Death
VIEW:48 DATA:01-04-2020
DEATH
I. In the OT.1. The Heb. term mâweth and our corresponding word death alike spring from primitive roots belonging to the very beginnings of speech. One of mans first needs was a word to denote that stark fact of experiencethe final cessation of life to which he and the whole animated creation, and the very trees and plants, were all subject. It is, of course, in this ordinary sense of the term as denoting a physical fact that the expressions death and die are mostly used in the Scriptures.
2. The Scriptures have nothing directly to say as to the place of death in the economy of nature. St. Pauls words in Rom_5:12 ff. as to the connexion between sin and death must be explained in harmony with this fact; and, for that matter, in harmony also with his own words in Rom_6:23, where death, the wages of sin, cannot be simply physical death. The Creation narratives are silent on this point, yet in Gen_2:17 man is expected to know what it is to die. We are not to look for exact information on matters such as this from writings of this kind. If the belief enshrined in the story of the Fall in Gen_3:1-24 regarded death in the ordinary sense as the penalty of Adam and Eves transgression, they at any rate did not die in the day of their transgression; v. 22 suggests that even then, could he but also eat of the tree of life, man might escape mortality. All we can say is that in the dawn of human history man appears as one already familiar with the correlative mysteries of life and death.
3. From the contemplation of the act of dying it is an easy step to the thought of death as a state or condition. This is a distinct stage towards believing in existence of some kind beyond the grave. And to the vast mass of mankind to say he is dead has never meant he is non-existent.
4. Divergent beliefs as to what the state of death is show themselves in the OT.(a) In numerous instances death is represented as a condition of considerable activity and consciousness. The dead are regarded as knowing ones, able to impart information and counsel to the living. Note, the term translated wizards in EV [Note: English Version.] in Lev_19:31; Lev_20:6, Isa_8:19; Isa_19:3 really denotes departed spirits who are sought unto or inquired of on behalf of the living. A vivid instance of this belief is furnished in the story of the Witch of En-dor (1Sa_28:1-25). So also in Isa_14:9-10, where we have a graphic description of the commotion caused in Sheol by the arrival of the king of Babylon, a description with which we may compare the dream of false Clarence in Shakespeares Rich. III., i. 4. The reference to the dead under the term gods (elôhim), as in 1Sa_28:13, is noticeable. Whether in all this we have a relic of ancient Semitic ancestor-worship (as e.g. Charles maintains in his Jowett Lectures on Eschatology) or no, it seems to represent very primitive beliefs which survived in one form and another, even after the stern Jahwistic prohibition of necromancy was promulgated. They may also have affected the treatment of the dead, just as even yet there are usages in existence amongst us in regard to behaviour towards the dead which are probably traceable to very primitive pre-Christian ideas and beliefs.
(b) Jahwism might well forbid resort to necromancers with their weird appeals to the dead for guidance and information, for in its view the state of death was one of unconsciousness, forgetfulness, and silence (see Psa_88:12; Psa_94:17; Psa_115:17 etc.). The present world is emphatically the land of the living (Psa_27:13; Psa_116:9 etc.). Those that are in Sheol have no communion with Jahweh; see the Song of Hezekiah in Isa_38:1-22, and elsewhere. Sheol appears inviting to a soul in distress because it is a realm of unconscious rest (Job_3:17 ff.); and there is nothing to be known or to be done there (Ecc_9:10). It is true that here and there glimpses of a different prospect for the individual soul show themselves (e.g. Job_19:25 ff. and probably Psa_16:10 f.); but the foregoing was evidently the prevalent view in a period when the individual was altogether subservient to the nation, and the religious concerns of the latter were rigorously limited to the present life.
(c) Other ideas of death as not terminating mans existence and interests were, however, reached in later prophetic teaching, mainly through the thought of the worth of the individual, the significance of his conscious union with God, and of the covenant relations established by God with His people (Jer_31:1-40; cf. Eze_18:1-32). Thou wilt not leave us in the dust.
5. Death as standing in penal relation to mans sin and unrighteousness is frequently insisted on. That this is something more than natural death is clear from such an antithesis as we have in Deu_30:15; Deu_30:19 (life and good: death and evil), and this set in strict relation to conduct. Cf. the burden of Eze_18:1-32, the soul that sinneth it shall die, with the correlative promise of life: similarly Pro_15:10. All this points to some experience in the man himself and to conditions outlasting the present life. On the other hand, the thought of dying the death of the righteous (Num_23:10) as a desirable thing looks in the same direction. And why has the righteous hope in his death (Pro_14:32)?
6. As minor matters, OT poetical uses of references to death may be merely pointed out. Chambers of death, Pro_7:27; gates, Psa_9:13 (= state); bitterness of death, 1Sa_15:32, Ecc_7:26; terrors, Psa_55:4; sorrows, Psa_116:3 (= mans natural dread); shadow of death, Job, Ps., the Prophets, passim (= any experience of horror and gloom, as well as with reference to death itself); the sleep of death, Psa_13:3 (to be distinguished from later Christian usage); snares of death, Prov. passim, etc. (= things leading to destruction); the phrase to death, as vexed unto death, Jdg_13:7; sick, 2Ki_20:1 (= to an extreme degree).
II. In the Apocrypha.The value of the Apocrypha in connexion with the study of Scriptural teaching and usage here is not to be overlooked. Notice e.g. Wisdom chs. 15, with its treatment of the attitude of the ungodly towards death (Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die), of the problem of the early, untimely death of the good, and of immortality in relation to the ungodly and the righteous; Sirach, in which no clear conception of immortality appears, the best that can be said, to alleviate sorrow for the dead, being that the dead is at rest (Sir_38:23): in which also the fear of death is spoken of as besetting all ranks of men (40), and we are told who they are to whom death comes as a dread foe, and again who may welcome death as a friend (41).
III. In the NT
1. The teaching of Jesus.
(a). It is noticeable that our Lord has nothing to say directly concerning death as a physical phenomenon. He offers no explanation touching those matters in the experience of death which have always excited the curiosity of men, and in this respect His attitude is in strong contrast with that found in Rabbinical writings. He makes no use of the conception of the angel of death, so characteristic of the latter, and traceable perhaps in language such as that of 1Co_15:26, Heb_2:14, and Rev_20:13-14.
(b) No stress is laid on death as an evil in itself. In the few stories which we have in the Gospels of His raising the dead to life, the raising is never represented as a deliverance and a good for the person brought back. Compassion for the sorrows of those bereaved is the prime motive: in the case of Lazarus, it is expressly added that the restoration was for the glory of God (Joh_11:4; Joh_11:40). Still, those aspects of death which make the living and active shrink from it are incidentally recognized. Jesus in Rabbinic phrase speaks of tasting death (Mar_9:1||) and of seeing death (Joh_8:51-52): and the feeling underlying such expressions is the very antithesis of that attaching to seeing life and seeing many days. Death is to common human feeling an unwelcome, though inevitable, draught. This gives point also to our Lords promise that the believer shall never die (Joh_11:26). At the same time, there is no reference in His teaching to natural death as the solemn end of lifes experiences and opportunities, unless an exception be found in the saying about working while it is day (Joh_9:4): but contrast with this as to tone a passage like Ecc_9:10.
(c) Jesus speaks of death as a sleep (Mar_5:39, Joh_11:11-13); but the same euphemistic use is found in OT and in extra-Biblical writers. It did not of itself necessarily lessen the terrors of death (see Psa_13:3); but we owe it to Christ and the Christian faith mainly that such a representation of death has come to mitigate its bitterness,such a use as is also found elsewhere in NT (e.g. 1Th_4:13 ff.). This conception of death is, of course, to be limited to its relation to the activities and interests of this world. It is a falling asleep after lifes dayand we sleep to wake: but there is nothing here to shed light on such questions as to whether that sleep is a prolonged period of unconsciousness or no.
(d) Natural death is lost sight of in the much larger and more solemn conception of the condition of man resulting from sin, which in the Fourth Gospel is particularly described as death (see Joh_5:24; Joh_6:50; Joh_8:21; Joh_8:24). The exemption and deliverance promised in Joh_11:25 f. relate to this spiritual death, and by that deliverance natural death is shorn of its real terrors. This condition, resulting from sin and separation from God, may he regarded as incipient here and tending to a manifest consummation hereafter, with physical death intervening as a moment of transition and deriving a solemn significance from its association with the course and state of sin (see Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ii. p. 56 f.). The corresponding language of 1 Ep. of John is not to be overlooked (1Jn_3:14) as exemplifying Johannine phraseology. The conception, however, is not found exclusively in the Johannine writings. Note the saying in Luk_9:60 as bearing on this point. In Mat_7:13 f. destruction is the antithesis of life (and cf. Mat_5:29 f., Mat_18:11, Mar_8:35, Joh_3:16 etc.); but the conception of perishing covers the deep experience of spiritual death, the loss of all that really makes the man.
(The phrase die the death in EV [Note: English Version.] , in Mar_7:10 and parallel, may be noticed as being not a literal translation of the Greek, but a mid-English emphatic expression, now archaic.)
