Death

Death is the destruction of the subject spoken of according to the nature thereof, even though it have no natural life; that is, in such a manner that it cannot any more act as such. So in Rom 7:8, " without the law sin is dead:" i.e. without the law sin doth not exert its power. And on the other hand, as it is said there, Rom 7:9, "Sin revived, and I died;" that is, sin got strength to act, and I lost my power to resist: I was not the same man as before; sin destroyed my power. So of a nation, Amo 2:2, "Moab shall die with tumult;" the meaning being, that the king and government thereof shall lose their power, and the nation be brought into subjection and slavery.

So Tully, when banished, called himself dead,^f1 an image, and the like. And so the ancient philosophers called vicious persons, unable, through ill habit, to exert any virtuous act, dead men.^f2

On the contrary, to live is to be in a power to act; acting and living being, says Artemidorus, lib.4. c. 42, analogical to each other. And so in Heb 4:12, ζών quick or alive, signifies active or powerful; the word ένεργής powerful, being joined to it to shew the meaning.

The lying unburied for a short time, is the remaining poli­tically or ecclesiastically dead for a short time, Rev. xi. 9.

The being not only dead, but buried, is the being politically or ecclesiastically dead for a long time, Isa 26:19.

The exposure of dry bones from which all the flesh is wasted away, is the being politically or ecclesiastically dead, so long that nothing remains to the defunct community of its former substance and strength, Eze 37:1.

The prophets frequently predict the restoration of the Jewish people from their present scattered state, their state of political death, under the image of a resurrection from the dead. From Ezek 37. a very clear concep­tion may be obtained of the principle on which the apoca­lyptic prediction, relative to the death and revival of the two witnesses, is founded.

F1 M. T. Cic. L. i. Ep. 3. ad Q. Fr.

F2 Simpl. in Epict. p. 2.

Is generally defined to be the separation of the soul from the body. It is styled, in Scripture language, a departure out of this world to another, 2Ti 4:7. a dissolving of the earthly house of this tabernacle, 2. Cor. 5: 1. a going the way of all the earth, Jos 23:14. a returning to the dust, Ecc 12:7. a sleep, Joh 11:11. Death may be considered as the effect of sin, Rom 5:12. yet, as our existence is from God, no man has a right to take away his own life, or the life of another, Gen 9:6. Satan is said to have the power of death, Heb 2:14; not that he can at his pleasure inflict death on mankind, but as he was the instrument of first bringing death into the world, Joh 8:44; and as he may be the executioner of God’s wrath on impenitent sinners, when God permits him. Death is but once, Heb 9:27. certain, Job 14:1-2. powerful and terrific, called the king of terrors, Job 18:14. uncertain as to the time, Pro 28:1. universal, Gen 5:1-32: necessary, that God’s justice may be displayed, and his mercy manifested; desirable to the righteous, Luk 2:28-30. The fear of death is a source of uneasiness to the generality, and to a guilty conscience it may indeed be terrible; but to a good man it should be obviated by the consideration that death is the termination of every trouble; that it puts him beyond the reach of sin and temptation: that God has promised to be with the righteous, even to the end, Heb 13:5. that Jesus Christ has taken away the sting, 1Co 15:54. and that it introduces him to a state of endless felicity, 2Co 5:8. Preparation for death.

This does not consist in bare morality; in an external reformation from gross sins; in attention to a round of duties in our own strength; in acts of charity; in a zealous profession; in possessing eminent gifts: but in reconciliation to God; repentance of sin; faith in Christ; obedience to his word: and all as the effect of regeneration by the Spirit. 3 John 3: 6. 1Co 11:3. Tit 3:5. Bates’s four last Things; Hopkins, Drelincourt, Sherlock, and Fellowes, on Death; Bp. Porteus’s Poem on DEath; Grove’s admirable Sermon on the fear of Death; Watts’s World to Come. Spiritual Death is that awful state of ignorance, insensibility, and disobedience, which mankind are in by nature, and which exclude them from the favour and enjoyment of God, Luk 1:79.

See SIN. Brothers of Death, a denomination usually given to the religious of the order of St. Paul, the first hermit. They are called brothers of death, on account of the figure of a death’s head which they were always to have with them, in order to keep perpetually before them the thoughts of death. The order was probably suppressed by pope Urban VIII. Death of Christ. The circumstances attendant on the death of Christ are so well known, that they need not be inserted here. As the subject, however, of all others, is the most important to the Christian, a brief abstract of what has been said on it, from a sermon allowedly one of the best in the English language, shall here be given. "The hour of Christ’s death, " says Blair (vol.i. ser. 5.) "was the most critical, the most pregnant with great events, since hours had begun to be numbered, since time had begun to run. It was the hour in which Christ was glorified by his sufferings.

Through the cloud of his humiliation his native lustre often broke forth, but never did it shine so bright as now. It was indeed the hour of distress, and of blood. It is distress which ennobles every great character, and distress was to glorify the Son of God. He was now to teach all mankind, by his example, how to suffer, and how to die. What magnanimity in all his words and actions on the great occasion! No upbraiding, no complaining expression escaped from his lips. He betrayed no symptom of a weak, a discomposed, or impatient mind. With all the dignity of a sovereign, he conferred pardon on a penitent fellow-sufferer: with a greatness of mind beyond example, he spent his last moments in apologies and prayers for those who were shedding his blood. This was the hour in which Christ atoned for the sins of mankind, and accomplished our eternal redemption. It was the hour when that great sacrifice was offered up, the efficacy of which reaches back to the first transgression of man, and extends forward to the end of time: the hour, when, from the cross, as from an high altar, the blood was flowing which washed away the guilt of the nations. In this hour the long series of prophesies, visions, types, and figures were accomplished. This was the centre in which they all met. You behold the law and the prophets standing, if we may speak so, at the foot of the cross, and doing homage. You behold Moses and Aaron bearing the ark of the covenant; David and Elijah presenting the oracle of testimony. You behold all the priests and sacrifices, all the rites and ordinances, all the types and symbols assembled together to receive their consummation. This was the hour of the abolition of the law, and the introduction of the Gospel; the hour of terminating the old and beginning the new dispensation.

It is finished. When he uttered these words he changed the state of the universe. This was the ever-memorable point of time which separated the old and the new world from each other. On one side of the point of separation you behold the law, with its priests, its sacrifices, and its rites, retiring from sight. On the other side you behold the Gospel, with its simple and venerable institutions, coming forward into view. Significantly was the veil of the temple rent in twain; for the glory then departed from between the cherubims. The legal high priest delivered up his Urim and Thummim, his breast-plate, his robes, and his incense; and Christ stood forth as the great high priest of all succeeding generations. Altars on which the fire had blazed for ages were now to smoke no more. Now it was also that he threw down the wall of partition which had so long divided the Gentile from the Jew; and gathered into one all the faithful, out of every kindred and people. This was the hour of Christ’s triumph over all the powers of darkness; the hour in which he overthrew dominions and thrones, led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men; then it was that the foundation of every pagan temple shook; the statue of every false god totterd on its base; the priest fled from his falling shrine, and the heathen oracles became dumb for ever!

This was the hour when our Lord erected that spiritual kingdom which is never to end. His enemies imagined that in this hour they had successfully accomplished their plan for his destruction; but how little did they know that the Almighty was at that moment setting him as a king on the hill of Sion! How little did they know that their badges of mock royalty were at that moment converted into the signals of absolute dominion, and the instruments of irresistible power! The reed which they put into his hands became a rod of iron, with which he was to break in pieces his enemies; a sceptre with which he was to rule the universe in righteousness. The cross, which they thought was to stigmatize him with infamy, became the ensign of his renown. Instead of being the reproach of his followers, it was to be their boast, and their glory. The cross was to shine on palaces and churches throughout the earth. It was to be assumed as the distinction of the most powerful monarchs, and to wave in the banner of victorious armies, when the memory of Herod and Pilate should be accursed; when Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, and the Jews be vagabonds over all the world."

