This is an answer to Devil's Advocate's
Message 396 from the Arizona thread where we had gone off topic. Since it looks like it may continue for a while it seemed best to move it to a new thread.
Faith writes:
Only because of the Fall, but it [death] was not a part of the original Creation.
DA writes:
You even admitted that plants dies before Adam's fall. So death did exist for some of creation before the Fall.
As I also said, plants are not regarded as living OR dying in scripture as animals and humanity are, so you are imposing a contemporary definition on scripture. Plants are food in scripture, period.
[In relation to a particular scripture verse I'll have to retrieve] You are adding the "spiritual" to limit it to "spiritual death" but the normal reading is physical death. It includes spiritual death just as eternal life also includes the resurrected body.
I am not limiting it to spiritual death per se, so much as making emphasis that spiritual death is much more eternally consequential than physical death. And I think that is the intent of this scripture as well.
You specifically and rather emphatically interpreted that scripture as "spiritual death" which is consistent with your claim that Adam only died a spiritual death as a result of the Fall, while his physical death was normal and inevitable and unrelated to the Fall, as if God had created us all with physical death as part of our life. Although you are not keeping this as clear as it should be, sometimes leaving it vague enough for me to keep stumbling over your terminology, this as I understand it is the crux of our disagreement.
This is not the same thing as saying that "spiritual death is much more eternally consequential than physical death" with which I could agree, but I don't agree that physical death was in any way a natural part of God's creation, but that it entered as a result of the Fall, as did spiritual death, in fact the death of the whole being, and of the whole Creation. Your exception of plants is not scriptural.
Look at this section of the Bible in context. Paul says in Romans 6:19-23
Romans 6:19 writes:
I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
What kind of death is he talking about? A spiritual death, a spiritual separation from God. Everyone dies a physical death, so it is evident he is not talking about a physical death here. Paul is saying that we need to die to our sins, so that we may live eternally with God without being spiritually separated from Him.
For starters everyone is BORN into spiritual death because of the Fall, and only if redeemed by Christ do we begin to regain the spiritual life which Adam lost, which also eventuated in his physical death, which he also bequeathed to us as a result of his sin. You are making the usual unnecessary and misleading distinction. Sin is spiritual death but it's artificial to limit its effects to the spirit. Disease of the body is a process of death, there is no other way to describe it in the context of scripture and the Fall. One reason diseases such as leprosy set people apart from the people of God as "unclean" and that physical deformity even in an animal made that animal unusable for sacrifice, is that disease represents the bodily consequences of sin. We are not spiritually astute enough to see the cause and effect in most cases but there is no way that disease or physical death is a natural process that was built into the Creation. Physical infirmities and death are all the consequence of the Fall. Yes it starts with spiritual death, but physical death is a major consequence of sin. And we fallen human beings hardly even feel our spiritual condition anyway, but we DO feel disease and death and that's why scripture speaks of always living under the fear of death, and it certainly doesn't mean fear of *spiritual* death because due to the Fall we don't have the faculties to fear that. But it is our lot as fallen sinful creatures to fear physical death. Only Christ can free us from that fear. O death where is your sting? We don't experience the sting of spiritual death.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Eternal life after our physical bodies have died a physical death.
Yes, our bodies having become thoroughly corrupted by sin.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The wages of sin is eternal separation from God aka spiritual death. The gift of God for those in Christ is eternal life of our souls/heavenly body.
The wages of sin can include disease which is part of physical death. Physical death is ALWAYS implied even where spiritual death is the main subject and the most important.
Even Charles Spurgeon who you recognize as a respected theologian discusses spiritual death in his Novermber 1, 1885 sermon in relation to the Romans 6:23 passage.
Charles Spurgeon in "Death and Life The Wage and the Gift"
http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols31-33/chs1868.pdf writes:
To set forth this terrible fact, I shall make a few observations. First, death is the natural result of all sin. When man acts according to God’s order, he lives, but when he breaks his Maker’s laws, he wrecks himself and does that which causes death. The Lord warned Adam thusIn the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. Dying does not mean ceasing to exist, for Adam did not cease to exist, nor do those who die. The term, death, conveys to me no such idea as that of ceasing to exist, or how could I understand that word in 1 John 3:14He that loves not his brother abides in death? How could a man abide in annihilation? A grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, but it does not cease to be! No, rather, it brings forth much fruit.
That Adam did die in the day when he ate of that fruit is certain, or else the Lord spoke not the truth. His nature was wrecked and ruined by separation from God and by a fall from that condition which constitutes the true life of man.
When any man commits sin, he dies to holiness and purity. No transgression is venial, but every sin is mortal and genders death...