2. The rest of the NT.We may notice the following points: (a) The Pauline doctrine that natural death is the primitive consequence of sin, already referred to, is to be explained as the common Jewish interpretation of the OT account of the Fall, and finds no direct support in the Gospels. The feeling that the sting of death is sin is, however, widely existent in NT. (b) The use of the term death as denoting a certain spiritual state in which men may live and he still destitute of all that is worth calling life, is quite common (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Eph_5:14, Col_2:13, 1Ti_5:6, Jam_1:15, Jud_1:12, Rev_3:1). (c) A mystical and figurative use of the notion of death as denoting the change from a sinful to a new life is noticeable. The believer, the man spiritually alive, is also dead to sin (Rom_6:2, 1Pe_2:24), is dead with Christ (Rom_6:8, Col_2:20 etc.). (d) The expression eternal death is found nowhere in NT, common as its use is in religious and theological language. It is the correlative, easily suggested by the expression eternal life which is so conspicuous a topic of NT teaching, and it serves loosely as an equivalent for the antitheses to life or eternal life that actually occur, such as destruction (Mat_7:13), the eternal fire (Mat_18:8), eternal punishment (Mat_25:46). Cf. also the second death in Rev_21:8. If we substitute for eternal some other rendering such as of the ages or æonian, it but serves to remind us of the profound difficulties attaching to the predication of eternity in relation to the subject of mans destiny or doom.
J. S. Clemens.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
The Bible teaches that human death is a result of sin (Gen_2:17; Rom_5:12). God does not desire death for those he created in his image. Death is therefore the enemy of God as well as the enemy of the human race (1Co_15:26; Heb_2:15).
Results of Adams sin
Physical and spiritual death are not completely separate. When sin entered the world through Adam, it changed everything. All human life is now affected by the certainty of death (Rom_5:12-17). This involves physical death and spiritual death. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that the work of Christ, which reverses the effects of sin, brings the gift of spiritual life now (Rom_6:23) and in the end will bring victory even over physical death (1Co_15:21-22; 1Co_15:44-45).
Some may think that since human beings are creatures of the natural world, physical death is inevitable. After all, death was apparently part of the world of nature before Adam sinned leaves fell off trees, fruit was picked, and animals lived by eating other forms of life (Gen_2:15-16; Gen_3:1). But it is not death in general that is the result of Adams sin; it is human death. The truth that the Bible emphasizes is that human beings are not merely creatures of the natural world like the other animals. They are related to God in a way that makes them different from all other created things. They are unique, for they are made in Gods image (Gen_1:27).
If physical death were merely the end of existence, people would have no need to fear it. The reason they fear it is their awareness that, when they die, they do not escape the consequences of his sin, but go to face them (Heb_9:27; see also SHEOL).
It has been suggested that, before Adam and Eve sinned, the spiritual life within them was so dominant that it prevented the natural physical deterioration that we today might expect. But when sin overcame them, it so changed human life that the spirit no longer had control over the body, and physical deterioration resulted. Physical death was at the same time completely natural and completely the result of sin (Gen_3:19 b). Physical effort and bodily functions that should have brought pleasure brought pain and hardship instead (Gen_3:16-19).
There is no need to imagine the chaos of an over-populated world had human beings never sinned and no one ever died. It is death, not the termination of earthly existence, that is the enemy; and it is sin that makes death so hateful (1Co_15:26; 1Co_15:55-56). There are examples to suggest that God could readily have brought a persons earthly existence to an end without the person having to pass through death (Gen_5:24; 2Ki_2:11; 1Co_15:51; Heb_11:5; cf. Act_1:9).
Present experience; future victory
The Bible uses the picture of an evil ruler to denote both death and the devil. Death is a sphere in which the devil rules (Heb_2:15). All people, being sinners, are slaves of sin and therefore under its power (Rom_5:14). They are not free to decide whether they will die or not. Physically they are condemned to death, and spiritually they are dead already (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Col_2:13; 1Jn_3:14). They are so under the dominion of death that their tendency towards sin is itself called death (Rom_7:24; Rom_8:6; Rom_8:10). Sin cannot exist without death as its consequences (Rom_6:16; Rom_6:21; Rom_7:5; Rom_7:13; Jam_1:15). To continue in sin is to continue in death; for sinners are in the sphere of death till they are saved out of it (Rom_8:23; 1Co_15:54).
Although this connection between sin and death may seem natural and inevitable, it can be broken. People are not the helpless victims of mechanical laws, but the subjects of divine compassion. The same God who sends death as sins penalty can give life as his gift (Rom_6:23).
Through the death of Jesus Christ, God has completely dealt with sin and death. Jesus died in the place of sinners to take away their sin and deliver them from the sphere of death (Rom_6:9-10; 2Co_5:21; Heb_2:9; Heb_2:14; 1Pe_2:24). Satan uses death to bind people in fear, but God uses death to release them from Satans power. Christ came to conquer death, and he did this by means of his own death. All who by faith belong to Christ share the benefits of that death (Rom_6:3-8; 2Co_5:14; Col_2:12-15). All who refuse Christ die in their sins, and so ensure for themselves an unalterable destiny that the Bible calls eternal destruction, outer darkness, the lake of fire and the second death (Mat_8:12; Mat_25:46; Joh_8:24; Rev_20:14; see HELL).
Christs saving work means that believers need no longer fear death. They know that one day it will be destroyed (Rom_6:9; 1Co_15:26; 1Co_15:54-57; Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6; Rev_21:4). Although they still live in the sphere of deaths influence, they have already passed out of death into life. They are free from the law of sin and death (Joh_5:24; Rom_8:2; 2Ti_1:10; 1Jn_3:14). Like other people, they may experience physical death, but they will never die in the sense that really matters (Joh_11:25-26; see HEAVEN).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
(מות, māweth; θάνατος, thánatos):
Physiological and Figurative View
The word ?Death? is used in the sense of (1) The process of dying (Gen_21:16); (2) The period of decease (Gen_27:7); (3) as a possible synonym for poison (2Ki_4:40); (4) as descriptive of person in danger of perishing (Jdg_15:18; ?in deaths oft? 2Co_11:23). In this sense the shadow of death is a familiar expression in Job, the Psalms and the Prophets; (5) death is personified in 1Co_15:55 and Rev_20:14. Deliverance from this catastrophe is called the ?issues from death? (Psa_68:20 the King James Version; translated ?escape? in the Revised Version (British and American)). Judicial execution, ?putting to death,? is mentioned 39 times in the Levitical Law.
Figuratively: Death is the loss of spiritual life as in Rom_8:6; and the final state of the unregenerate is called the ?second death? in Rev_20:14.
Theological View
1. Conception of Sin and Death
According to Gen_2:17, God gave to man, created in His own image, the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and added thereto the warning, ?in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.? Though not exclusively, reference is certainly made here in the first place to bodily death. Yet because death by no means came upon Adam and Eve on the day of their transgression, but took place hundreds of years later, the expression, ?in the day that,? must be conceived in a wider sense, or the delay of death must be attributed to the entering-in of mercy (Gen_3:15). However this may be, Gen_2:17 places a close connection between man's death and his transgression of God's commandment, thereby attaching to death a religious and ethical significance, and on the other hand makes the life of man dependent on his obedience to God. This religious-ethical nature of life and death is not only decidedly and clearly expressed in Gen 2, but it is the fundamental thought of the whole of Scripture and forms an essential element in the revelations of salvation. The theologians of early and more recent times, who have denied the spiritual significance of death and have separated the connection between ethical and physical life, usually endeavor to trace back their opinions to Scripture; and those passages which undoubtedly see in death a punishment for sin (Gen_2:17; Joh_8:44; Rom_5:12; Rom_6:23; 1Co_15:21), they take as individual opinions, which form no part of the organism of revelation. But this endeavor shuts out the organic character of the revelation of salvation. It is true that death in Holy Scripture is often measured by the weakness and frailty of human nature (Gen_3:19; Job_14:1, Job_14:12; Psa_39:5, Psa_39:6; Psa_90:5; Psa_103:14, Psa_103:15; Ecc_3:20, etc.). Death is seldom connected with the transgression of the first man either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, or mentioned as a specified punishment for sin (Joh_8:44; Rom_5:12; Rom_6:23; 1Co_15:21; Jam_1:15); for the most part it is portrayed as something natural (Gen_5:5; Gen_9:29; Gen_15:15; Gen_25:8, etc.), a long life being presented as a blessing in contrast to death in the midst of days as a disaster and a judgment (Psa_102:23 f; Isa_65:20). But all this is not contrary to the idea that death is a consequence of, and a punishment for, sin. Daily, everyone who agrees with Scripture that death is held out as a punishment for sin, speaks in the same way. Death, though come into the world through sin, is nevertheless at the same time a consequence of man's physical and frail existence now; it could therefore be threatened as a punishment to man, because he was taken out of the ground and was made a living soul, of the earth earthy (Gen_2:7; 1Co_15:45, 1Co_15:47). If he had remained obedient, he would not have returned to dust (Gen_3:19), but have pressed forward on the path of spiritual development (1Co_15:46, 1Co_15:51); his return to dust was possible simply because he was made from dust (see ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT). Thus, although death is in this way a consequence of sin, yet a long life is felt to be a blessing and death a disaster and a judgment, above all when man is taken away in the bloom of his youth or the strength of his years. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the manner in which Scripture speaks about death; we all express ourselves daily in the same way, though we at the same time consider it as the wages of sin. Beneath the ordinary, everyday expressions about death lies the deep consciousness that it is unnatural and contrary to our innermost being.