See ATONEMENT; Person and Barrow on the Creed; Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ; Charnock’s Works, vol. 2: on the Necessity, Voluntariness, &c. of the Death of Christ.

There is a threefold sense of death; natural, spiritual, and eternal. That which is natural, respects the separation of soul and body. The body without the Spirit is dead." (Jam. 2: 16.) Spiritual death means, the soul unquickened by the Holy Ghost. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Eph. 2: 1.) And eternal death implies the everlasting separation both of soul and body from God to all eternity. "I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast intohell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." (Luke x2: 5.) See Hardness of heart.

Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man, as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it.

Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death:

(a.) One of the most common in the Old Testament is, to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase, the dust of death. It is founded on the description Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc 12:7, ’The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God who gave it.’

(b.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa 104:29).

(c.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body with a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job 4:21; Isa 38:12; Psa 52:5; 2Co 5:1; 2Pe 1:13-14).

(d.) Paul likewise uses the term to be unclothed, in reference to death (2Co 5:3-4); because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed; and as soon as it is disembodied, is naked.

(e.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa 76:5; Jer 51:39; Joh 11:13, sqq.).

(f.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away (Job 10:21; Psa 39:4; Mat 26:24; Php 1:23; 2Ti 4:6).

Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns. But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa 18:5-6; Psa 91:3). After the exile, they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat 16:28; Heb 2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa 89:48; Luk 2:26).

Is taken in Scripture, first, for the separation of body and soul, the first death, Gen 25:11 ; secondly, for alienation from God, and exposure to his wrath, 1Jn 3:14, etc.; thirdly, for the second death, that of eternal damnation. Death was the penalty affixed to Adam’s transgression, Gen 2:17 3:19; and all his posterity are transgressors, and share the curse inflicted upon him. CHRIST is "our life." All believers share his life, spiritually and eternally; and though sin and bodily is taken away, and in the resurrection the last enemy shall be trampled under foot, 1Ch 5:12-21 1Co 15:1-58 .\par Natural death is described as a yielding up of the breath, or spirit, expiring, Psa 104:29 ; as a return to our original dust, Gen 3:19 Ecc 12:7 ; as the soul’s laying off the body, its clothing, 2Co 5:3,4, or the tent in which it has dwelt, 2Co 5:1 2Pe 1:13,14 . The death of the believer is a departure, a going home, a falling asleep in Jesus, Php 1:23 Mat 26:24 Joh 11:11 .\par The term death is also sometimes used for any great calamity, or imminent danger threatening life, as persecution, 2Co 1:10 . "The gates of death," Job 38:17, signify the unseen world occupied by departed spirits. Death is also figuratively used to denote the insensibility of Christians to the temptations of a sinful world, Col 3:3 .\par

(properly, מָוֶה, θάνατος). No logical definition of death has been generally agreed upon. This point was much contested in the 17th century by the Cartesian and other theologians and philosophers. Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Among the ecclesiastical fathers, Tertullian (De Anima, c. 27) calls it “the disunion of the body and soul.” Cicero (Tusc. Dis. i) defines death to be “the departure of the mind from the body.” The passage Heb 4:12, is sometimes cited on this subject, but has nothing to do with it. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it. SEE DEAD.

Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death. —

(1.) One of the most common in the O.T. is to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase the dust of death. It is founded on the description in Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc 12:7, “The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God, who gave it.”

(2.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa 104:29). Hence the common terms to “give up the ghost,” etc.

(3.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body to a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job 4:21; Isa 38:12; Psalm 53:7). Hence Paul says (2Co 5:1), “our earthly house of this tabernacle” will be destroyed; and Peter calls death a “putting off of this tabernacle” (2Pe 1:13-14). Classical writers speak of the soul in the same manner. So Hippocrates and AEschines. Compare 2Co 5:8-9.

(4.) Paul likewise uses the term ἐκδύεσθαι, to unclothe one’s self, in reference to death (2Co 5:3-4), because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed, and as soon as it is disembodied is naked.

(5.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa 76:5; Jer 51:39; Joh 11:13 sq.). Nor is this language used exclusively for the death of the pious, as some pretend, though this is its prevailing use. Homer calls sleep and death twin brothers (Il. 16:672). The terms likewise which signify to lie down, to rest, also denote death.

(6.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away. Hence verbs of that import signify to die (Job 10:21; Psa 39:4). The case is the same in the New Testament (Mat 26:24), and even among the classics. In this connection we may mention the terms ἀναλύειν and ἀνάλυσις (Php 1:23; 2Ti 4:6), which do not mean dissolution, but discessus (comp. Luk 12:36).

Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns (Job 18:14). But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa 18:5-6; Psa 91:3). After the exile they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. SEE DESTROYER. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat 16:28; Heb 2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa 89:48; Luk 2:26). See Knapp’s Christian Theology, by Dr. Wood; Waltirer, De origine phrasium I videre et gustare mortem” (Giess. 1745).

The “gates of death” (Job 38:17; Psa 9:13; Psa 107:18) signify the grave itself; and the “shadow of death” (Jer 2:6) denotes the gloomy silence of the tomb. See Wemyss’s Clavis Symbolica, s.v.; Zeibich, De vocibus, צִלְמָוֶת, σκία θανάτου (Vitemb. 1739).

Death may be considered as the effect of sin (Rom 5:12). In Heb 2:14, Satan is said to have the power of death; not that he can, at his pleasure, inflict death on mankind, but as he was the instrument of first bringing death into the world (Joh 8:44), and as he may be the executioner of God’s wrath on impenitent sinners where God permits him. Death is but once (Heb 9:27), yet certain (Job 14:1-2), although uncertain as to the time (Pro 27:1); universal (Gen 3:19); necessary, in order that God’s justice may be displayed and his mercy manifested; desirable to the righteous (Luk 2:28-30). The fear of death is a source of anxiety and alarm to many, and to a guilty conscience it may indeed be terrible; but to a good man it should be obviated by the consideration that death is the termination of every trouble; that it puts him beyond the reach of sin and temptation; that God has promised to be with the righteous, even to the end (Heb 13:5); that Jesus Christ has taken away the sting (1Co 15:55-56); and that it introduces him to a state of endless felicity (2Co 5:8).

Death, when applied to the animal nature, properly signifies a dissolution or failure of all its powers and functions; so, when applied to the spiritual nature, or souls of men, it denotes a corresponding disorder therein, a being spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Rom 8:6; Eph 2:1; Eph 2:3; Col 2:13; Jud 1:12).

The term death is metaphorically applied to denote an utter failure of customary functions, so that the thing spoken of can no longer act according to its nature. Thus, in Amo 2:2, “Moab shall die with tumult” — that is, the king and government shall lose their power, and the nation be brought into subjection and slavery. So in Rom 7:8, “Without the law, sin was dead” — that is, without the law, sin does not exert its power; and, on the other hand, it is said (Rom 7:9), “Sin revived and I died” — “Sin got strength to act, and I lost my power to resist. I was not the same man as before; sin destroyed my power.”

The “second death” (Rev 2:11) is so called in respect to the natural or temporal as coming after it, and implies everlasting punishment (Rev 21:8).

The general word to represent dying is Moth (מות, Ass. mutu); other words, however, are occasionally used. Thus Naphal (נפל, Ass. napalu), to fall, occurs in Gen 25:18, ’He died (or fell) in the presence of (or before) all his brethren.’ Shadad (שׁדד, Ass. sadadu), to destroy, is found in Jdg 5:27, ’There he fell down dead’ (i.e. destroyed). Gava (גוע), to breathe out or expire (ἐκπνέω), is used in Gen 6:17, ’Everything that is in the earth shall die;’ 7:21; Num 20:3, ’Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord;’ verse 29; Job 27:5; Job 29:18; Job 36:12; Psa 88:15; Psa 104:29; Zec 13:8. this word is only used with reference to the death of our Lord in the N.T.; see Mar 15:37; Mar 15:39; Luk 23:46.

