', explaining all the wickedness in the world, explaining why sin is so attractive to fallen man, and explaining why regeneration is so vital. But it is also useful for lamentation; we need to mourn not simply over particular sins we have committed, but over the corruption of our nature by sin. We so often overlook the consequence of the Fall, but our original sin must be especially noticed. For this, Boston urges us to know the spirituality and extent of the law of God; he urges us to observe our heart at all times, but especially under temptation; he urges to go to God, through Christ, for illumination by the Spirit.

As Boston deals with the subject of our fallen condition, he deals, secondly, with the misery of our natural state. As surely as original righteousness made Adam and Eve happy creatures, original sin and spiritual death make their descendants miserable. Boston's point of departure here is Ephesians 2:3 -- we are children of wrath, just like all the rest.

There is wrath in God's heart against man (you hate all workers of iniquity -- Psalm 5:5); there is wrath in God's word against man, condemning his actions and pronouncing his ultimate doom; there is wrath in God's hand against man, touching man's body with innumerable sicknesses and plaguing his soul with 'silent arrows of judgement'. Ultimately, physical death comes, as a messenger of God's wrath, charging man to bid farewell to the world, charging his body and soul to part, and charging him to appear before God.

Thirdly, Boston deals with man's utter inability to recover himself. This is a necessary corollary of all that has gone before. Spiritual death means that fallen man is not only far from God, but it means that he has no ability to bring himself to God. This, it seems to me, is a very important consideration, so I want to look at how Boston deals with the theme, and then I want to expand it and apply it to ourselves, because it strikes me as being one of the areas in which modern evangelicalism has lost its biblical foundations.

Boston discusses this with reference to two texts:

Romans 5:6 -- for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly

John 6:44 -- no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him

If a man is in a pit, there are only one of two ways in which he can get out: either by his own efforts, or by making use of the help offered to him by another. So it is with fallen man; he can get out of the pit of sin either by his own efforts (by the covenant of works) or by making use of the gospel (by the covenant of grace).

The problem is that unconverted man is dead in sin's pit. Romans 5:6 declares that it was when we were weak, and unable to recover ourselves, that Christ died. So does that mean that men take advantage of Christ when he is offered to them? No, because John 6:44 says that there must be a drawing by mighty power (cf. Eph 1:19), because men have no power in themselves to make use of the help that is offered.

So, how will man get out of sin's pit? First, he addresses the sinner.

(1) Sinner -- do you think you will get out of it by your own efforts? Let me remind you of the two things that are indispensable for your recovery:

1 -- Matthew 19:17 -- 'if you would enter life, keep the commandments'.

Your obedience must be perfect in principle; deal with original sin, then you can deal with the problem of obedience

Your obedience must be perfect in parts; it must be as broad as the law of God itself. You must give internal and external obedience.

Your obedience must be perfect in degrees -- 'a man may bring as many buckets of water to a house that is on fire, as he is able to carry; and yet it may be consumed, and will be so, if he bring not as many as will quench the fire'

Your obedience must be perpetual.

2 -- you must pay what you owe. You have old accounts to settle. If you are able to settle infinite accounts with the actions of your finite nature and life, it will be well with you. Otherwise, you are in a sate of wrath.

OBJECTION -- but God is merciful -- he knows we cannot answer these demands -- we will be saved if we do as well as we can.

ANSWER --

1) if your best actions are sin, how can a life of sin lessen the debt you owe to God?

2) where is the man who has ever done as well as he could?

3) Where is the Scripture that says that if we do the best we can, God will be merciful to us? It is founded neither on law or gospel.

Secondly, he addresses the fact that there is hope offered to the sinner in the gospel. There is good news. So is not this the hope of man? That he can make use of the gospel to get out of the pit?