2. The Meaning of Death
This is decidedly expressed in Scripture much more so even than among ourselves. For we are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea, that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness, and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man dies, when in death the spirit (Psa_146:4; Ecc_12:7), or soul (Gen_35:18; 2Sa_1:9; 1Ki_17:21; Jon_4:3), goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to the nether-world; therefore the Old Testament can speak of a death of one's soul (Gen_37:21 (Hebrew); Num_23:10 m; Deu_22:21; Jdg_16:30; Job_36:14; Psa_78:50), and of defilement by coming in contact with a dead body (Lev_19:28; Lev_21:11; Lev_22:4; Num_5:2; Num_6:6; Num_9:6; Num_19:10; Deu_14:1; Hag_2:13). This death of man is not annihilation, however, but a deprivation of all that makes for life on earth. The Sheol (she'ōl) is in contrast with the land of the living in every respect (Job_28:13; Pro_15:24; Eze_26:20; Eze_32:23); it is an abode of darkness and the shadow of death (Job_10:21, Job_10:22; Psa_88:12; Psa_143:3), a place of destruction, yea destruction itself (Job_26:6; Job_28:22; Job_31:12; Psa_88:11; Pro_27:20), without any order (Job_10:22), a land of rest, of silence, of oblivion (Job_3:13, Job_3:17, Job_3:18; Psa_94:17; Psa_115:17), where God and man are no longer to be seen (Isa_38:11), God no longer praised or thanked (Psa_6:5; Psa_115:17), His perfections no more acknowledged (Psa_88:10-13; Isa_38:18, Isa_38:19), His wonders not contemplated (Psa_88:12), where the dead are unconscious, do no more work, take no account of anything, possess no knowledge nor wisdom, neither have any more a portion in anything that is done under the sun (Ecc_9:5, Ecc_9:6, Ecc_9:10). The dead (?the Shades? the Revised Version, margin; compare article DECEASED) are asleep (Job_26:5; Pro_2:18; Pro_9:18; Pro_21:6; Psa_88:11; Isa_14:9), weakened (Isa_14:10) and without strength (Psa_88:4).
3. Light in the Darkness
The dread of death was felt much more deeply therefore by the Israelites than by ourselves. Death to them was separation from all that they loved, from God, from His service, from His law, from His people, from His land, from all the rich companionship in which they lived. But now in this darkness appears the light of the revelation of salvation from on high. The God of Israel is the living God and the fountain of all life (Deu_5:26; Jos_3:10; Psa_36:9). He is the Creator of heaven and earth, whose power knows no bounds and whose dominion extends over life and death (Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; Psa_90:3). He gave life to man (Gen_1:26; Gen_2:7), and creates and sustains every man still (Job_32:8; Job_33:4; Job_34:14; Psa_104:29; Ecc_12:7). He connects life with the keeping of His law and appoints death for the transgression of it (Gen_2:17; Lev_18:5; Deu_30:20; Deu_32:47). He lives in heaven, but is present also by His spirit in Sheol (Psa_139:7, Psa_139:8). Sheol and Abaddon are open to Him even as the hearts of the children of men (Job_26:6; Job_38:17; Pro_15:11). He kills and makes alive, brings down into Sheol and raises from thence again (Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; 2Ki_5:7). He lengthens life for those who keep His commandments (Exo_20:12; Job_5:26), gives escape from death, can deliver when death menaces (Psa_68:20; Isa_38:5; Jer_15:20; Dan_3:26), can take Enoch and Elijah to Himself without dying (Gen_5:24; 2Ki_2:11), can restore the dead to life (1Ki_17:22; 2Ki_4:34; 2Ki_13:21). He can even bring death wholly to nothing and completely triumph over its power by rising from the dead (Job_14:13-15; Job_19:25-27; Hos_6:2; Hos_13:14; Isa_25:8; Isa_26:19; Eze_37:11, Eze_37:12; Dan_12:2).
4. Spiritual Significance
This revelation by degrees rejects the old contrast between life on earth and the disconsolate existence after death, in the dark place of Sheol, and puts another in its place. The physical contrast between life and death gradually makes way for the moral and spiritual difference between a life spent in the fear of the Lord, and a life in the service of sin. The man who serves God is alive (Gen_2:17); life is involved in the keeping of His commandments (Lev_18:5; Deu_30:20); His word is life (Deu_8:3; Deu_32:47). Life is still for the most part understood to mean length of days (Pro_2:18; Pro_3:16; Pro_10:30; Isa_65:20). Nevertheless it is remarkable that Prov often mentions death and Sheol in connection with the godless (Pro_2:18; Pro_5:5; Pro_7:27; Pro_9:18), and on the other hand only speaks of life in connection with the righteous. Wisdom, righteousness, the fear of the Lord is the way of life (Pro_8:35, Pro_8:36; Pro_11:19; Pro_12:28; Pro_13:14; Pro_14:27; Pro_19:23). The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death (Pro_14:32). Blessed is he who has the Lord for his God (Deu_33:29; Psa_1:1, Psa_1:2; Psa_2:12; Psa_32:1, Psa_32:2; Psa_33:12; Psa_34:9, etc.); he is comforted in the greatest adversity (Psa_73:25-28; Hab_3:17-19), and sees a light arise for him behind physical death (Gen_49:18; Job_14:13-15; Job_16:16-21; Job_19:25-27; Psa_73:23-26). The godless on the contrary, although enjoying for a time much prosperity, perish and come to an end (Psa_1:4-6; Psa_73:18-20; Isa_48:22; Mal_4:3, etc.).
The righteous of the Old Testament truly are continually occupied with the problem that the lot of man on earth often corresponds so little to his spiritual worth, but he strengthens himself with the conviction that for the righteous it will be well, and for the wicked, ill (Ecc_8:12, Ecc_8:13; Isa_3:10, Isa_3:11). If they do not realize it in the present, they look forward to the future and hope for the day in which God's justice will extend salvation to the righteous, and His anger will be visited on the wicked in judgment. So in the Old Testament the revelation of the new covenant is prepared wherein Christ by His appearance hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Ti_1:10). See ABOLISH. This everlasting life is already here on earth presented to man by faith, and it is his portion also in the hour of death (Joh_3:36; Joh_11:25, Joh_11:26). On the other hand, he who lives in sin and is disobedient to the Son of God, is in his living dead (Mat_8:22; Luk_15:32; Joh_3:36; Joh_8:24; Eph_2:1; Col_2:13); he shall never see life, but shall pass by bodily death into the second death (Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6, Rev_20:14; Rev_21:8).
5. Death in Non-Christian Religions and in Science
This view of Scripture upon death goes much deeper than that which is found in other religions, but it nevertheless receives support from the unanimous witness of humanity with regard to its unnaturalness and dread. The so-called nature-peoples even feel that death is much more of an enigma than life; Tiele (Inleiding tot de goddienst-artenschap, II (1900), 202, referring to Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology, chapter xiii) says rightly, that all peoples have the conviction that man by nature is immortal, that immortality wants no proof, but that death is a mystery and must be explained. Touching complaints arise in the hearts of all men on the frailty and vanity of life, and the whole of mankind fears death as a mysterious power. Man finds comfort in death only when he hopes it will be an end to a still more miserable life. Seneca may be taken as interpreter of some philosophers when he says: Stultitia est timore morris mori (?It is stupid to die through the fear of death?) and some may be able, like a Socrates or a Cato, to face death calmly and courageously; what have these few to say to the millions, who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb_2:15)? Such a mystery has death remained up to the present day. It may be said with Kassowitz, Verworm and others that the ?cell? is the beginning, and the old, gray man is the natural end of an uninterrupted life-development, or with Metschnikoff, that science will one day so lengthen life that it will fade away like a rose at last and death lose all its dread; death still is no less a riddle, and one which swallows up all the strength of life. When one considers, besides, that a number of creatures, plants, trees, animals, reach a much higher age than man; that the larger half of mankind dies before or shortly after birth; that another large percentage dies in the bloom of youth or in the prime of life; that the law of the survival of the fittest is true only when the fact of the survival is taken as a proof of their fitness; that the graybeards, who, spent and decrepit, go down to the grave, form a very small number; then the enigma of death increases more and more in mysteriousness. The endeavors to bring death into connection with certain activities of the organism and to explain it by increasing weight, by growth or by fertility, have all led to shipwreck. When Weismann took refuge in the immortality of the ?einzellige Protozo?n,? he raised a hypothesis which not only found many opponents, but which also left mortality of the ?K?rperplasma? an insoluble mystery (Beth, Ueber Ursache und Zweck des Todes, Glauben und Wissen (1909), 285-304, 335-348). Thus, science certainly does not compel us to review Scripture on this point, but rather furnishes a strong proof of the mysterious majesty of death. When Pelagius, Socinus, Schleiermacher, Ritschl and a number of other theologians and philosophers separate death from its connection with sin, they are not compelled to do so by science, but are led by a defective insight into the relation between éthos and phúsiš. Misery and death are not absolutely always consequences and punishment of a great personal transgression (Luk_13:2; Joh_9:3); but that they are connected with sin, we learn from the experience of every day. Who can number the victims of mammonism, alcoholism and licentiousness? Even spiritual sins exercise their influence on corporal life; envy is a rottenness of the bones (Pro_14:30). This connection is taught us in a great measure by Scripture, when it placed the not yet fallen man in a Paradise, where death had not yet entered, and eternal life was not yet possessed and enjoyed; when it sends fallen man, who, however, is destined for redemption, into a world full of misery and death; and at last assigns to the wholly renewed man a new heaven and a new earth, where death, sorrow, crying or pain shall no longer exist (Rev_21:4).