Nivlah (נבלה), a carcase, is used in Lev 7:24, ’The fat of the beast that dieth (of itself),’ lit. ’the fat of a carcase.’ So also in Lev 17:15; Lev 22:8; Deu 14:8; Deu 14:21; Psa 79:2; Isa 26:19, ’Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise;’ Jer 26:23; Jer 34:20; Jer 36:30; Eze 4:14; Eze 44:31. Another word, signifying carcase (פגר, Ass. pagru), is used in 2Ch 20:24-25; Jer 31:40; Jer 33:5; Jer 41:9.

Rephaim (רפאים), Ass. rapu, ’to be weak’), which in other places is rendered giants, is used of the dead in Job 26:5, ’Dead (things) are formed from under the waters, with the inhabitants thereof;’ Psa 88:10, ’Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee ?’ Pro 2:18, ’ for her house inclineth unto death (מות), and her paths unto the dead.’ See also Pro 9:18; Pro 21:16; Isa 14:9; Isa 26:19.

The Hebrew reduplicated form, ’Dying thou shalt die,’ or ’Thou shalt surely die,’ is found several times in the O.T., and is quoted in the N.T in Mat 15:4; Mar 7:10. It has sometimes been supposed that this expression, being so very emphatic, refers to something more than death, and implies the judgment that follows; but this cannot fairly be inferred from the form in question.

Use of the Word Death in the NT

The word θάνατος (death) answers in the LXX both to moth and to dever (דבר), pestilence. It has a spiritual signification in the N.T., which calls for a short discussion.

Our Lord said to his disciples (Mat 16:28), ’There are some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the son of Man coming in his kingdom.’ The words are given in another form by St. Mark (9:1), ’There are some who shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God come with power.’ See also Luk 9:27.

The object of this passage was to prepare the minds of the disciples for the gr and truth that death, which had been hitherto the terr or of the world, was to lose its taste or sting in the case of those who united themselves to the Lord by faith. Christ Himself was to die, He was to suffer the pairs of death, his soul was to be exceeding sorrowful even unto death, but by death He was to over-come him who had the power of death, and to deliver them who through fear of death had been all their lives subject to bondage. He thus introduced a now view of life and death, telling his disciples that he who would save his life by denying the Lord, should love it, whilst he who was willing to lose his life for the Lord’s sake, the same should save it. The Lord would be ashamed of the one on the Great Day, but would confess the other.

The entrance into a new life which takes place through faith in Christ involves death in another sense. It is a cutting off of human nature from its old modes and principles of existence-- in other words, it is death to sin. Just as in physical dissolution the body ceases to feel, the heart to bent, the bands to work, and the feet to walk, so in this mystical death the body and all its members are to be no longer servants to sin; the same breach or gulf is to be made between the Christian and sin as there is between a dead man and the outer world in which he used to live and move and have his being. this death is related to the crucifixion of Christ, who ’died to sin.’ The believer is baptized into Christ’s death, he dies with Christ, is made conformable to his death, is crucified with Christ (Rom 6:5; 2Co 5:14; Gal 2:19-20; Col 2:20; Col 3:3) in 1Pe 2:24, the word rendered dead in the A. V. and R. V., and which only occurs here, signifies severance (ἀπογίγνομαι).

The second death is mentioned only in the Book of Revelation (Rev 2:11; Rev 20:6; Rev 20:14; Rev 21:8). this is a condition of things which follows after the resurrection. Those that overcome and are faithful unto death shall not suffer injury from it. Those that have part in the first resurrection shall not be subjected to its power. It is thus described in Rev 20:14-15, ’Death and Hades (i.e. perhaps, those evil spirits that have the power of death and Hades) were cast into the lake of fire, this (i.e. the being cast into the lake of fire) is the second death;’ ’Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was east into this lake.’ Again, we read (Rev 21:8) that, whilst he who overcometh shall inherit all things, he who does not overcome, but gives way to instability, unbelief, idolatrous abominations, murder, fornication, witchcraft, idolatry, and lies, shall have his part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

This is referred to in scripture under various aspects.

1. The general appointment for sinful man - the death of the body by the separation of the soul from it. Heb 9:27; Rom 5:14; Rom 6:23.

2. The spiritual condition of fallen man, ’dead in trespasses and sins.’ Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5; Rom 7:24.

3. Death personified as a power of Satan: the last enemy to be destroyed. 1Co 15:26; Rev 20:13-14.

4. THE SECOND DEATH: eternal punishment. Rev 2:11; Rev 20:14; Rev 21:8.

Everyone Dying Alike

Job_21:23-26.

How Death Entered Into The World

Rom_5:12-21; 1Co_15:20-23.

Jesus Christ Having The Keys Of Death

Rev_1:18.

Men Being Appointed To Die Once

Heb_9:27.

No Man Having Power Over Death

Psa_22:28-29; Ecc_8:8; Rom_14:7-8.

The Day Of Death

Ecc_7:1.

The Dead

Psa_115:17; Ecc_9:5-6; Isa_38:18; Rom_6:7; 1Co_15:50-52; Rev_14:13.

The Death Of The Wicked

Pro_11:7; Eze_18:21-23; Eze_18:31-32; Eze_33:11.

The LORD Destroying Death

Isa_25:8-9; 1Co_15:25-28; 1Co_15:50-56; Heb_2:9-14.

The Second Death

Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6; Rev_20:12-15; Rev_21:8.

The Sting Of Death

1Co_15:56.

What Brings Forth Death

Jam_1:15.

What Ends In Death

Pro_14:12; Pro_16:25.

What Frees You From Death

Pro_11:4; Rom_8:1-4.

What Is Death

Rom_6:20-21; Rom_6:23; Rom_8:6.

What Works Death

2Co_7:10.

Where There Is No Death

Pro_12:28.

Who Has Hope In Their Death

Pro_14:32; Php_1:20-21.

Who Loves Death

Pro_8:32-36.

Who Pursues Death

Pro_11:19.

Who Shall Die

Job_34:16-20; Job_36:5-12; Pro_5:21-23; Pro_15:10; Pro_19:16; Pro_21:16; Eze_3:18-20; Eze_18:4; Eze_18:10-13; Eze_18:18; Eze_18:20; Eze_18:24-26; Eze_33:8; Eze_33:12-13; Eze_33:18; Joh_8:21-24; Rom_8:13; 1Jn_3:14.

Who Shall Not Die

Eze_18:14-17; Eze_18:21; Eze_18:27-28; Eze_33:14-15; Joh_8:49-51; Joh_11:25-26; Rom_8:13; Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6.

Why The Body Dies

Rom_8:10-11; 1Co_15:35-38.

DEATH.—It belongs to the profoundly spiritual character of our Lord’s thinking that He says comparatively little on the subject of physical death. His attitude towards it is indicated in the words, ‘She is not dead but slecpeth’ (Mat 9:28 = Mar 5:35, Luk 8:52). He recognized that man’s true being was something apart from the mere bodily existence, and death thus resolved itself into a natural incident, analogous to sleep, which broke the continuity of life only in seeming. The idea is presented more definitely in the charge to the disciples, ‘Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do,’ etc. (Luk 12:4 = Mat 10:28), where it is expressly declared that life resides in the soul, over which God alone has power. The accident of death, of the separation of the soul from its material body, can make little difference to the essential man.

The three recorded miracles of raising from the dead are, in the last resort, concrete illustrations of this side of our Lord’s teaching. The Johannine account of the raising of Lazarus is indeed bound up with a more complex theological doctrine; but the Synoptic miracles, in so far as they are more than works of compassion or exhibitions of Divine power, are indicative of the transient nature of death. Jesus awakens the daughter of Jairus and the youth of Nain as if from ordinary sleep. The life which to outward appearance had ceased, had only been withdrawn from the body, and could be reunited with it at the Divine word.

