DEATH ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES SERIES – TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Intro and purpose. What death is not equal to.
- Death is not separation from God
- Death is not separation from the life of God
- There’s no such thing as “spiritual death”
- Death is not separation of soul from the body
- Death is not separation – summary
- Physical death is not annihilation
- Divine bio-engineering. How Jesus Christ solves the problem of death of fleshly bodies
- Death according to the Bible: lack of life, loss of life
DEATH IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO SEPARATION FROM GOD
Now, one might say, death in the Scripture means not just any kind of separation, but “separation from God”, specifically (there’s another definition, I will get to it later write-up). My question is then this: where exactly in the Scripture is death thus defined? At least one passage that doesn’t just state that as an implication (we saw above that it would be a very weak proof requiring us to make implicit assumptions to accommodate the statement), but that would define the two as equivalent. I personally couldn’t find any. Moreover, if death means “separation from God”, it has to bear out in all of the instances where the word “death” or its derivatives are used. If so, then let’s make our substitutions to see if the equivalence bears out:
Genesis 24:67
and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s separation from God
If anything, Isaac should have been grieved after that.
Genesis 25:11
And it came to pass, after the separation from God of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac.
Now we have Abraham and Sarah separated from God, instead of dead. Abraham was supposed to be the father of faith, and an example for us, actually.
Genesis 26:11
“So Abimelech charged all his people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to separation from God.”
Where did Abimelech get the medieval pope-like “powers” to separate people from God?
Genesis 27:7
Bring me game and make savory food for me, that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my separation from God
That sounds very ironic – bless you in the presence of the Lord before I am separated from God.
I am having a bit of fun with this here, but you see my point. Just keep going down starting from Genesis using a keyword search, and substitute “death” with “separation from God”, and you will quickly see how that doesn’t make any sense.
Terminal Salvation 
Comments on: "Death is not separation from God" (6)
I am reading this… laughing out loud (so tragic what the church has done) and reading your quotes and comments to my better half. haha ahhh.
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Reading through the whole set. Good stuff. One thing, words do have multiple meanings and not every meaning is applicable in every situation. Another things is that words can have different forms or facets like when Jairus’ daughter was dead, but Jesus declared she was merely sleeping. So if I am asleep, then am I dead? Or is everyone who is dead merely asleep?
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That’s a great question! She was physically dead (a common perspective), but metaphysically asleep (Jesus’s perspective). (Metaphysically the best word I came come up with, the word “spiritually” doesn’t fit here). Asleep simply means not fully and irreversibly dissolved, but rather temporarily incapacitated and unconscious as far as her bodily life. That was Jesus’ perspective on physical death – which is actually what makes resurrection from the dead possible in principle. Otherwise it would be recreation rather than resurrection.
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But the spirit does not cease to exist even when the body is “irreversibly dissolved” Even at that point, the body is made of atoms which still exist within creation and to reform those atoms into the human form they once had would not be recreation. Recreation could also be part of resurrection as the spirit man is not recreated, but simply returns to a carbon based host.
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Also, in pondering your words, Death could be something like the clinical definition where brain activity ceases. But from another perspective, a divorce could be a type or form of death. It is a death of a marriage or the death of a relationship. And the two could both be called death, but one could not interchange divorce for the cessation of brain activity and vice versa.
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Sorry, I am getting some of my replies crossed, the WordPress mobile app is not the most user-friendly. About divorce as type of death I answered in a different thread here.
Actually, for unborn again people spirit is not the carrier of their identity, as they are not in the spirit, but in the flesh. Their flesh decomposes, and the resulting particles eventually become parts of other things. So it could be that their life and identity is a matter of external record ( like a backup of a person saved in a storage facility ) rather than of intrinsic preservation.
Yes – in that sense you are absolutely right, resurrection IS part-recreation. Thats a great point – and so that’s another skill level to master for when the time comes for the sons of God to resurrect humankind under God’s direction and guidance.
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