Finally, Scripture is not the book of death, but of life, of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It tells us, in oft-repeated and unmistakable terms, of the dreaded reality of death, but it proclaims to us still more loudly the wonderful power of the life which is in Christ Jesus. See also DECEASE.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man, as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it.
Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death:
(a.) One of the most common in the Old Testament is, to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase, the dust of death. It is founded on the description Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc_12:7, 'The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God who gave it.'
(b.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa_104:29).
(c.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body with a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job_4:21; Isa_38:12; Psa_52:5; 2Co_5:1; 2Pe_1:13-14).
(d.) Paul likewise uses the term to be unclothed, in reference to death (2Co_5:3-4); because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed; and as soon as it is disembodied, is naked.
(e.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa_76:5; Jer_51:39; Joh_11:13, sqq.).
(f.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away (Job_10:21; Psa_39:4; Mat_26:24; Php_1:23; 2Ti_4:6).
Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns. But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa_18:5-6; Psa_91:3). After the exile, they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat_16:28; Heb_2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa_89:48; Luk_2:26).
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Rom_7:13 (a) This describes the effect of wickedness and sinfulness upon the natural human heart and soul in the sight of GOD. Our sinful natures in our natural state send up sins, trespasses, transgressions, evils, wickedness and iniquities until they form a thick, dark cloud between the soul and GOD. (See Isa_44:22).
Rom_8:6 (a) Here we see the result of setting the mind on the things of earth so that it cannot receive nor comprehend the things of Heaven.
2Co_4:12 (a) Paul uses the word here in order to describe the crushing and destructive effects of persecution and prosecution of his own life.
1Jo_3:14 (a) This describes the state of being unsaved and without eternal life. (See also under "DEAD").
Rev_20:14 (a) The first death is the death of the body because of which the person cannot longer enjoy the earthly blessings of life. This second death is called by that name because the body and the soul have at the Great White Throne been brought before GOD for a final judgment. The individual is taken away from this short appearance in GOD's presence to be eternally and forever shut out of ever seeking GOD again.
Here are some references to death as used in the Scriptures:
Dead to sin - Rom_6:2
Dead with CHRIST - Rom_6:8.
Dead in sin - Eph_2:1
Dead to the world - Gal_6:14.
Dead to GOD - Luk_9:60
Dead works - Heb_6:1.
Dead to this life - Rom_5:12 Heb_9:14.
Paul said "I die daily" 1Co_15:31. By this he was showing that he himself was fulfilling Rom_6:11. The meaning of all of this evidently is that the believer in CHRIST JESUS takes his place with CHRIST in His rejection from the world, and identifies himself with this rejected Lord. He does not now take part in, nor love, the things that this world offers to the unsaved.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.
Death
(properly, מָוֶה, θάνατος). No logical definition of death has been generally agreed upon. This point was much contested in the 17th century by the Cartesian and other theologians and philosophers. Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Among the ecclesiastical fathers, Tertullian (De Anima, c. 27) calls it the disunion of the body and soul. Cicero (Tusc. Dis. i) defines death to be the departure of the mind from the body. The passage Heb_4:12, is sometimes cited on this subject, but has nothing to do with it. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it. SEE DEAD.
Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death.
(1.) One of the most common in the O.T. is to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase the dust of death. It is founded on the description in Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc_12:7, The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God, who gave it.
(2.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa_104:29). Hence the common terms to give up the ghost, etc.
(3.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body to a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job_4:21; Isa_38:12; Psalm 53:7). Hence Paul says (2Co_5:1), our earthly house of this tabernacle will be destroyed; and Peter calls death a putting off of this tabernacle (2Pe_1:13-14). Classical writers speak of the soul in the same manner. So Hippocrates and AEschines. Compare 2Co_5:8-9.
(4.) Paul likewise uses the term ἐκδύεσθαι, to unclothe one's self, in reference to death (2Co_5:3-4), because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed, and as soon as it is disembodied is naked.
(5.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa_76:5; Jer_51:39; Joh_11:13 sq.). Nor is this language used exclusively for the death of the pious, as some pretend, though this is its prevailing use. Homer calls sleep and death twin brothers (Il. 16:672). The terms likewise which signify to lie down, to rest, also denote death.
(6.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away. Hence verbs of that import signify to die (Job_10:21; Psa_39:4). The case is the same in the New Testament (Mat_26:24), and even among the classics. In this connection we may mention the terms ἀναλύειν and ἀνάλυσις (Php_1:23; 2Ti_4:6), which do not mean dissolution, but discessus (comp. Luk_12:36).
Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns (Job_18:14). But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa_18:5-6; Psa_91:3). After the exile they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. SEE DESTROYER. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat_16:28; Heb_2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa_89:48; Luk_2:26). See Knapp's Christian Theology, by Dr. Wood; Waltirer, De origine phrasium I videre et gustare mortem (Giess. 1745).
The gates of death (Job_38:17; Psa_9:13; Psa_107:18) signify the grave itself; and the shadow of death (Jer_2:6) denotes the gloomy silence of the tomb. See Wemyss's Clavis Symbolica, s.v.; Zeibich, De vocibus, צִלְמָוֶת, σκία θανάτου (Vitemb. 1739).
Death may be considered as the effect of sin (Rom_5:12). In Heb_2:14, Satan is said to have the power of death; not that he can, at his pleasure, inflict death on mankind, but as he was the instrument of first bringing death into the world (Joh_8:44), and as he may be the executioner of God's wrath on impenitent sinners where God permits him. Death is but once (Heb_9:27), yet certain (Job_14:1-2), although uncertain as to the time (Pro_27:1); universal (Gen_3:19); necessary, in order that God's justice may be displayed and his mercy manifested; desirable to the righteous (Luk_2:28-30). The fear of death is a source of anxiety and alarm to many, and to a guilty conscience it may indeed be terrible; but to a good man it should be obviated by the consideration that death is the termination of every trouble; that it puts him beyond the reach of sin and temptation; that God has promised to be with the righteous, even to the end (Heb_13:5); that Jesus Christ has taken away the sting (1Co_15:55-56); and that it introduces him to a state of endless felicity (2Co_5:8).
Death, when applied to the animal nature, properly signifies a dissolution or failure of all its powers and functions; so, when applied to the spiritual nature, or souls of men, it denotes a corresponding disorder therein, a being spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Rom_8:6; Eph_2:1; Eph_2:3; Col_2:13; Jud_1:12).
The term death is metaphorically applied to denote an utter failure of customary functions, so that the thing spoken of can no longer act according to its nature. Thus, in Amo_2:2, Moab shall die with tumult that is, the king and government shall lose their power, and the nation be brought into subjection and slavery. So in Rom_7:8, Without the law, sin was dead that is, without the law, sin does not exert its power; and, on the other hand, it is said (Rom_7:9), Sin revived and I died Sin got strength to act, and I lost my power to resist. I was not the same man as before; sin destroyed my power.
The second death (Rev_2:11) is so called in respect to the natural or temporal as coming after it, and implies everlasting punishment (Rev_21:8).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
I. In the OT.1. The Heb. term mâweth and our corresponding word death alike spring from primitive roots belonging to the very beginnings of speech. One of mans first needs was a word to denote that stark fact of experiencethe final cessation of life to which he and the whole animated creation, and the very trees and plants, were all subject. It is, of course, in this ordinary sense of the term as denoting a physical fact that the expressions death and die are mostly used in the Scriptures.
2. The Scriptures have nothing directly to say as to the place of death in the economy of nature. St. Pauls words in Rom_5:12 ff. as to the connexion between sin and death must be explained in harmony with this fact; and, for that matter, in harmony also with his own words in Rom_6:23, where death, the wages of sin, cannot be simply physical death. The Creation narratives are silent on this point, yet in Gen_2:17 man is expected to know what it is to die. We are not to look for exact information on matters such as this from writings of this kind. If the belief enshrined in the story of the Fall in Gen_3:1-24 regarded death in the ordinary sense as the penalty of Adam and Eves transgression, they at any rate did not die in the day of their transgression; v. 22 suggests that even then, could he but also eat of the tree of life, man might escape mortality. All we can say is that in the dawn of human history man appears as one already familiar with the correlative mysteries of life and death.