Attempts have been made to connect these miracles and the whole conception of death as sleep, with the contemporary Jewish belief that for three days the soul still lingered in the neighbourhood of the dead body. The earliest stage of death might therefore be regarded as a condition of trance or slumber from which the spirit could yet be recalled. It is in view, probably, of this belief that St. John emphasizes the ‘four days’ that had elapsed since the death of Lazarus, whose soul must thus have finally departed from his body when Jesus revived him. But we have no indication that our Lord Himself took any account of the popular superstition, much less that He was influenced by it. His conception of death as a passing sleep was derived solely from His certainty that man, being a child of God, was destined to an immortal life. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cannot be permanently dead, for God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mat 22:31 = Mar 12:26). In virtue of their relation to God they must have passed into a more perfect life through apparent death.

The traditional view of death as something evil and unnatural had therefore no place in the thought of Jesus. He nowhere suggests the idea which St. Paul took over from the OT and elaborated in his theology, that death is the punishment of sin. This prevailing Jewish belief is indeed expressly contradicted in the words concerning the slaughtered Galilaeans and the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell (Luk 13:1-4). Jesus there insists that death, even when it comes prematurely and violently, is not to be regarded as a Divine judgment. Sin is punished, not by physical death in this world, but by a spiritual death hereafter. This is doubtless the true interpretation of the warning, ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’ Destruction is in store for all sinners; and the punishment cannot therefore consist in death by violence, which falls on few. Much less can it consist in natural death, from which the good can escape no more than the wicked.

While thus regarding death as nothing but one of the incidents in man’s earthly existence, our Lord anticipates a time when it will be done away. In the perfected Messianic, kingdom ‘they cannot die any more’ (Luk 20:36). Those who survive until the Son of man returns in glory ‘will not taste of death’ (Mat 16:28), since they will have entered on the new age in which it is abolished. Even in such passages, however, it is not suggested that death is an evil. The idea is rather that it forms part of a lower, imperfect order of things, and that this will give place entirely to a higher. Those who inherit the kingdom cannot die, ‘because they are equal unto the angels’ (Luk 20:36), and have so entered on another condition, governed by different laws. The cessation of death is conjoined with that of marriage (Luk 20:35-36). As the marriage relation is natural and necessary to man’s earthly state, but has no place in the life of higher spirits, so with death.

Jesus, it is thus evident, has broken away from the Jewish conception, according to which the death of the body possessed a religious significance as the effect of sin. His own idea of its spiritual import is of an altogether different nature, and can be gathered with sufficient clearness from certain explicit sayings. (1) The willingness to endure death for His sake is the supreme test of faith (cf. ‘Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of?’ etc. [Mat 20:22 = Mar 10:38]; ‘If a man hate not … his own life also,’ etc. [Luk 14:26]). (2) Death is the fixed limit appointed by God to all earthly pleasures and activities. The thought of it ought therefore to guard us against over-anxiety about the things of this world, and to keep us always watchful, and mindful of the true issues of life (‘This night thy soul shall be required of thee’ [Luk 12:20]; parable of Rich Man and Lazarus [Luk 16:20 ff.]). (3) Above all, death marks the beginning of the true and eternal life with God. This higher life can be obtained only by sacrificing the lower, and surrendering it altogether, if need be, at the call of Christ (‘He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’ [Mat 10:39 = Mat 16:25, Mar 8:35, Luk 9:24]).

In several Synoptic passages Jesus speaks of a death which is spiritual rather than physical. He recognizes that the mass of men are in a condition of moral apathy and estrangement from God, and out of this ‘death’ He seeks to deliver them. His message to John the Baptist, ‘The dead are raised up’ (Mat 11:5 = Luk 7:22), would seem, in the light of the context, to bear this reference, as also the charge to the disciples, ‘Raise the dead’ (Mat 10:8). The same thought is expressed more unmistakably in the saying, ‘Let the dead bury their dead’ (Mat 8:21 = Luk 9:60), and in the words of the parable, ‘This my son was dead and is alive again’ (Luk 15:24). Such allusions are not to be explained as simply figurative. As ‘life,’ to the mind of Jesus, consists in moral obedience and communion with God, so in the opposite condition He perceives the true death. It involves that ‘destruction both of soul and body’ which is far more to be feared than mere bodily death.

The view represented by the Fourth Gospel gives a further development to this aspect of our Lord’s teaching. Death as conceived by St. John is something wholly spiritual. The idea is enforced in its full extent that physical death is only a ‘taking rest in sleep,’ and in no wise affects the real life (Joh 11:4; Joh 11:11-14). Lazarus, although he has lain four days in the tomb, has never truly died; for ‘he that believeth in me, when he is dead, continues to live’ (Joh 11:25-26). The miracle by which he is ‘awakened out of sleep’ is meant to show forth, under the forms of sense, the inward and spiritual work of Jesus. He is ‘the resurrection and the life.’ He has come to raise men out of the state of death in which they find themselves, and to make them inheritors, even now, of the life of God.

To understand the Evangelist’s conception, we have to remember that here as elsewhere he converts into present reality what is future and apocalyptic in the Synoptic teaching. Jesus had spoken of life as a reward laid up in ‘the world to come,’ and had contrasted it with the ‘casting out’ or ‘destruction’ (ἀπώλεια) which is reserved for the wicked. These ideas reappear in the Fourth Gospel, divested of their pictorial, eschatological form. Life is a spiritual possession here and now, and has its counterpart in ‘death,’ which is likewise realized in the present world. St. John, indeed, contemplates a future in which the life, and by implication the death, will become complete and final (Joh 6:39; Joh 6:44; Joh 6:54); but they will continue the same in essence as they already are on earth.

Death is thus regarded not as a single incident but as a condition, in which the soul remains until, through the power of Christ, it passes into the opposite condition of life. It is not, however, a state of moral apathy and disobedience, or at least does not primarily bear this ethical character. Life, in the view of St. John, is the absolute, Divine life, in which man, as a creature of earth, does not participate (See Life). His natural state is one of ‘death,’ not because of his moral sinfulness, but because he belongs to a lower world, and the life he possesses is therefore relative and unreal. It is life only in a physical sense, and is more properly described as ‘death.’ The work of Christ is to deliver men from the state of privation in which they are involved by their earthly nature (Joh 3:6). As the Word made flesh, He communicates to them His own higher essence, and makes possible for them the mysterious transition ‘from death unto life’ (Joh 5:24).

In this Johannine doctrine Greek-philosophical ideas, transmitted through Philo, have blended with the original teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptics. The simple ethical distinction has become a distinction of two kinds of being,—earthly and spiritual, phenomenal and real. Jesus ‘raises the dead’ in the sense that He effects a miraculous change in the very constitution of man’s nature. At the same time the ethical idea, while not directly emphasized, is everywhere implied. It is assumed that the state of exclusion from the true life is also a state of moral darkness, into which men have fallen ‘because their deeds are evil’ (Joh 3:19). The ‘freedom’ which Jesus promises is described in one passage (in which, however, the borrowed Pauline ideas are imperfectly assimilated) as freedom from sin (Joh 5:33-36). In the great verse, ‘God so loved the world,’ etc. (Joh 3:16), the ethical conception almost completely overpowers the theological. Men were ‘perishing’ through their estrangement from God, and from this death God sought to deliver them by His love revealed in Christ.

For the teaching of Jesus in regard to the significance of His own death see the following article.

Literature.—Cremer, Lex. s.v. θάνατος; Titius, Die neutest. Lehre von der Seligkeit (1895–1900), esp. i. 57–87, iii. 17–31; Fries, ‘Jesu Vorstellungen von der Auferstehung der Toten,’ ZNT^{W [Note: NTW Zeitschrift für die Neutest. Wissen. schaft.]} (Dec. 1900); Schrenck, Die johanneische Ansch. vom Leben (1898). See also the literature mentioned in art. Life.

E. F. Scott.

DEATH

I. In the OT.—1. The Heb. term mâweth and our corresponding word ‘death’ alike spring from primitive roots belonging to the very beginnings of speech. One of man’s first needs was a word to denote that stark fact of experience—the final cessation of life to which he and the whole animated creation, and the very trees and plants, were all subject. It is, of course, in this ordinary sense of the term as denoting a physical fact that the expressions ‘death’ and ‘die’ are mostly used in the Scriptures.

