Meaning of DEATH

In the ordinary sense: cessation of life. It did not enter into the will of God, who created man in his image, and who made him a "living soul." In paradise, the tree of life would have allowed him to live eternally (Gen. 1:27; 2:7; 3:22).

Death has been the wages of disobedience to divine command (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:12; 6:23). Death is physical, since our body returns to dust (Gen. 3:19); It is also, and above all, spiritual.

Since his fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of God's presence and deprived of his fellowship (Gen. 3:22-24). Since then, sinners are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1).

The prodigal son, separated from his father's home, is spiritually dead (Lk. 15:24). This is the reason why the sinner needs the regeneration of the soul and the resurrection of the body.

Jesus insists on the need for every man to be born again (John 3:3-8); He explains that the passage from spiritual death to eternal life is carried out by the action of the Holy Spirit and is received by faith (Jn. 5:24; 6:63).

This resurrection of our inner being is produced by the miracle of the baptism of the Spirit (Col. 2:12-13). He who consents to lose his life and be resurrected with Christ is fully alive with Him (Rom. 6:4, 8, 13).

(a) After physical death: (A) It is a horrible thing for the wicked to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31) and appear before judgment (Heb. 9:27) without any preparation (Lk. 12: 16-21).

The sinner may seem unpunished for a long time (Ps. 73:3-20), but his final fate shows that "the Lord will laugh at him because he sees his day coming" (Ps. 37:13). He who has not accepted God's forgiveness will die in his sins (cf. Jn. 8:24).

Jesus teaches, in the story of the wicked rich man, that, from the very moment of death, the wicked is in a place of torment, in full possession of his conscience and memory, separated by an impassable abyss from the place of happiness. eternal, unable to help, and held totally responsible for the warnings of the Scriptures and/or natural Revelation and the testimony of his own conscience (Lk. 16:19-31; Rom. 1:18-21 ff.) . (See SHEL, HADES.)

(B) For the believer there is no spiritual death (separation from God). He has received eternal life,
having passed, by faith, from death to life (John 5:24). Jesus affirmed: «I am the resurrection and the life; He who believes in me, even though he is dead, he will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will not die forever” (John 11:25-26; cf. John 8:51; 10:28).

From the very moment of his death, the beggar Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom (Lk. 16:22, 25). Paul could say, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." For him to leave to be with Christ is much better (Phil. 1:21-23).

It is for this reason that "we would rather be absent from the body, and present to the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:2-9). A more complete victory over death cannot be imagined, pending the glorious resurrection of the body (see RESURRECTION).

Thus, the Spirit can solemnly affirm: “Blessed are the dead from now on who die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13).

(b) The second death. In contrast to the joyful certainty of the believer, recapitulated above, is an expectation of judgment, and of boiling fire, which is to devour the adversaries.

The action of natural conscience instills fear and anguishing uncertainty in the unconverted. Shakespeare expressed it masterfully in his Hamlet soliloquy, in which he considers the possibility of suicide; «Die: sleep; no more; and with sleep, to say that we put an end to the burdens and misfortunes, to the thousands of natural setbacks to which the flesh is heir, this is an end to be eagerly desired.

Die: sleep; sleep: perhaps dream; Ah, there is the difficult point!; for in this dream of death what dreams can come when we have thrown off this mortal garment? This should restrain us: there is the respect that makes us bear the calamity of such a life, for who would endure the scourges and scorns of time, the evils of the oppressor, the arrogance of the proud, the pain for despised love, the slowness of justice, the insolence of the potentates, and the disdain that provokes the patient merit of the humble, when he himself can, with a naked dagger, achieve rest? Who would carry heavy burdens, groaning and sweating under a weary life, but for the fact of the fear of something after death, the unexplored country from whose docks no traveler returns, and which makes us prefer those evils that we now have, than flying to others about whom we know nothing? Thus, conscience makes cowards of all of us, and thus the beginning of a resolution is stopped by the pale cloak of reflection" (Act III, Scene 1).

Thus, the "horrendous expectation of judgment, and the burning of fire that will devour the adversaries" (Heb. 10:27) refers to the second death, that which awaits the unrepentant after the final judgment.

This second death is in the Scriptures a synonym for hell. Twice in Revelation it is stated that the lake of fire is the second death (Rev. 20:14; 21:8). In this lake of fire the unrepentant, raised again to life in their bodies, but without admission to glory, will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Rev. 14:10-11; 20:10).

That is why it is about “suffering harm from the second death” (Rev. 2:11). The fact remains that the grace of the Lord does not desire the death of the sinner, but rather his salvation. Thus, Scripture insists on numerous occasions: "I do not desire the death of him who dies... repent, and you will live" (Ex. 18:23, 31-32).