3. From the contemplation of the act of dying it is an easy step to the thought of death as a state or condition. This is a distinct stage towards believing in existence of some kind beyond the grave. And to the vast mass of mankind to say he is dead has never meant he is non-existent.
4. Divergent beliefs as to what the state of death is show themselves in the OT.(a) In numerous instances death is represented as a condition of considerable activity and consciousness. The dead are regarded as knowing ones, able to impart information and counsel to the living. Note, the term translated wizards in EV [Note: English Version.] in Lev_19:31; Lev_20:6, Isa_8:19; Isa_19:3 really denotes departed spirits who are sought unto or inquired of on behalf of the living. A vivid instance of this belief is furnished in the story of the Witch of En-dor (1Sa_28:1-25). So also in Isa_14:9-10, where we have a graphic description of the commotion caused in Sheol by the arrival of the king of Babylon, a description with which we may compare the dream of false Clarence in Shakespeares Rich. III., i. 4. The reference to the dead under the term gods (elôhim), as in 1Sa_28:13, is noticeable. Whether in all this we have a relic of ancient Semitic ancestor-worship (as e.g. Charles maintains in his Jowett Lectures on Eschatology) or no, it seems to represent very primitive beliefs which survived in one form and another, even after the stern Jahwistic prohibition of necromancy was promulgated. They may also have affected the treatment of the dead, just as even yet there are usages in existence amongst us in regard to behaviour towards the dead which are probably traceable to very primitive pre-Christian ideas and beliefs.
(b) Jahwism might well forbid resort to necromancers with their weird appeals to the dead for guidance and information, for in its view the state of death was one of unconsciousness, forgetfulness, and silence (see Psa_88:12; Psa_94:17; Psa_115:17 etc.). The present world is emphatically the land of the living (Psa_27:13; Psa_116:9 etc.). Those that are in Sheol have no communion with Jahweh; see the Song of Hezekiah in Isa_38:1-22, and elsewhere. Sheol appears inviting to a soul in distress because it is a realm of unconscious rest (Job_3:17 ff.); and there is nothing to be known or to be done there (Ecc_9:10). It is true that here and there glimpses of a different prospect for the individual soul show themselves (e.g. Job_19:25 ff. and probably Psa_16:10 f.); but the foregoing was evidently the prevalent view in a period when the individual was altogether subservient to the nation, and the religious concerns of the latter were rigorously limited to the present life.
(c) Other ideas of death as not terminating mans existence and interests were, however, reached in later prophetic teaching, mainly through the thought of the worth of the individual, the significance of his conscious union with God, and of the covenant relations established by God with His people (Jer_31:1-40; cf. Eze_18:1-32). Thou wilt not leave us in the dust.
5. Death as standing in penal relation to mans sin and unrighteousness is frequently insisted on. That this is something more than natural death is clear from such an antithesis as we have in Deu_30:15; Deu_30:19 (life and good: death and evil), and this set in strict relation to conduct. Cf. the burden of Eze_18:1-32, the soul that sinneth it shall die, with the correlative promise of life: similarly Pro_15:10. All this points to some experience in the man himself and to conditions outlasting the present life. On the other hand, the thought of dying the death of the righteous (Num_23:10) as a desirable thing looks in the same direction. And why has the righteous hope in his death (Pro_14:32)?
6. As minor matters, OT poetical uses of references to death may be merely pointed out. Chambers of death, Pro_7:27; gates, Psa_9:13 (= state); bitterness of death, 1Sa_15:32, Ecc_7:26; terrors, Psa_55:4; sorrows, Psa_116:3 (= mans natural dread); shadow of death, Job, Ps., the Prophets, passim (= any experience of horror and gloom, as well as with reference to death itself); the sleep of death, Psa_13:3 (to be distinguished from later Christian usage); snares of death, Prov. passim, etc. (= things leading to destruction); the phrase to death, as vexed unto death, Jdg_13:7; sick, 2Ki_20:1 (= to an extreme degree).
II. In the Apocrypha.The value of the Apocrypha in connexion with the study of Scriptural teaching and usage here is not to be overlooked. Notice e.g. Wisdom chs. 15, with its treatment of the attitude of the ungodly towards death (Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die), of the problem of the early, untimely death of the good, and of immortality in relation to the ungodly and the righteous; Sirach, in which no clear conception of immortality appears, the best that can be said, to alleviate sorrow for the dead, being that the dead is at rest (Sir_38:23): in which also the fear of death is spoken of as besetting all ranks of men (40), and we are told who they are to whom death comes as a dread foe, and again who may welcome death as a friend (41).
III. In the NT
1. The teaching of Jesus.
(a). It is noticeable that our Lord has nothing to say directly concerning death as a physical phenomenon. He offers no explanation touching those matters in the experience of death which have always excited the curiosity of men, and in this respect His attitude is in strong contrast with that found in Rabbinical writings. He makes no use of the conception of the angel of death, so characteristic of the latter, and traceable perhaps in language such as that of 1Co_15:26, Heb_2:14, and Rev_20:13-14.
(b) No stress is laid on death as an evil in itself. In the few stories which we have in the Gospels of His raising the dead to life, the raising is never represented as a deliverance and a good for the person brought back. Compassion for the sorrows of those bereaved is the prime motive: in the case of Lazarus, it is expressly added that the restoration was for the glory of God (Joh_11:4; Joh_11:40). Still, those aspects of death which make the living and active shrink from it are incidentally recognized. Jesus in Rabbinic phrase speaks of tasting death (Mar_9:1||) and of seeing death (Joh_8:51-52): and the feeling underlying such expressions is the very antithesis of that attaching to seeing life and seeing many days. Death is to common human feeling an unwelcome, though inevitable, draught. This gives point also to our Lords promise that the believer shall never die (Joh_11:26). At the same time, there is no reference in His teaching to natural death as the solemn end of lifes experiences and opportunities, unless an exception be found in the saying about working while it is day (Joh_9:4): but contrast with this as to tone a passage like Ecc_9:10.
(c) Jesus speaks of death as a sleep (Mar_5:39, Joh_11:11-13); but the same euphemistic use is found in OT and in extra-Biblical writers. It did not of itself necessarily lessen the terrors of death (see Psa_13:3); but we owe it to Christ and the Christian faith mainly that such a representation of death has come to mitigate its bitterness,such a use as is also found elsewhere in NT (e.g. 1Th_4:13 ff.). This conception of death is, of course, to be limited to its relation to the activities and interests of this world. It is a falling asleep after lifes dayand we sleep to wake: but there is nothing here to shed light on such questions as to whether that sleep is a prolonged period of unconsciousness or no.
(d) Natural death is lost sight of in the much larger and more solemn conception of the condition of man resulting from sin, which in the Fourth Gospel is particularly described as death (see Joh_5:24; Joh_6:50; Joh_8:21; Joh_8:24). The exemption and deliverance promised in Joh_11:25 f. relate to this spiritual death, and by that deliverance natural death is shorn of its real terrors. This condition, resulting from sin and separation from God, may he regarded as incipient here and tending to a manifest consummation hereafter, with physical death intervening as a moment of transition and deriving a solemn significance from its association with the course and state of sin (see Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ii. p. 56 f.). The corresponding language of 1 Ep. of John is not to be overlooked (1Jn_3:14) as exemplifying Johannine phraseology. The conception, however, is not found exclusively in the Johannine writings. Note the saying in Luk_9:60 as bearing on this point. In Mat_7:13 f. destruction is the antithesis of life (and cf. Mat_5:29 f., Mat_18:11, Mar_8:35, Joh_3:16 etc.); but the conception of perishing covers the deep experience of spiritual death, the loss of all that really makes the man.
(The phrase die the death in EV [Note: English Version.] , in Mar_7:10 and parallel, may be noticed as being not a literal translation of the Greek, but a mid-English emphatic expression, now archaic.)
2. The rest of the NT.We may notice the following points: (a) The Pauline doctrine that natural death is the primitive consequence of sin, already referred to, is to be explained as the common Jewish interpretation of the OT account of the Fall, and finds no direct support in the Gospels. The feeling that the sting of death is sin is, however, widely existent in NT. (b) The use of the term death as denoting a certain spiritual state in which men may live and he still destitute of all that is worth calling life, is quite common (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Eph_5:14, Col_2:13, 1Ti_5:6, Jam_1:15, Jud_1:12, Rev_3:1). (c) A mystical and figurative use of the notion of death as denoting the change from a sinful to a new life is noticeable. The believer, the man spiritually alive, is also dead to sin (Rom_6:2, 1Pe_2:24), is dead with Christ (Rom_6:8, Col_2:20 etc.). (d) The expression eternal death is found nowhere in NT, common as its use is in religious and theological language. It is the correlative, easily suggested by the expression eternal life which is so conspicuous a topic of NT teaching, and it serves loosely as an equivalent for the antitheses to life or eternal life that actually occur, such as destruction (Mat_7:13), the eternal fire (Mat_18:8), eternal punishment (Mat_25:46). Cf. also the second death in Rev_21:8. If we substitute for eternal some other rendering such as of the ages or æonian, it but serves to remind us of the profound difficulties attaching to the predication of eternity in relation to the subject of mans destiny or doom.