2. The Scriptures have nothing directly to say as to the place of death in the economy of nature. St. Paul’s words in Rom 5:12 ff. as to the connexion between sin and death must be explained in harmony with this fact; and, for that matter, in harmony also with his own words in Rom 6:23, where death, the ‘wages of sin,’ cannot be simply physical death. The Creation narratives are silent on this point, yet in Gen 2:17 man is expected to know what it is to die. We are not to look for exact information on matters such as this from writings of this kind. If the belief enshrined in the story of the Fall in Gen 3:1-24 regarded death in the ordinary sense as the penalty of Adam and Eve’s transgression, they at any rate did not die ‘in the day’ of their transgression; v. 22 suggests that even then, could he but also eat of ‘the tree of life,’ man might escape mortality. All we can say is that in the dawn of human history man appears as one already familiar with the correlative mysteries of life and death.

3. From the contemplation of the act of dying it is an easy step to the thought of death as a state or condition. This is a distinct stage towards believing in existence of some kind beyond the grave. And to the vast mass of mankind to say ‘he is dead’ has never meant ‘he is non-existent.’

4. Divergent beliefs as to what the state of death is show themselves in the OT.—(a) In numerous instances death is represented as a condition of considerable activity and consciousness. The dead are regarded as ‘knowing ones,’ able to impart information and counsel to the living. Note, the term translated ‘wizards’ in EV [Note: English Version.] in Lev 19:31; Lev 20:6, Isa 8:19; Isa 19:3 really denotes departed spirits who are sought unto or inquired of ‘on behalf of the living.’ A vivid instance of this belief is furnished in the story of the Witch of En-dor (1Sa 28:1-25). So also in Isa 14:9-10, where we have a graphic description of the commotion caused in Sheol by the arrival of the king of Babylon, a description with which we may compare the dream of ‘false Clarence’ in Shakespeare’s Rich. III., i. 4. The reference to the dead under the term ‘gods’ (elôhim), as in 1Sa 28:13, is noticeable. Whether in all this we have a relic of ancient Semitic ancestor-worship (as e.g. Charles maintains in his Jowett Lectures on Eschatology) or no, it seems to represent very primitive beliefs which survived in one form and another, even after the stern Jahwistic prohibition of necromancy was promulgated. They may also have affected the treatment of the dead, just as even yet there are usages in existence amongst us in regard to behaviour towards the dead which are probably traceable to very primitive pre-Christian ideas and beliefs.

(b) Jahwism might well forbid resort to necromancers with their weird appeals to the dead for guidance and information, for in its view the state of death was one of unconsciousness, forgetfulness, and silence (see Psa 88:12; Psa 94:17; Psa 115:17 etc.). The present world is emphatically ‘the land of the living’ (Psa 27:13; Psa 116:9 etc.). Those that are in Sheol have no communion with Jahweh; see the Song of Hezekiah in Isa 38:1-22, and elsewhere. Sheol appears inviting to a soul in distress because it is a realm of unconscious rest (Job 3:17 ff.); and there is nothing to be known or to be done there (Ecc 9:10). It is true that here and there glimpses of a different prospect for the individual soul show themselves (e.g. Job 19:25 ff. and probably Psa 16:10 f.); but the foregoing was evidently the prevalent view in a period when the individual was altogether subservient to the nation, and the religious concerns of the latter were rigorously limited to the present life.

(c) Other ideas of death as not terminating man’s existence and interests were, however, reached in later prophetic teaching, mainly through the thought of the worth of the individual, the significance of his conscious union with God, and of the covenant relations established by God with His people (Jer 31:1-40; cf. Eze 18:1-32). ‘Thou wilt not leave us in the dust.’

5. Death as standing in penal relation to man’s sin and unrighteousness is frequently insisted on. That this is something more than natural death is clear from such an antithesis as we have in Deu 30:15; Deu 30:19 (‘life and good: death and evil’), and this set in strict relation to conduct. Cf. the burden of Eze 18:1-32, ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die,’ with the correlative promise of life: similarly Pro 15:10. All this points to some experience in the man himself and to conditions outlasting the present life. On the other hand, the thought of dying ‘the death of the righteous’ (Num 23:10) as a desirable thing looks in the same direction. And why has the righteous ‘hope in his death’ (Pro 14:32)?

6. As minor matters, OT poetical uses of references to death may be merely pointed out. ‘Chambers of death,’ Pro 7:27; ‘gates,’ Psa 9:13 (= state); ‘bitterness of death,’ 1Sa 15:32, Ecc 7:26; ‘terrors,’ Psa 55:4; ‘sorrows,’ Psa 116:3 (= man’s natural dread); ‘shadow of death,’ Job, Ps., the Prophets, passim (= any experience of horror and gloom, as well as with reference to death itself); ‘the sleep of death,’ Psa 13:3 (to be distinguished from later Christian usage); ‘snares of death,’ Prov. passim, etc. (= things leading to destruction); the phrase ‘to death,’ as ‘vexed unto death,’ Jdg 13:7; ‘sick,’ 2Ki 20:1 (= to an extreme degree).

II. In the Apocrypha.—The value of the Apocrypha in connexion with the study of Scriptural teaching and usage here is not to be overlooked. Notice e.g. Wisdom chs. 1–5, with its treatment of the attitude of the ungodly towards death (‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’), of the problem of the early, untimely death of the good, and of immortality in relation to the ungodly and the righteous; Sirach, in which no clear conception of immortality appears, the best that can be said, to alleviate sorrow for the dead, being that ‘the dead is at rest’ (Sir 38:23): in which also the fear of death is spoken of as besetting all ranks of men (40), and we are told who they are to whom death comes as a dread foe, and again who may welcome death as a friend (41).

III. In the NT

1. The teaching of Jesus.

(a). It is noticeable that our Lord has nothing to say directly concerning death as a physical phenomenon. He offers no explanation touching those matters in the experience of death which have always excited the curiosity of men, and in this respect His attitude is in strong contrast with that found in Rabbinical writings. He makes no use of the conception of ‘the angel of death,’ so characteristic of the latter, and traceable perhaps in language such as that of 1Co 15:26, Heb 2:14, and Rev 20:13-14.

(b) No stress is laid on death as an evil in itself. In the few stories which we have in the Gospels of His raising the dead to life, the raising is never represented as a deliverance and a good for the person brought back. Compassion for the sorrows of those bereaved is the prime motive: in the case of Lazarus, it is expressly added that the restoration was ‘for the glory of God’ (Joh 11:4; Joh 11:40). Still, those aspects of death which make the living and active shrink from it are incidentally recognized. Jesus in Rabbinic phrase speaks of tasting death (Mar 9:1||) and of seeing death (Joh 8:51-52): and the feeling underlying such expressions is the very antithesis of that attaching to ‘seeing life’ and ‘seeing many days.’ Death is to common human feeling an unwelcome, though inevitable, draught. This gives point also to our Lord’s promise that the believer shall never die (Joh 11:26). At the same time, there is no reference in His teaching to natural death as the solemn end of life’s experiences and opportunities, unless an exception be found in the saying about working ‘while it is day’ (Joh 9:4): but contrast with this as to tone a passage like Ecc 9:10.

(c) Jesus speaks of death as a sleep (Mar 5:39, Joh 11:11-13); but the same euphemistic use is found in OT and in extra-Biblical writers. It did not of itself necessarily lessen the terrors of death (see Psa 13:3); but we owe it to Christ and the Christian faith mainly that such a representation of death has come to mitigate its bitterness,—such a use as is also found elsewhere in NT (e.g. 1Th 4:13 ff.). This conception of death is, of course, to be limited to its relation to the activities and interests of this world. It is a falling asleep after life’s day—and ‘we sleep to wake’: but there is nothing here to shed light on such questions as to whether that sleep is a prolonged period of unconsciousness or no.

