01.05.02. Death
2. THE MEANING OF THE WORD DEATH.
Now “the body without spirit is dead” (James 2:26), and the soul, the man, cannot use or inhabit a dead body. The spirit imparts to the body vitality, animation, and makes it usable by man. Thus so long as the two are united man is a living soul, but when God recalls the spirit which He gave, the body ceases to have life, the soul vacates it, and thenceforth, until resurrection, the man is dead. But it is carefully and always to be remembered that in Scripture the term “life” does not mean simply existence, but much more and much rather it means a certain mode or quality of existence, and equally so the term “death,” therefore, does not mean, non‑existence, but an opposite state or mode of existence. Many things exist which do not exhibit the property called “life.” All annihilationist reasoning which we have read assumes this false sense of the words “life” and “death” and cannot proceed without it.
Yet in some real sense Adam died the day he disobeyed God, according to the sentence, “in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die” (Genesis 2:17), but he did not cease to exist that day. So, by a powerful antithesis, it is said, “she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth,” which cannot be read, ceases to exist while she exists (1 Timothy 5:6). In much the same way we speak of a living death.
Equally arresting is our Lord’s argument against the annihilationists of His day (Luke 20:37-38).
He first admits that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead, saying, “But that the dead are raised,” and at once adds that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.” So dead in one sense, they are yet alive in another, showing that both terms describe only relative conditions of existence. Similarly the Lord makes the father of the prodigal say: “This my son was dead, and is alive again” (Luke 15:24), though in another sense he had been as much alive in the far country as after his return. Further, it is clear that the first death does not cause the annihilation of the sinner or there could be no second death for him.
Thus the word death does not of itself mean ceasing to be, and such as say that the second death means annihilation are bound to show that the Scripture adds to the word this sense which does not belong to it. The second death is the “lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). The beast and the false prophet are cast thereinto before the thousand years reign of Christ (Revelation 19:20); they are still there at the close of that period when Satan is cast there (Revelation 20:10); so that a thousand years in the second death has not destroyed their existence, and the sentence upon all three is that “they shall be tormented day and night for the ages of the ages.” It would be impossible to torment that which had ceased to be.
It is consistent with the holiness and the love of God - for it is fact – that angels that abused His favour shall be confined in that place of misery, Tartarus, for already thousands of years (2 Peter 2:4); that Dives (Luke 16:1-31), who abused His goodness on earth, shall be tormented in a flame in Hades for a period unknown to us, for it is not yet ended; that the Beast and the false prophet, who blasphemed His holy name, shall be in the lake of fire for more than a thousand years at least. As this is consistent with the love and justice of God why should it not be so for 10,000 years, for 100,000, for a billion years, or for ever, and especially in the case of those who rejected His amazing love in Christ, trampled under foot the Son of God, and definitely resisted the Spirit of truth? We are not competent to form our own opinion as to what God may or may not, do consistently with His character and because of it. We can only bow to what He has revealed, assured that He will ever act consistently with what He is, for He is not able to do otherwise. We can best estimate what sentence a judge may pass by considering what sentences he has before passed, as well as what statements he may have made as to future sentences.