J. S. Clemens.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
The Bible teaches that human death is a result of sin (Gen_2:17; Rom_5:12). God does not desire death for those he created in his image. Death is therefore the enemy of God as well as the enemy of the human race (1Co_15:26; Heb_2:15).
Results of Adams sin
Physical and spiritual death are not completely separate. When sin entered the world through Adam, it changed everything. All human life is now affected by the certainty of death (Rom_5:12-17). This involves physical death and spiritual death. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that the work of Christ, which reverses the effects of sin, brings the gift of spiritual life now (Rom_6:23) and in the end will bring victory even over physical death (1Co_15:21-22; 1Co_15:44-45).
Some may think that since human beings are creatures of the natural world, physical death is inevitable. After all, death was apparently part of the world of nature before Adam sinned leaves fell off trees, fruit was picked, and animals lived by eating other forms of life (Gen_2:15-16; Gen_3:1). But it is not death in general that is the result of Adams sin; it is human death. The truth that the Bible emphasizes is that human beings are not merely creatures of the natural world like the other animals. They are related to God in a way that makes them different from all other created things. They are unique, for they are made in Gods image (Gen_1:27).
If physical death were merely the end of existence, people would have no need to fear it. The reason they fear it is their awareness that, when they die, they do not escape the consequences of his sin, but go to face them (Heb_9:27; see also SHEOL).
It has been suggested that, before Adam and Eve sinned, the spiritual life within them was so dominant that it prevented the natural physical deterioration that we today might expect. But when sin overcame them, it so changed human life that the spirit no longer had control over the body, and physical deterioration resulted. Physical death was at the same time completely natural and completely the result of sin (Gen_3:19 b). Physical effort and bodily functions that should have brought pleasure brought pain and hardship instead (Gen_3:16-19).
There is no need to imagine the chaos of an over-populated world had human beings never sinned and no one ever died. It is death, not the termination of earthly existence, that is the enemy; and it is sin that makes death so hateful (1Co_15:26; 1Co_15:55-56). There are examples to suggest that God could readily have brought a persons earthly existence to an end without the person having to pass through death (Gen_5:24; 2Ki_2:11; 1Co_15:51; Heb_11:5; cf. Act_1:9).
Present experience; future victory
The Bible uses the picture of an evil ruler to denote both death and the devil. Death is a sphere in which the devil rules (Heb_2:15). All people, being sinners, are slaves of sin and therefore under its power (Rom_5:14). They are not free to decide whether they will die or not. Physically they are condemned to death, and spiritually they are dead already (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Col_2:13; 1Jn_3:14). They are so under the dominion of death that their tendency towards sin is itself called death (Rom_7:24; Rom_8:6; Rom_8:10). Sin cannot exist without death as its consequences (Rom_6:16; Rom_6:21; Rom_7:5; Rom_7:13; Jam_1:15). To continue in sin is to continue in death; for sinners are in the sphere of death till they are saved out of it (Rom_8:23; 1Co_15:54).
Although this connection between sin and death may seem natural and inevitable, it can be broken. People are not the helpless victims of mechanical laws, but the subjects of divine compassion. The same God who sends death as sins penalty can give life as his gift (Rom_6:23).
Through the death of Jesus Christ, God has completely dealt with sin and death. Jesus died in the place of sinners to take away their sin and deliver them from the sphere of death (Rom_6:9-10; 2Co_5:21; Heb_2:9; Heb_2:14; 1Pe_2:24). Satan uses death to bind people in fear, but God uses death to release them from Satans power. Christ came to conquer death, and he did this by means of his own death. All who by faith belong to Christ share the benefits of that death (Rom_6:3-8; 2Co_5:14; Col_2:12-15). All who refuse Christ die in their sins, and so ensure for themselves an unalterable destiny that the Bible calls eternal destruction, outer darkness, the lake of fire and the second death (Mat_8:12; Mat_25:46; Joh_8:24; Rev_20:14; see HELL).
Christs saving work means that believers need no longer fear death. They know that one day it will be destroyed (Rom_6:9; 1Co_15:26; 1Co_15:54-57; Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6; Rev_21:4). Although they still live in the sphere of deaths influence, they have already passed out of death into life. They are free from the law of sin and death (Joh_5:24; Rom_8:2; 2Ti_1:10; 1Jn_3:14). Like other people, they may experience physical death, but they will never die in the sense that really matters (Joh_11:25-26; see HEAVEN).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
(מות, māweth; θάνατος, thánatos):
Physiological and Figurative View
The word ?Death? is used in the sense of (1) The process of dying (Gen_21:16); (2) The period of decease (Gen_27:7); (3) as a possible synonym for poison (2Ki_4:40); (4) as descriptive of person in danger of perishing (Jdg_15:18; ?in deaths oft? 2Co_11:23). In this sense the shadow of death is a familiar expression in Job, the Psalms and the Prophets; (5) death is personified in 1Co_15:55 and Rev_20:14. Deliverance from this catastrophe is called the ?issues from death? (Psa_68:20 the King James Version; translated ?escape? in the Revised Version (British and American)). Judicial execution, ?putting to death,? is mentioned 39 times in the Levitical Law.
Figuratively: Death is the loss of spiritual life as in Rom_8:6; and the final state of the unregenerate is called the ?second death? in Rev_20:14.
Theological View
1. Conception of Sin and Death
According to Gen_2:17, God gave to man, created in His own image, the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and added thereto the warning, ?in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.? Though not exclusively, reference is certainly made here in the first place to bodily death. Yet because death by no means came upon Adam and Eve on the day of their transgression, but took place hundreds of years later, the expression, ?in the day that,? must be conceived in a wider sense, or the delay of death must be attributed to the entering-in of mercy (Gen_3:15). However this may be, Gen_2:17 places a close connection between man's death and his transgression of God's commandment, thereby attaching to death a religious and ethical significance, and on the other hand makes the life of man dependent on his obedience to God. This religious-ethical nature of life and death is not only decidedly and clearly expressed in Gen 2, but it is the fundamental thought of the whole of Scripture and forms an essential element in the revelations of salvation. The theologians of early and more recent times, who have denied the spiritual significance of death and have separated the connection between ethical and physical life, usually endeavor to trace back their opinions to Scripture; and those passages which undoubtedly see in death a punishment for sin (Gen_2:17; Joh_8:44; Rom_5:12; Rom_6:23; 1Co_15:21), they take as individual opinions, which form no part of the organism of revelation. But this endeavor shuts out the organic character of the revelation of salvation. It is true that death in Holy Scripture is often measured by the weakness and frailty of human nature (Gen_3:19; Job_14:1, Job_14:12; Psa_39:5, Psa_39:6; Psa_90:5; Psa_103:14, Psa_103:15; Ecc_3:20, etc.). Death is seldom connected with the transgression of the first man either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, or mentioned as a specified punishment for sin (Joh_8:44; Rom_5:12; Rom_6:23; 1Co_15:21; Jam_1:15); for the most part it is portrayed as something natural (Gen_5:5; Gen_9:29; Gen_15:15; Gen_25:8, etc.), a long life being presented as a blessing in contrast to death in the midst of days as a disaster and a judgment (Psa_102:23 f; Isa_65:20). But all this is not contrary to the idea that death is a consequence of, and a punishment for, sin. Daily, everyone who agrees with Scripture that death is held out as a punishment for sin, speaks in the same way. Death, though come into the world through sin, is nevertheless at the same time a consequence of man's physical and frail existence now; it could therefore be threatened as a punishment to man, because he was taken out of the ground and was made a living soul, of the earth earthy (Gen_2:7; 1Co_15:45, 1Co_15:47). If he had remained obedient, he would not have returned to dust (Gen_3:19), but have pressed forward on the path of spiritual development (1Co_15:46, 1Co_15:51); his return to dust was possible simply because he was made from dust (see ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT). Thus, although death is in this way a consequence of sin, yet a long life is felt to be a blessing and death a disaster and a judgment, above all when man is taken away in the bloom of his youth or the strength of his years. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the manner in which Scripture speaks about death; we all express ourselves daily in the same way, though we at the same time consider it as the wages of sin. Beneath the ordinary, everyday expressions about death lies the deep consciousness that it is unnatural and contrary to our innermost being.