(d) Natural death is lost sight of in the much larger and more solemn conception of the condition of man resulting from sin, which in the Fourth Gospel is particularly described as ‘death’ (see Joh 5:24; Joh 6:50; Joh 8:21; Joh 8:24). The exemption and deliverance promised in Joh 11:25 f. relate to this spiritual death, and by that deliverance natural death is shorn of its real terrors. This condition, resulting from sin and separation from God, may he regarded as incipient here and tending to a manifest consummation hereafter, with physical death intervening as a moment of transition and deriving a solemn significance from its association with the course and state of sin (see Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ii. p. 56 f.). The corresponding language of 1 Ep. of John is not to be overlooked (1Jn 3:14) as exemplifying Johannine phraseology. The conception, however, is not found exclusively in the Johannine writings. Note the saying in Luk 9:60 as bearing on this point. In Mat 7:13 f. ‘destruction’ is the antithesis of ‘life’ (and cf. Mat 5:29 f., Mat 18:11, Mar 8:35, Joh 3:16 etc.); but the conception of ‘perishing’ covers the deep experience of spiritual death, the loss of all that really makes the man.

(The phrase ‘die the death’ in EV [Note: English Version.] , in Mar 7:10 and parallel, may be noticed as being not a literal translation of the Greek, but a mid-English emphatic expression,’ now archaic.)

2. The rest of the NT.—We may notice the following points: (a) The Pauline doctrine that natural death is the primitive consequence of sin, already referred to, is to be explained as the common Jewish interpretation of the OT account of the Fall, and finds no direct support in the Gospels. The feeling that ‘the sting of death is sin’ is, however, widely existent in NT. (b) The use of the term ‘death’ as denoting a certain spiritual state in which men may live and he still destitute of all that is worth calling ‘life,’ is quite common (Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5; Eph 5:14, Col 2:13, 1Ti 5:6, Jas 1:15, Jud 1:12, Rev 3:1). (c) A mystical and figurative use of the notion of death as denoting the change from a sinful to a new life is noticeable. The believer, the man spiritually alive, is also ‘dead to sin’ (Rom 6:2, 1Pe 2:24), is ‘dead with Christ’ (Rom 6:8, Col 2:20 etc.). (d) The expression ‘eternal death’ is found nowhere in NT, common as its use is in religious and theological language. It is the correlative, easily suggested by the expression ‘eternal life’ which is so conspicuous a topic of NT teaching, and it serves loosely as an equivalent for the antitheses to ‘life’ or ‘eternal life’ that actually occur, such as ‘destruction’ (Mat 7:13), ‘the eternal fire’ (Mat 18:8), ‘eternal punishment’ (Mat 25:46). Cf. also ‘the second death’ in Rev 21:8. If we substitute for ‘eternal’ some other rendering such as ‘of the ages’ or ‘æonian,’ it but serves to remind us of the profound difficulties attaching to the predication of eternity in relation to the subject of man’s destiny or doom.

J. S. Clemens.

A cessation of bodily life, caused by the separation of the soul from the body (bodily or physical death). Death is, in general, universal (Hebrews 9; Romans 5). As to the debt (debitum mortis) it extends to all defiled by sin, therefore to all except the God-man and the Immacmate Virgin; as to the fact (factum mortis), it certainly extends to all except those who will be living at the second coming of Christ. Concerning these latter, theologians are not agreed (1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4). Death is a punishment for sin. "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death" (Romans 5), and though the character of punishment is wiped away in Baptism, death itself remains as an effect of sin (prenalitas). Death marks the end of time for merit and demerit (Luke, 23; Council of Florence, "Decretum pro Grrecis"). Besides bodily death there is spiritual death, i.e., a privation of sanctifying grace; and eternal death, i.e., damnation, called also "second’ death" (Apocalypse 2; 20; 21). Christ by His atonement took away the second death, eternal damnation, but not physical death.

(מות, māweth; θάνατος, thánatos):

Physiological and Figurative View

The word “Death” is used in the sense of (1) The process of dying (Gen 21:16); (2) The period of decease (Gen 27:7); (3) as a possible synonym for poison (2Ki 4:40); (4) as descriptive of person in danger of perishing (Jdg 15:18; “in deaths oft” 2Co 11:23). In this sense the shadow of death is a familiar expression in Job, the Psalms and the Prophets; (5) death is personified in 1Co 15:55 and Rev 20:14. Deliverance from this catastrophe is called the “issues from death” (Psa 68:20 the King James Version; translated “escape” in the Revised Version (British and American)). Judicial execution, “putting to death,” is mentioned 39 times in the Levitical Law.

Figuratively: Death is the loss of spiritual life as in Rom 8:6; and the final state of the unregenerate is called the “second death” in Rev 20:14.

Theological View

1. Conception of Sin and Death

According to Gen 2:17, God gave to man, created in His own image, the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and added thereto the warning, “in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Though not exclusively, reference is certainly made here in the first place to bodily death. Yet because death by no means came upon Adam and Eve on the day of their transgression, but took place hundreds of years later, the expression, “in the day that,” must be conceived in a wider sense, or the delay of death must be attributed to the entering-in of mercy (Gen 3:15). However this may be, Gen 2:17 places a close connection between man’s death and his transgression of God’s commandment, thereby attaching to death a religious and ethical significance, and on the other hand makes the life of man dependent on his obedience to God. This religious-ethical nature of life and death is not only decidedly and clearly expressed in Gen 2, but it is the fundamental thought of the whole of Scripture and forms an essential element in the revelations of salvation. The theologians of early and more recent times, who have denied the spiritual significance of death and have separated the connection between ethical and physical life, usually endeavor to trace back their opinions to Scripture; and those passages which undoubtedly see in death a punishment for sin (Gen 2:17; Joh 8:44; Rom 5:12; Rom 6:23; 1Co 15:21), they take as individual opinions, which form no part of the organism of revelation. But this endeavor shuts out the organic character of the revelation of salvation. It is true that death in Holy Scripture is often measured by the weakness and frailty of human nature (Gen 3:19; Job 14:1, Job 14:12; Psa 39:5, Psa 39:6; Psa 90:5; Psa 103:14, Psa 103:15; Ecc 3:20, etc.). Death is seldom connected with the transgression of the first man either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, or mentioned as a specified punishment for sin (Joh 8:44; Rom 5:12; Rom 6:23; 1Co 15:21; Jas 1:15); for the most part it is portrayed as something natural (Gen 5:5; Gen 9:29; Gen 15:15; Gen 25:8, etc.), a long life being presented as a blessing in contrast to death in the midst of days as a disaster and a judgment (Psa 102:23 f; Isa 65:20). But all this is not contrary to the idea that death is a consequence of, and a punishment for, sin. Daily, everyone who agrees with Scripture that death is held out as a punishment for sin, speaks in the same way. Death, though come into the world through sin, is nevertheless at the same time a consequence of man’s physical and frail existence now; it could therefore be threatened as a punishment to man, because he was taken out of the ground and was made a living soul, of the earth earthy (Gen 2:7; 1Co 15:45, 1Co 15:47). If he had remained obedient, he would not have returned to dust (Gen 3:19), but have pressed forward on the path of spiritual development (1Co 15:46, 1Co 15:51); his return to dust was possible simply because he was made from dust (see ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT). Thus, although death is in this way a consequence of sin, yet a long life is felt to be a blessing and death a disaster and a judgment, above all when man is taken away in the bloom of his youth or the strength of his years. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the manner in which Scripture speaks about death; we all express ourselves daily in the same way, though we at the same time consider it as the wages of sin. Beneath the ordinary, everyday expressions about death lies the deep consciousness that it is unnatural and contrary to our innermost being.

