Spiritual Death

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die,” -Genesis 2:16-17

For many years when I heard with verse, I didn’t understand this verse. Well I thought “They didn’t die. So what’s the big deal.” I didn’t understand what it meant to be “spiritually dead.”

Everyone should want to know what it means to be spiritually dead. Due to the fall of Adam and Eve, sin and death entered a previously perfect and pristine world (Romans 5;12). This death was not merely physical but spiritual. We were all both after the fall inherited a sinful nature and therefore spiritually stillborn (Psalm 51:5). To be spiritually dead does not mean to be without the faculties of intellect or affection of will. Our minds, emotions, and will still function, but they are cut off from the life of God. In fact, they are bend and turned away from God (Isaiah 53:6).

Spiritual death is best understood as the alienation or separation of our souls from God. Sin separates us from God, which is the source and fountain of spiritual life and light (Ephesians 2:12). If you are spiritually dead you sit in darkness and in the shadow of death (Luke 1:79). Because God is holy and sin is an offense to God, our spiritual death is not an amicable separation, but a hostile one (Roman’s 8:7-8). Scripture describes the spiritually dead as enemies to God (Romans 5:10, Romans 3:23), therefore the spiritually dead are cursed and condemned for failing to keep God’s law (Galatians 3:10) and await God’s wrath (Romans 2:5). They are, in fact, dead men walking.

To be spiritually dead means to be insensible to the things of God and ignorant of spiritual realities (1 Corinthians 2:14). A spiritually dead person does not love God and cannot please God (Romans 8:8). If fact, they want to only please themselves, not God (Philippians 2;21). They may appear to do good deeds from an external perspective that conform to the letters of the law. However, these deeds do not conform to the spirit law, I compare these people to the Pharisees and the Sadducees of Jesus’s times. The conform to the law but their hearts are dead. They are not motivated by a desire to please and glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31). The spiritually dead can look beautiful on the outside and on the inside be filled with death, like whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27-28).

Scripture gives us a pretty clear picture of what it means to be spiritually dead -separated from God, hostile to God, cursed and condemned by God’s law, insensible and ignorant of God’s love. It’s not pretty at all.

Thankfully, God had not left us in this state of spiritual death. Because of His great love for us, He sent His Son, Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life, into this dark and deadly world to die for us (Romans 5:8, John 11:25). Ephesians 2:1-7 says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air (Satan). The spirit that is now at work in the people of disobedience.

It is true that Jesus defeated Satan, And He is still defeated. When God kicked him out he was running, but all the while he was and is saying “I still have a mouth.” As with Eve in the Garden of Eden, she listened to Satan, she was deceived by his words. Today it is the same, Satan has no power over us, unless we choose to listen to him.

When I was growing up every time someone got into trouble they would say “The devil made me do it!” No, they listened to the devil and chose to do it.

When we choose to sin, we chose to listen to Satan’s lying lips. And chose to obey him instead of God.

I never really thought about it that way until today. Every time I choose to sin, I choose to obey Satan and choose to live as a spiritually dead person.

When Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for us He reversed the effects of sin and death. He broke down the wall of separation between us and God and killed the hostility that existed by offering Himself as a peace offering (Ephesians 2:23-19). Jesus cured the curse of the law and death by taking the condemnation we deserved (Galatians 3:13). Those who receive Him by faith are freed and empowered to walk-in joyful obedience to God. We are no longer under the curse of the spiritually dead.