2. The Meaning of Death
This is decidedly expressed in Scripture much more so even than among ourselves. For we are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea, that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness, and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man dies, when in death the spirit (Psa_146:4; Ecc_12:7), or soul (Gen_35:18; 2Sa_1:9; 1Ki_17:21; Jon_4:3), goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to the nether-world; therefore the Old Testament can speak of a death of one's soul (Gen_37:21 (Hebrew); Num_23:10 m; Deu_22:21; Jdg_16:30; Job_36:14; Psa_78:50), and of defilement by coming in contact with a dead body (Lev_19:28; Lev_21:11; Lev_22:4; Num_5:2; Num_6:6; Num_9:6; Num_19:10; Deu_14:1; Hag_2:13). This death of man is not annihilation, however, but a deprivation of all that makes for life on earth. The Sheol (she'ōl) is in contrast with the land of the living in every respect (Job_28:13; Pro_15:24; Eze_26:20; Eze_32:23); it is an abode of darkness and the shadow of death (Job_10:21, Job_10:22; Psa_88:12; Psa_143:3), a place of destruction, yea destruction itself (Job_26:6; Job_28:22; Job_31:12; Psa_88:11; Pro_27:20), without any order (Job_10:22), a land of rest, of silence, of oblivion (Job_3:13, Job_3:17, Job_3:18; Psa_94:17; Psa_115:17), where God and man are no longer to be seen (Isa_38:11), God no longer praised or thanked (Psa_6:5; Psa_115:17), His perfections no more acknowledged (Psa_88:10-13; Isa_38:18, Isa_38:19), His wonders not contemplated (Psa_88:12), where the dead are unconscious, do no more work, take no account of anything, possess no knowledge nor wisdom, neither have any more a portion in anything that is done under the sun (Ecc_9:5, Ecc_9:6, Ecc_9:10). The dead (?the Shades? the Revised Version, margin; compare article DECEASED) are asleep (Job_26:5; Pro_2:18; Pro_9:18; Pro_21:6; Psa_88:11; Isa_14:9), weakened (Isa_14:10) and without strength (Psa_88:4).
3. Light in the Darkness
The dread of death was felt much more deeply therefore by the Israelites than by ourselves. Death to them was separation from all that they loved, from God, from His service, from His law, from His people, from His land, from all the rich companionship in which they lived. But now in this darkness appears the light of the revelation of salvation from on high. The God of Israel is the living God and the fountain of all life (Deu_5:26; Jos_3:10; Psa_36:9). He is the Creator of heaven and earth, whose power knows no bounds and whose dominion extends over life and death (Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; Psa_90:3). He gave life to man (Gen_1:26; Gen_2:7), and creates and sustains every man still (Job_32:8; Job_33:4; Job_34:14; Psa_104:29; Ecc_12:7). He connects life with the keeping of His law and appoints death for the transgression of it (Gen_2:17; Lev_18:5; Deu_30:20; Deu_32:47). He lives in heaven, but is present also by His spirit in Sheol (Psa_139:7, Psa_139:8). Sheol and Abaddon are open to Him even as the hearts of the children of men (Job_26:6; Job_38:17; Pro_15:11). He kills and makes alive, brings down into Sheol and raises from thence again (Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; 2Ki_5:7). He lengthens life for those who keep His commandments (Exo_20:12; Job_5:26), gives escape from death, can deliver when death menaces (Psa_68:20; Isa_38:5; Jer_15:20; Dan_3:26), can take Enoch and Elijah to Himself without dying (Gen_5:24; 2Ki_2:11), can restore the dead to life (1Ki_17:22; 2Ki_4:34; 2Ki_13:21). He can even bring death wholly to nothing and completely triumph over its power by rising from the dead (Job_14:13-15; Job_19:25-27; Hos_6:2; Hos_13:14; Isa_25:8; Isa_26:19; Eze_37:11, Eze_37:12; Dan_12:2).
4. Spiritual Significance
This revelation by degrees rejects the old contrast between life on earth and the disconsolate existence after death, in the dark place of Sheol, and puts another in its place. The physical contrast between life and death gradually makes way for the moral and spiritual difference between a life spent in the fear of the Lord, and a life in the service of sin. The man who serves God is alive (Gen_2:17); life is involved in the keeping of His commandments (Lev_18:5; Deu_30:20); His word is life (Deu_8:3; Deu_32:47). Life is still for the most part understood to mean length of days (Pro_2:18; Pro_3:16; Pro_10:30; Isa_65:20). Nevertheless it is remarkable that Prov often mentions death and Sheol in connection with the godless (Pro_2:18; Pro_5:5; Pro_7:27; Pro_9:18), and on the other hand only speaks of life in connection with the righteous. Wisdom, righteousness, the fear of the Lord is the way of life (Pro_8:35, Pro_8:36; Pro_11:19; Pro_12:28; Pro_13:14; Pro_14:27; Pro_19:23). The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death (Pro_14:32). Blessed is he who has the Lord for his God (Deu_33:29; Psa_1:1, Psa_1:2; Psa_2:12; Psa_32:1, Psa_32:2; Psa_33:12; Psa_34:9, etc.); he is comforted in the greatest adversity (Psa_73:25-28; Hab_3:17-19), and sees a light arise for him behind physical death (Gen_49:18; Job_14:13-15; Job_16:16-21; Job_19:25-27; Psa_73:23-26). The godless on the contrary, although enjoying for a time much prosperity, perish and come to an end (Psa_1:4-6; Psa_73:18-20; Isa_48:22; Mal_4:3, etc.).
The righteous of the Old Testament truly are continually occupied with the problem that the lot of man on earth often corresponds so little to his spiritual worth, but he strengthens himself with the conviction that for the righteous it will be well, and for the wicked, ill (Ecc_8:12, Ecc_8:13; Isa_3:10, Isa_3:11). If they do not realize it in the present, they look forward to the future and hope for the day in which God's justice will extend salvation to the righteous, and His anger will be visited on the wicked in judgment. So in the Old Testament the revelation of the new covenant is prepared wherein Christ by His appearance hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Ti_1:10). See ABOLISH. This everlasting life is already here on earth presented to man by faith, and it is his portion also in the hour of death (Joh_3:36; Joh_11:25, Joh_11:26). On the other hand, he who lives in sin and is disobedient to the Son of God, is in his living dead (Mat_8:22; Luk_15:32; Joh_3:36; Joh_8:24; Eph_2:1; Col_2:13); he shall never see life, but shall pass by bodily death into the second death (Rev_2:11; Rev_20:6, Rev_20:14; Rev_21:8).
5. Death in Non-Christian Religions and in Science
This view of Scripture upon death goes much deeper than that which is found in other religions, but it nevertheless receives support from the unanimous witness of humanity with regard to its unnaturalness and dread. The so-called nature-peoples even feel that death is much more of an enigma than life; Tiele (Inleiding tot de goddienst-artenschap, II (1900), 202, referring to Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology, chapter xiii) says rightly, that all peoples have the conviction that man by nature is immortal, that immortality wants no proof, but that death is a mystery and must be explained. Touching complaints arise in the hearts of all men on the frailty and vanity of life, and the whole of mankind fears death as a mysterious power. Man finds comfort in death only when he hopes it will be an end to a still more miserable life. Seneca may be taken as interpreter of some philosophers when he says: Stultitia est timore morris mori (?It is stupid to die through the fear of death?) and some may be able, like a Socrates or a Cato, to face death calmly and courageously; what have these few to say to the millions, who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb_2:15)? Such a mystery has death remained up to the present day. It may be said with Kassowitz, Verworm and others that the ?cell? is the beginning, and the old, gray man is the natural end of an uninterrupted life-development, or with Metschnikoff, that science will one day so lengthen life that it will fade away like a rose at last and death lose all its dread; death still is no less a riddle, and one which swallows up all the strength of life. When one considers, besides, that a number of creatures, plants, trees, animals, reach a much higher age than man; that the larger half of mankind dies before or shortly after birth; that another large percentage dies in the bloom of youth or in the prime of life; that the law of the survival of the fittest is true only when the fact of the survival is taken as a proof of their fitness; that the graybeards, who, spent and decrepit, go down to the grave, form a very small number; then the enigma of death increases more and more in mysteriousness. The endeavors to bring death into connection with certain activities of the organism and to explain it by increasing weight, by growth or by fertility, have all led to shipwreck. When Weismann took refuge in the immortality of the ?einzellige Protozo?n,? he raised a hypothesis which not only found many opponents, but which also left mortality of the ?K?rperplasma? an insoluble mystery (Beth, Ueber Ursache und Zweck des Todes, Glauben und Wissen (1909), 285-304, 335-348). Thus, science certainly does not compel us to review Scripture on this point, but rather furnishes a strong proof of the mysterious majesty of death. When Pelagius, Socinus, Schleiermacher, Ritschl and a number of other theologians and philosophers separate death from its connection with sin, they are not compelled to do so by science, but are led by a defective insight into the relation between éthos and phúsiš. Misery and death are not absolutely always consequences and punishment of a great personal transgression (Luk_13:2; Joh_9:3); but that they are connected with sin, we learn from the experience of every day. Who can number the victims of mammonism, alcoholism and licentiousness? Even spiritual sins exercise their influence on corporal life; envy is a rottenness of the bones (Pro_14:30). This connection is taught us in a great measure by Scripture, when it placed the not yet fallen man in a Paradise, where death had not yet entered, and eternal life was not yet possessed and enjoyed; when it sends fallen man, who, however, is destined for redemption, into a world full of misery and death; and at last assigns to the wholly renewed man a new heaven and a new earth, where death, sorrow, crying or pain shall no longer exist (Rev_21:4).