2. The Meaning of Death

This is decidedly expressed in Scripture much more so even than among ourselves. For we are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea, that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness, and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man dies, when in death the spirit (Psa 146:4; Ecc 12:7), or soul (Gen 35:18; 2Sa 1:9; 1Ki 17:21; Jon 4:3), goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to the nether-world; therefore the Old Testament can speak of a death of one’s soul (Gen 37:21 (Hebrew); Num 23:10 m; Deu 22:21; Jdg 16:30; Job 36:14; Psa 78:50), and of defilement by coming in contact with a dead body (Lev 19:28; Lev 21:11; Lev 22:4; Num 5:2; Num 6:6; Num 9:6; Num 19:10; Deu 14:1; Hag 2:13). This death of man is not annihilation, however, but a deprivation of all that makes for life on earth. The Sheol (sh^e’ōl) is in contrast with the land of the living in every respect (Job 28:13; Pro 15:24; Eze 26:20; Eze 32:23); it is an abode of darkness and the shadow of death (Job 10:21, Job 10:22; Psa 88:12; Psa 143:3), a place of destruction, yea destruction itself (Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Job 31:12; Psa 88:11; Pro 27:20), without any order (Job 10:22), a land of rest, of silence, of oblivion (Job 3:13, Job 3:17, Job 3:18; Psa 94:17; Psa 115:17), where God and man are no longer to be seen (Isa 38:11), God no longer praised or thanked (Psa 6:5; Psa 115:17), His perfections no more acknowledged (Psa 88:10-13; Isa 38:18, Isa 38:19), His wonders not contemplated (Psa 88:12), where the dead are unconscious, do no more work, take no account of anything, possess no knowledge nor wisdom, neither have any more a portion in anything that is done under the sun (Ecc 9:5, Ecc 9:6, Ecc 9:10). The dead (“the Shades” the Revised Version, margin; compare article DECEASED) are asleep (Job 26:5; Pro 2:18; Pro 9:18; Pro 21:6; Psa 88:11; Isa 14:9), weakened (Isa 14:10) and without strength (Psa 88:4).

3. Light in the Darkness

The dread of death was felt much more deeply therefore by the Israelites than by ourselves. Death to them was separation from all that they loved, from God, from His service, from His law, from His people, from His land, from all the rich companionship in which they lived. But now in this darkness appears the light of the revelation of salvation from on high. The God of Israel is the living God and the fountain of all life (Deu 5:26; Jos 3:10; Psa 36:9). He is the Creator of heaven and earth, whose power knows no bounds and whose dominion extends over life and death (Deu 32:39; 1Sa 2:6; Psa 90:3). He gave life to man (Gen 1:26; Gen 2:7), and creates and sustains every man still (Job 32:8; Job 33:4; Job 34:14; Psa 104:29; Ecc 12:7). He connects life with the keeping of His law and appoints death for the transgression of it (Gen 2:17; Lev 18:5; Deu 30:20; Deu 32:47). He lives in heaven, but is present also by His spirit in Sheol (Psa 139:7, Psa 139:8). Sheol and Abaddon are open to Him even as the hearts of the children of men (Job 26:6; Job 38:17; Pro 15:11). He kills and makes alive, brings down into Sheol and raises from thence again (Deu 32:39; 1Sa 2:6; 2Ki 5:7). He lengthens life for those who keep His commandments (Exo 20:12; Job 5:26), gives escape from death, can deliver when death menaces (Psa 68:20; Isa 38:5; Jer 15:20; Dan 3:26), can take Enoch and Elijah to Himself without dying (Gen 5:24; 2Ki 2:11), can restore the dead to life (1Ki 17:22; 2Ki 4:34; 2Ki 13:21). He can even bring death wholly to nothing and completely triumph over its power by rising from the dead (Job 14:13-15; Job 19:25-27; Hos 6:2; Hos 13:14; Isa 25:8; Isa 26:19; Eze 37:11, Eze 37:12; Dan 12:2).

4. Spiritual Significance

This revelation by degrees rejects the old contrast between life on earth and the disconsolate existence after death, in the dark place of Sheol, and puts another in its place. The physical contrast between life and death gradually makes way for the moral and spiritual difference between a life spent in the fear of the Lord, and a life in the service of sin. The man who serves God is alive (Gen 2:17); life is involved in the keeping of His commandments (Lev 18:5; Deu 30:20); His word is life (Deu 8:3; Deu 32:47). Life is still for the most part understood to mean length of days (Pro 2:18; Pro 3:16; Pro 10:30; Isa 65:20). Nevertheless it is remarkable that Prov often mentions death and Sheol in connection with the godless (Pro 2:18; Pro 5:5; Pro 7:27; Pro 9:18), and on the other hand only speaks of life in connection with the righteous. Wisdom, righteousness, the fear of the Lord is the way of life (Pro 8:35, Pro 8:36; Pro 11:19; Pro 12:28; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27; Pro 19:23). The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death (Pro 14:32). Blessed is he who has the Lord for his God (Deu 33:29; Psa 1:1, Psa 1:2; Psa 2:12; Psa 32:1, Psa 32:2; Psa 33:12; Psa 34:9, etc.); he is comforted in the greatest adversity (Psa 73:25-28; Hab 3:17-19), and sees a light arise for him behind physical death (Gen 49:18; Job 14:13-15; Job 16:16-21; Job 19:25-27; Psa 73:23-26). The godless on the contrary, although enjoying for a time much prosperity, perish and come to an end (Psa 1:4-6; Psa 73:18-20; Isa 48:22; Mal 4:3, etc.).

The righteous of the Old Testament truly are continually occupied with the problem that the lot of man on earth often corresponds so little to his spiritual worth, but he strengthens himself with the conviction that for the righteous it will be well, and for the wicked, ill (Ecc 8:12, Ecc 8:13; Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11). If they do not realize it in the present, they look forward to the future and hope for the day in which God’s justice will extend salvation to the righteous, and His anger will be visited on the wicked in judgment. So in the Old Testament the revelation of the new covenant is prepared wherein Christ by His appearance hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Ti 1:10). See ABOLISH. This everlasting life is already here on earth presented to man by faith, and it is his portion also in the hour of death (Joh 3:36; Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26). On the other hand, he who lives in sin and is disobedient to the Son of God, is in his living dead (Mat 8:22; Luk 15:32; Joh 3:36; Joh 8:24; Eph 2:1; Col 2:13); he shall never see life, but shall pass by bodily death into the second death (Rev 2:11; Rev 20:6, Rev 20:14; Rev 21:8).

5. Death in Non-Christian Religions and in Science

This view of Scripture upon death goes much deeper than that which is found in other religions, but it nevertheless receives support from the unanimous witness of humanity with regard to its unnaturalness and dread. The so-called nature-peoples even feel that death is much more of an enigma than life; Tiele (Inleiding tot de goddienst-artenschap, II (1900), 202, referring to Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology, chapter xiii) says rightly, that all peoples have the conviction that man by nature is immortal, that immortality wants no proof, but that death is a mystery and must be explained. Touching complaints arise in the hearts of all men on the frailty and vanity of life, and the whole of mankind fears death as a mysterious power. Man finds comfort in death only when he hopes it will be an end to a still more miserable life. Seneca may be taken as interpreter of some philosophers when he says: Stultitia est timore morris mori (“It is stupid to die through the fear of death”) and some may be able, like a Socrates or a Cato, to face death calmly and courageously; what have these few to say to the millions, who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb 2:15)? Such a mystery has death remained up to the present day. It may be said with Kassowitz, Verworm and others that the “cell” is the beginning, and the old, gray man is the natural end of an uninterrupted life-development, or with Metschnikoff, that science will one day so lengthen life that it will fade away like a rose at last and death lose all its dread; death still is no less a riddle, and one which swallows up all the strength of life. When one considers, besides, that a number of creatures, plants, trees, animals, reach a much higher age than man; that the larger half of mankind dies before or shortly after birth; that another large percentage dies in the bloom of youth or in the prime of life; that the law of the survival of the fittest is true only when the fact of the survival is taken as a proof of their fitness; that the graybeards, who, spent and decrepit, go down to the grave, form a very small number; then the enigma of death increases more and more in mysteriousness. The endeavors to bring death into connection with certain activities of the organism and to explain it by increasing weight, by growth or by fertility, have all led to shipwreck. When Weismann took refuge in the immortality of the “einzellige Protozoën,” he raised a hypothesis which not only found many opponents, but which also left mortality of the “Körperplasma” an insoluble mystery (Beth, Ueber Ursache und Zweck des Todes, Glauben und Wissen (1909), 285-304, 335-348). Thus, science certainly does not compel us to review Scripture on this point, but rather furnishes a strong proof of the mysterious majesty of death. When Pelagius, Socinus, Schleiermacher, Ritschl and a number of other theologians and philosophers separate death from its connection with sin, they are not compelled to do so by science, but are led by a defective insight into the relation between éthos and phúsiš. Misery and death are not absolutely always consequences and punishment of a great personal transgression (Luk 13:2; Joh 9:3); but that they are connected with sin, we learn from the experience of every day. Who can number the victims of mammonism, alcoholism and licentiousness? Even spiritual sins exercise their influence on corporal life; envy is a rottenness of the bones (Pro 14:30). This connection is taught us in a great measure by Scripture, when it placed the not yet fallen man in a Paradise, where death had not yet entered, and eternal life was not yet possessed and enjoyed; when it sends fallen man, who, however, is destined for redemption, into a world full of misery and death; and at last assigns to the wholly renewed man a new heaven and a new earth, where death, sorrow, crying or pain shall no longer exist (Rev 21:4).

