Three Kinds of Death

Waking up each day feeling so alive, vibrant, and full of hope...we walk (or even run) through life with determination and zest for life. We enjoy every moment with our friends, family, and within our self we build our dreams. As years past, perhaps some of us may conclude that we had lived life to the fullest...or did we really live?

   Solomon as King of Israel should have written about a life well spent, he is considered the wisest man that ever lived, no one can compare to the wealth of his kingdom during his reign, even Jesus acknowledge the fact that Solomon had the best garment for Christ's compared these collections to the abundance of the earth's field. BUT in Ecclesiastes as a sort of the king's diaries of observation he concluded that life is "meaningless" or also rendered as vanity.

    The last chapter of Ecclesiastes will tell us why...Solomon noted that life is meaningless without God. The true giver of life....and what is this life? That we shall explore by understanding what are deaths. That is in plural because the Bible speaks of 3 kinds of death. 

1 Thessalonians 5:23-25 (English Standard Version)
 ²³Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
 ²⁵ Brothers, pray for us.

   Reading the verses above lead us to the realization that we are tripartite in nature: Spirit, soul, and body. The physical person is Our Body and this is compose of visible materials, including skin, hair, bones, and blood. Next, Our soul is often considered to be our emotions, intellect and will...it is referred to in the scripture as "the inward man"  (2 Cor. 4:16), or “the hidden man of the heart” (1 Pet. 3:4). On the other hand, The spirit is a person who is made of spiritual material, rather than physical material, just like angels, for example. The spirit has been described by some as the “real you.” Your spirit is eternal.

   Scripture makes reference also to three kinds of death: spiritual death, physical death, and the second death.  Physical death occurs when a person’s spirit departs from his body, and his body then ceases to function.  The second death (or eternal death) is referred to in Revelation 2:22; 20:6,14; 21:8, and is described as the time when unbelievers will be thrown into the lake of fire.   
   With this in mind we can better understand another kind of death of which the Bible speaks—spiritual death.

   For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.-- Romans 6:23

   Also known as inherited death spiritual death occur as a result of Man's disobedience to God. You see when a person disobey God, he commits sin...and sins leads to death...
   
   But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. — Gen 2:17
   Did God lied when He said they will "surely die" after eating the forbidden fruit? Of course NOT. As we read along the following chapters we have learned that Adam reach 130 years before he died (Gen. 5:5) So if something in them dies what was that? 


Being spiritually dead describes the condition of a human spirit which has not been born again by the Holy Spirit. A spiritually dead person has a spirit that is alienated from God, a spirit that possesses a sinful nature, a spirit that is, to some degree, joined to Satan. Ephesians 2:1-3 paints for us a picture of the spiritually dead person:

   And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

   Paul said the Ephesian Christians were dead in their trespasses and sins. Obviously he was not referring to physical death because he was writing to physically alive people. Therefore, he must have been saying that they were dead, spiritually speaking.

   What killed them, spiritually? It was their “trespasses and sins.” 
   Jesus when speaking to Nicodemus, an expert in Jewish Religion said: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." (John 3:3)

   Spiritually dead people, had walked in (or practiced) those trespasses and sins, following the “course of the world” (that is, doing what everyone else was doing) and following “the prince of the power of the air.”

   Who is “the prince of the power of the air”? He is Satan, who rules his dark domain as commander-in-chief over other evil spirits who inhabit the atmosphere. Those evil spirits are listed by various ranks in a later chapter of Ephesians (see Eph. 6:12).

   Paul said that dark prince is a “spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” The _expression, “sons of disobedience,” is just another description for all unbelievers which emphasizes that their nature is sinful. Paul later said that they “were by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3, emphasis added). Additionally, he said that Satan was working in them.

Made Alive in Christ

   Most people even Christians themselves considers that being born again is just a religious experience. To them it signifies only a renewed life, which is of course true to those who have committed their life to Jesus as it manifest clearly in their lives. But we must never neglect this truth that there is an actual re-birth taking place on the spiritual realm. 

Ephesians 2:1-3

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.


   Now instead of being slave to sin we are now slave to righteousness...

Romans 6:17-22

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

¹⁷ But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

 ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. ²² But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

   Now ask yourself this question: "Am I really alive?"