All desire after God and all delight in Him die out where sin reigns. Death is the separation of the soul from God.
Alas, this death has passed upon all men!
...
Since sin as naturally brings spiritual death upon men as fire brings burning, death is spoken of as the wages of sin
But the problem in all this is that it is basically a straw man argument -- IF you are claiming that I've said ONLY physical death is the result of the Fall. I have not denied spiritual death at all ever anywhere in this discussion, but you have denied that physical death is the result of sin and the Fall. THAT is what this discussion is about. There is no need to convince me of the importance of spiritual death, but physical death is always the end result of this physical life for all humanity due to sin, and that is implied in all the discussions of death even where spiritual death is the focus.
The point of most interest in relation to this discussion appears to be this:
However, we also know that sin has brought physical death into the world. When Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, they eventually died physically. Sin, which is breaking the law of God (1 John 3:4), brings both physical (Rom. 5:12) and spiritual death (Isaiah 59:2). So, Romans 6:23 can legitimately be interpreted to include both spiritual and physical death when it speaks of "the wages of sin."
If sin brings both physical and spiritual death, then the Fall brought both physical and spiritual death, as I've been saying. Since you posted this link maybe you are no longer claiming that the Fall did NOT bring physical death? Or what?
In context it is WE who are putting to death our deeds through the Spirit, not Christ.
I concur and believe we are saying the same thing here.
But you equated putting to death the deeds of the body with Christ's salvation, so I am answering you here. The reference is not to His salvation but to our obligation through the Spirit.
We will be CHANGED, scripture says, not that we will "lose" our bodies but that they will be glorified and perfected.
Ok, "lose" is probably not the most ideal word to use here. Transformed or changed is a better word.
OK.
The only point is that they WILL be bodies, we will not be disembodied spirits, like angels or demons and ghosts. Jesus made a point of emphasizing that.
I concur they will bodies but not flawed physical, mortal bodies.Also, angels and demons had bodies as well, though not physical, mortal ones.
We probably don't need to discuss this and I don't know how much information we could glean from scripture about it anyway, but I think our condition as human beings, including our physical bodies in their transformed condition, is unique in God's Creation.
So we agree on that much. What we disagree about is that Christ's death redeemed our physical bodies from death which came upon us because of sin at the Fall,
He redeemed our immortal souls not our physical mortal bodies per se.
Well I never meant to say "per se," only that He DID redeem our physical bodies. Why else did He need to become "incarnate" which means embodied, in human form? So He could redeem our entire being both spiritual and physical which was ALL corrupted at the Fall, and die the death both physical [rather brutally in His case] and spiritual ["My God My God why have You forsaken Me?] The whole point of His physical death was to redeem our sin-corrupted BODIES, which isn't to say that was ALL He died to redeem of our human nature.
I don't see where you conclude that Jesus redeemed our physical mortal bodies.
See above.
Our physical bodies will decay into the ground will it not? Unless your body is mummified or somehow preserved, a human body even in a casket will decompose to bones within a matter of years and bones will decompose to dust in several hundred years in a casket. So it will be a miraculous occurrence by God to raise our physical bodies from the dead , since many of these physical bodies no longer exist in physical bodily form. I am not saying God is not going to transform our bodies, I believe he will, but I don't see this as entirely the redemption being talked about. The emphasis of salvation is on the state of our immortal soul in our glorified bodies in heaven.
When you use terms like "entirely the redemption being talked about" you distort the point I'm trying to make. I'm not limiting the Fall to our physical death nor the redemption to the salvation of the body, nowhere near such an idea; He died to redeem our whole fallen human nature. However, about the physical body, there would have been no need to redeem our bodies if they had not died as a result of sin. This story is all about SIN AND REDEMPTION, which includes body, soul and spirit all in one. He is resurrecting our soul and spirit as soon as we believe and trust in Him, our bodies will be resurrected at the very end, even rise from the grave which scripture describes of the first of those to be raptured.
Further, those who are in Christ who have died a physical death are in heaven as we speak, are they not.
Yes, and as disembodied spirits in this interim phase before the complete resurrection I believe.
Luke 23:43 writes:
Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
Just some things to think about and contemplate.
Again, you seem to be imputing to me a straw man notion that says ONLY physical death was the result of the Fall and ONLY physical life the result of Christ's salvation. Not true.
But it does seem that YOUR argument is that ONLY spiritual death was the result of the Fall and ONLY spiritual life the result of Christ's salvation, with the resurrection of the body just a sort of meaningless bonus gift from God or something like that.
BTW, I know this is off-subject. I am willing to move this to another thread if desired.
Done.
Edited by Faith, : to add links and comment to link.
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