(2) What can the sinner do to recover himself in the way of the gospel? There is help offered in Christ -- but sinners are unable to make use of it by their own efforts.

a) although Christ is offered in the gospel, men will not believe (John 5:44). Whoever is willing to come to Christ, is welcome to Christ; but there must be a day of power before there is a willingness (Psalm 110:3)

b) Man has nothing in or about himself that can help him improve his lot and recover himself. "The arms of natural abilities are too short to reach supernatural help" (124).

c) Man cannot work a saving change on himself. Faith and repentance are the products of the new nature; yet the heart is shut against Christ. He must be raised out of his grave and quickened, and 'These are works of omnipotency, and can be done by no less a power'.

d) Man is under utter inability to do what is good. How can he obey the gospel? His nature is the revers of the gospel. "The corruption of man's nature infallibly includes his utter inability to recover himself in any way, and whoso is convinced of the one, must needs admit the other; for they stand and fall together" (125).

e) Natural man resists Christ, with a resistance that only grace can overcome.

OBJECTION -- If we are unable to do good, how can God require it of us?

ANSWER -- Man had the power to do good, and lost it by his own fault. But his loss does not remove the obligation to do good before God. And 'if God can require of men the duty they are not able to do, he can in justice punish them for their not doing it, notwithstanding their inability' (126).

OBJECTION -- why do you preach Christ and call on us to believe, repent and use the means of salvation?

ANSWER -- because it is your duty to do so. God's command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. These calls and exhortations are the means God makes use of to covert his elect and work grace in their hearts.

OBJECTION -- but the gospel is needless, since we are unable to help ourselves out of our condition

ANSWER -- don't put asunder what God has joined together. He joins together a sense of our own inability with the use of means. God's Spirit gives us a sense of our total inability, and will also make us diligent in the use of the means of grace.

OBJECTION -- has God promised to convert those who, by using the means of grace, do what they can to help themselves?

ANSWER -- natural men have no such promise made to them. Nevertheless, it remains our duty to seek God. Those who are saved have sought for him. Those who are lost shut themselves out of eternal life.

CONCLUSION

If we are the saints of God, we should admire the freedom and power of grace. That is what enabled us to believe. Apart from it, we remain in the pit, unable to get out.

James Henley Thornwell: 'the bondage of sin was the necessary consequence of the choice of sin' (vol 1, p295).

GROUNDED IN SCRIPTURE

Prophets

Isaiah 6:8-9:

And he said, Go and say to this people: keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

The ministry of this spirit-empowered prophet was to be characterised by an almost universal rejection of the message of the gospel. They would not respond to anointed lips, because of their own hard and stony hearts. The condition in other words, severely limits their ability to respond to the claims of God's truth.

The interesting thing here is that we have New Testament commentary on the passage. First, there is the dominical commentary of our Lord in John 12:37, where the refusal of the people to believe, even having witnessed the miracles, is understood as a direct fulfillment of Isaiah's prophetic words. We also have the apostolic commentary of Paul in Acts 28:25-28. The effect of all that Paul has done and said is that some believed and others did not (Acts 28:24). Paul's last recorded word in Acts is to quote Isaiah 6 and to say 'the Holy Spirit was right'; the covenant nation heaped sin on sin by refusing the message, therefore 'this salvation of God', says Paul, 'has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen'.

Jesus

John 6:44

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

In context, this was to be offensive and explosive teaching. John 6 is the chapter in which Jesus wins the crowd, teaches the crowd, and then loses the crowd. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is amplified in Christ's teaching on himself as the bread of life; in both action and word Christ makes the gospel plain. Yet he also emphasises the disabling power of sin, and its delimiting effects in the experience of fallen man. The only way by which any sinner may be moved to come to the bread of life is through the drawing power of the Father. 'All that the Father gives me will come to me' he says in John 6:37; and apart from the consideration of these transactions between the Father and the Son we cannot have any confidence that sinners will respond to our message. Spiritual death, in other words, means that it is not in the sinner's power to come to Christ; nor is it in the power of the preacher to persuade men to come to Christ. It requires the drawing power of the Father.

Paul -- Romans 8:5-8

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

The Implications of This Doctrine

Man's will is enslaved; it is not spiritually or morally free

No amount of pre-evangelism or seeker-friendly evangelism can change man's natural disposition against God

Our only confidence must be in the supernatural power which alone can accompany the word of Christ -- Just as Lazarus was raised by the power of the Word of God, so sinners arer aised spiritually by the Gospel, the power of God to salvation.