Finally, Scripture is not the book of death, but of life, of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It tells us, in oft-repeated and unmistakable terms, of the dreaded reality of death, but it proclaims to us still more loudly the wonderful power of the life which is in Christ Jesus. See also DECEASE.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man, as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it.
Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death:
(a.) One of the most common in the Old Testament is, to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase, the dust of death. It is founded on the description Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc_12:7, 'The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God who gave it.'
(b.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa_104:29).
(c.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body with a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job_4:21; Isa_38:12; Psa_52:5; 2Co_5:1; 2Pe_1:13-14).
(d.) Paul likewise uses the term to be unclothed, in reference to death (2Co_5:3-4); because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed; and as soon as it is disembodied, is naked.
(e.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa_76:5; Jer_51:39; Joh_11:13, sqq.).
(f.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away (Job_10:21; Psa_39:4; Mat_26:24; Php_1:23; 2Ti_4:6).
Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns. But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa_18:5-6; Psa_91:3). After the exile, they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat_16:28; Heb_2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa_89:48; Luk_2:26).
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Rom_7:13 (a) This describes the effect of wickedness and sinfulness upon the natural human heart and soul in the sight of GOD. Our sinful natures in our natural state send up sins, trespasses, transgressions, evils, wickedness and iniquities until they form a thick, dark cloud between the soul and GOD. (See Isa_44:22).
Rom_8:6 (a) Here we see the result of setting the mind on the things of earth so that it cannot receive nor comprehend the things of Heaven.
2Co_4:12 (a) Paul uses the word here in order to describe the crushing and destructive effects of persecution and prosecution of his own life.
1Jo_3:14 (a) This describes the state of being unsaved and without eternal life. (See also under "DEAD").
Rev_20:14 (a) The first death is the death of the body because of which the person cannot longer enjoy the earthly blessings of life. This second death is called by that name because the body and the soul have at the Great White Throne been brought before GOD for a final judgment. The individual is taken away from this short appearance in GOD's presence to be eternally and forever shut out of ever seeking GOD again.
Here are some references to death as used in the Scriptures:
Dead to sin - Rom_6:2
Dead with CHRIST - Rom_6:8.
Dead in sin - Eph_2:1
Dead to the world - Gal_6:14.
Dead to GOD - Luk_9:60
Dead works - Heb_6:1.
Dead to this life - Rom_5:12 Heb_9:14.
Paul said "I die daily" 1Co_15:31. By this he was showing that he himself was fulfilling Rom_6:11. The meaning of all of this evidently is that the believer in CHRIST JESUS takes his place with CHRIST in His rejection from the world, and identifies himself with this rejected Lord. He does not now take part in, nor love, the things that this world offers to the unsaved.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.
Death
(properly, מָוֶה, θάνατος). No logical definition of death has been generally agreed upon. This point was much contested in the 17th century by the Cartesian and other theologians and philosophers. Since death can be regarded in various points of view, the descriptions of it must necessarily vary. If we consider the state of a dead man as it strikes the senses, death is the cessation of natural life. If we consider the cause of death, we may place it in that permanent and entire cessation of the feeling and motion of the body which results from the destruction of the body. Among theologians, death is commonly said to consist in the separation of soul and body, implying that the soul still exists when the body perishes. Among the ecclesiastical fathers, Tertullian (De Anima, c. 27) calls it the disunion of the body and soul. Cicero (Tusc. Dis. i) defines death to be the departure of the mind from the body. The passage Heb_4:12, is sometimes cited on this subject, but has nothing to do with it. Death does not consist in this separation, but this separation is the consequence of death. As soon as the body loses feeling and motion, it is henceforth useless to the soul, which is therefore separated from it. SEE DEAD.
Scriptural representations, names, and modes of speech respecting death.
(1.) One of the most common in the O.T. is to return to the dust, or to the earth. Hence the phrase the dust of death. It is founded on the description in Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19, and denotes the dissolution and destruction of the body. Hence the sentiment in Ecc_12:7, The dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit unto God, who gave it.
(2.) A withdrawing, exhalation, or removal of the breath of life (Psa_104:29). Hence the common terms to give up the ghost, etc.
(3.) A removal from the body, a being absent from the body, a departure from it, etc. This description is founded on the comparison of the body to a tent or lodgment in which the soul dwells during this life. Death destroys this tent or house, and commands us to travel on (Job_4:21; Isa_38:12; Psalm 53:7). Hence Paul says (2Co_5:1), our earthly house of this tabernacle will be destroyed; and Peter calls death a putting off of this tabernacle (2Pe_1:13-14). Classical writers speak of the soul in the same manner. So Hippocrates and AEschines. Compare 2Co_5:8-9.
(4.) Paul likewise uses the term ἐκδύεσθαι, to unclothe one's self, in reference to death (2Co_5:3-4), because the body is represented as the garment of the soul, as Plato calls it. The soul, therefore, as long as it is in the body, is clothed, and as soon as it is disembodied is naked.
(5.) The terms which denote sleep are applied frequently in the Bible, as everywhere else, to death (Psa_76:5; Jer_51:39; Joh_11:13 sq.). Nor is this language used exclusively for the death of the pious, as some pretend, though this is its prevailing use. Homer calls sleep and death twin brothers (Il. 16:672). The terms likewise which signify to lie down, to rest, also denote death.
(6.) Death is frequently compared with and named from a departure, a going away. Hence verbs of that import signify to die (Job_10:21; Psa_39:4). The case is the same in the New Testament (Mat_26:24), and even among the classics. In this connection we may mention the terms ἀναλύειν and ἀνάλυσις (Php_1:23; 2Ti_4:6), which do not mean dissolution, but discessus (comp. Luk_12:36).
Death, when personified, is described as a ruler and tyrant, having vast power and a great kingdom, over which he reigns (Job_18:14). But the ancients also represented it under some figures which are not common among us. We represent it as a man with a scythe, or as a skeleton, etc.; but the Jews, before the exile, frequently represented death as a hunter, who lays snares for men (Psa_18:5-6; Psa_91:3). After the exile they represented him as a man, or sometimes as an angel (the angel of Death), with a cup of poison, which he reaches to men. SEE DESTROYER. From this representation appears to have arisen the phrase, which occurs in the New Testament, to taste death (Mat_16:28; Heb_2:9), which, however, in common speech, signifies merely to die, without reminding one of the origin of the phrase. The case is the same with the phrase to see death (Psa_89:48; Luk_2:26). See Knapp's Christian Theology, by Dr. Wood; Waltirer, De origine phrasium I videre et gustare mortem (Giess. 1745).
The gates of death (Job_38:17; Psa_9:13; Psa_107:18) signify the grave itself; and the shadow of death (Jer_2:6) denotes the gloomy silence of the tomb. See Wemyss's Clavis Symbolica, s.v.; Zeibich, De vocibus, צִלְמָוֶת, σκία θανάτου (Vitemb. 1739).
Death may be considered as the effect of sin (Rom_5:12). In Heb_2:14, Satan is said to have the power of death; not that he can, at his pleasure, inflict death on mankind, but as he was the instrument of first bringing death into the world (Joh_8:44), and as he may be the executioner of God's wrath on impenitent sinners where God permits him. Death is but once (Heb_9:27), yet certain (Job_14:1-2), although uncertain as to the time (Pro_27:1); universal (Gen_3:19); necessary, in order that God's justice may be displayed and his mercy manifested; desirable to the righteous (Luk_2:28-30). The fear of death is a source of anxiety and alarm to many, and to a guilty conscience it may indeed be terrible; but to a good man it should be obviated by the consideration that death is the termination of every trouble; that it puts him beyond the reach of sin and temptation; that God has promised to be with the righteous, even to the end (Heb_13:5); that Jesus Christ has taken away the sting (1Co_15:55-56); and that it introduces him to a state of endless felicity (2Co_5:8).
Death, when applied to the animal nature, properly signifies a dissolution or failure of all its powers and functions; so, when applied to the spiritual nature, or souls of men, it denotes a corresponding disorder therein, a being spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Rom_8:6; Eph_2:1; Eph_2:3; Col_2:13; Jud_1:12).
The term death is metaphorically applied to denote an utter failure of customary functions, so that the thing spoken of can no longer act according to its nature. Thus, in Amo_2:2, Moab shall die with tumult that is, the king and government shall lose their power, and the nation be brought into subjection and slavery. So in Rom_7:8, Without the law, sin was dead that is, without the law, sin does not exert its power; and, on the other hand, it is said (Rom_7:9), Sin revived and I died Sin got strength to act, and I lost my power to resist. I was not the same man as before; sin destroyed my power.
The second death (Rev_2:11) is so called in respect to the natural or temporal as coming after it, and implies everlasting punishment (Rev_21:8).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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