Finally, Scripture is not the book of death, but of life, of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It tells us, in oft-repeated and unmistakable terms, of the dreaded reality of death, but it proclaims to us still more loudly the wonderful power of the life which is in Christ Jesus. See also DECEASE.

See Life and Death.

In Judaism, death is not a tragedy, even when it occurs early in life or through unfortunate circumstances. Death is a natural process. See Life, Death and Mourning.

Rom 7:13 (a) This describes the effect of wickedness and sinfulness upon the natural human heart and soul in the sight of GOD. Our sinful natures in our natural state send up sins, trespasses, transgressions, evils, wickedness and iniquities until they form a thick, dark cloud between the soul and GOD. (See Isa 44:22).

Rom 8:6 (a) Here we see the result of setting the mind on the things of earth so that it cannot receive nor comprehend the things of Heaven.

2Co 4:12 (a) Paul uses the word here in order to describe the crushing and destructive effects of persecution and prosecution of his own life.

1Jn 3:14 (a) This describes the state of being unsaved and without eternal life. (See also under "DEAD").

Rev 20:14 (a) The first death is the death of the body because of which the person cannot longer enjoy the earthly blessings of life. This second death is called by that name because the body and the soul have at the Great White Throne been brought before GOD for a final judgment. The individual is taken away from this short appearance in GOD’s presence to be eternally and forever shut out of ever seeking GOD again.

Here are some references to death as used in the Scriptures:

Dead to sin - Rom 6:2

Dead with CHRIST - Rom 6:8.

Dead in sin - Eph 2:1

Dead to the world - Gal 6:14.

Dead to GOD - Luk 9:60

Dead works - Heb 6:1.

Dead to this life - Rom 5:12 Heb 9:14.

Paul said "I die daily" 1Co 15:31. By this he was showing that he himself was fulfilling Rom 6:11. The meaning of all of this evidently is that the believer in CHRIST JESUS takes his place with CHRIST in His rejection from the world, and identifies himself with this rejected Lord. He does not now take part in, nor love, the things that this world offers to the unsaved.

The Bible teaches that human death is a result of sin (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12). God does not desire death for those he created in his image. Death is therefore the enemy of God as well as the enemy of the human race (1Co 15:26; Heb 2:15).

Results of Adam’s sin

Physical and spiritual death are not completely separate. When sin entered the world through Adam, it changed everything. All human life is now affected by the certainty of death (Rom 5:12-17). This involves physical death and spiritual death. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that the work of Christ, which reverses the effects of sin, brings the gift of spiritual life now (Rom 6:23) and in the end will bring victory even over physical death (1Co 15:21-22; 1Co 15:44-45).

Some may think that since human beings are creatures of the natural world, physical death is inevitable. After all, death was apparently part of the world of nature before Adam sinned – leaves fell off trees, fruit was picked, and animals lived by eating other forms of life (Gen 2:15-16; Gen 3:1). But it is not death in general that is the result of Adam’s sin; it is human death. The truth that the Bible emphasizes is that human beings are not merely creatures of the natural world like the other animals. They are related to God in a way that makes them different from all other created things. They are unique, for they are made in God’s image (Gen 1:27).

If physical death were merely the end of existence, people would have no need to fear it. The reason they fear it is their awareness that, when they die, they do not escape the consequences of his sin, but go to face them (Heb 9:27; see also SHEOL).

It has been suggested that, before Adam and Eve sinned, the spiritual life within them was so dominant that it prevented the natural physical deterioration that we today might expect. But when sin overcame them, it so changed human life that the spirit no longer had control over the body, and physical deterioration resulted. Physical death was at the same time completely natural and completely the result of sin (Gen 3:19 b). Physical effort and bodily functions that should have brought pleasure brought pain and hardship instead (Gen 3:16-19).

There is no need to imagine the chaos of an over-populated world had human beings never sinned and no one ever died. It is death, not the termination of earthly existence, that is the enemy; and it is sin that makes death so hateful (1Co 15:26; 1Co 15:55-56). There are examples to suggest that God could readily have brought a person’s earthly existence to an end without the person having to pass through death (Gen 5:24; 2Ki 2:11; 1Co 15:51; Heb 11:5; cf. Act 1:9).

Present experience; future victory

The Bible uses the picture of an evil ruler to denote both death and the devil. Death is a sphere in which the devil rules (Heb 2:15). All people, being sinners, are slaves of sin and therefore under its power (Rom 5:14). They are not free to decide whether they will die or not. Physically they are condemned to death, and spiritually they are dead already (Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5; Col 2:13; 1Jn 3:14). They are so under the dominion of death that their tendency towards sin is itself called death (Rom 7:24; Rom 8:6; Rom 8:10). Sin cannot exist without death as its consequences (Rom 6:16; Rom 6:21; Rom 7:5; Rom 7:13; Jas 1:15). To continue in sin is to continue in death; for sinners are in the sphere of death till they are saved out of it (Rom 8:23; 1Co 15:54).

Although this connection between sin and death may seem natural and inevitable, it can be broken. People are not the helpless victims of mechanical laws, but the subjects of divine compassion. The same God who sends death as sin’s penalty can give life as his gift (Rom 6:23).

Through the death of Jesus Christ, God has completely dealt with sin and death. Jesus died in the place of sinners to take away their sin and deliver them from the sphere of death (Rom 6:9-10; 2Co 5:21; Heb 2:9; Heb 2:14; 1Pe 2:24). Satan uses death to bind people in fear, but God uses death to release them from Satan’s power. Christ came to conquer death, and he did this by means of his own death. All who by faith belong to Christ share the benefits of that death (Rom 6:3-8; 2Co 5:14; Col 2:12-15). All who refuse Christ die in their sins, and so ensure for themselves an unalterable destiny that the Bible calls eternal destruction, outer darkness, the lake of fire and the second death (Mat 8:12; Mat 25:46; Joh 8:24; Rev 20:14; see HELL).

Christ’s saving work means that believers need no longer fear death. They know that one day it will be destroyed (Rom 6:9; 1Co 15:26; 1Co 15:54-57; Rev 2:11; Rev 20:6; Rev 21:4). Although they still live in the sphere of death’s influence, they have already passed out of death into life. They are free from the law of sin and death (Joh 5:24; Rom 8:2; 2Ti 1:10; 1Jn 3:14). Like other people, they may experience physical death, but they will never die in the sense that really matters (Joh 11:25-26; see HEAVEN).

The word "death" is used in two main ways in the Bible. First, it is used to describe the cessation of life. Second, death is used in reference to the lost. This refers to their eternal separation from God as a result of sin (Isa 59:2), in a conscious state of damnation without hope (1Th 4:13; Rev 20:10; Rev 20:14-15).

Death to humans is unnatural. When God created Adam and Eve, death was not part of the created order. It was not until they sinned that death entered the scene (Rom 5:12; Rom 6:23). Death will be destroyed when Christ returns and the believers receive their resurrected bodies.