What is Death?

What is Death?

What do you think of when you hear the word “death?” According to the Merriam-Webster’s eleventh edition, death includes:

death \ˈdeth\ noun
a: a permanent cessation of all vital functions: the end of life—compare BRAIN DEATH
. . . .
a: the passing or destruction of something inanimate 〈the death of vaudeville〉[1]

Using this definition, to die is to cease functioning as a person. This definition is the origin of a common deterministic claim about salvation (made primarily among Calvinists):

The dead man cannot spontaneously originate his own quickening, nor the creature his own creating, nor the infant his own begetting. Whatever man may do after regeneration, the first quickening of the dead must originate in the first instance with God.[2]

The raising of Lazarus is often used as an example of God regenerating a lost soul; Lazarus is completely passive in the process because he is dead.

Raising Lazarus from the dead was an act of omnipotence. Nothing intervened between the volition and the effect. The act of quickening was the act of God. In that matter Lazarus was passive. But in all the acts of the restored vitality, he was active and free. According to the evangelical system it is in this sense that regeneration is the act of God’s almighty power. Nothing intervenes between his volition that the soul, spiritually dead, should live, and the desired effect.[3]

See this X post for a more modern example.

Is this modern view of death, the complete cessation of action and an inability to even hear God’s call, the correct view? Is this the meaning of the word death we should use when considering salvation?

No. The first hint that death as cessation might be to go further back in time and ask how older dictionaries define death. According to Noah Webster’s first American dictionary, published in 1828, death has a broader range of meaning or semantic range:

That state of a being, animal or vegetable, but more particularly of an animal, in which there is a total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions, when the organs have not only ceased to act, but have lost the susceptibility of renewed action. Thus the cessation of respiration and circulation in an animal may not be death, for during hybernation some animals become entirely torpid, and some animals and vegetables may be subjected to a fixed state by frost, but being capable of revived activity, they are not dead.
1. The state of the dead; as the gates of death. Job 38.

. . .
9. In theology, perpetual separation from God, and eternal torments; called the second death. Rev. 2.

Separation or alienation of the soul from God; a being under the dominion of sin, and destitute of grace or divine life; called spiritual death.[4]

In 1828, physical death was described purely physically—the cessation of “the vital functions.” Spiritual death is defined, however, as “perpetual separation from God.” Which of these two views do the Scriptures support—complete cessation of activity and inability to even hear or a form of separation?

It’s often best to start a study of this kind with the first mention rule—the first mention of a given word in the Scriptures sets the tone or the point from which the semantic range of the word develops.

The first mention of the word death in the Scriptures is found in Genesis 2:16–17:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

“. . . in the day that you eat of it . . .” The Hebrew here is clear—on that very day—”. . . you will surely die.” The construction of the Hebrew is interesting; it says: “dying you will die.” Adam and Eve do, of course, eat of the tree, which God has prohibited. The result is described in Genesis 3:7–9.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

If we take God at his word (we should always take God at his word), they were dead once they ate the fruit.

And yet, Adam and Eve are still trying to make clothing, hiding from God, and speaking. It is clear they are not dead in the sense of being unable to act, speak, or even decide—using the modern definition, they are not dead.

In what way are they dead, then?

Scholars tend to understand God’s words as a multistage process:

1. Eat of the forbidden tree
2. Separation from God and/or the Tree of Life
3. Eventual physical death resulting from separation

For instance, Sarna, a Jewish scholar, says:

As noted in the Comment to verse 9, man was mortal from the beginning. Logically, therefore, the transgression should incur immediate capital punishment, not mortality as opposed to immortality. But man and woman did not die at once, and it is not stated that God rescinded the death penalty. For these reasons, “you shall die” must here mean being deprived of the possibility of rejuvenation by means of the “tree of life,” as existed hitherto—in other words, inevitable expulsion from the garden.[5]

Matthews, a Christian scholar, agrees with this reading of Genesis 2:16–17:

There is a difference between man’s creation, in which he receives life by the divine inbreathing (2:7), and the perpetuation of that life gained by appropriating the tree of life (cf. 3:22). Immortality is the trait of deity alone (1 Tim 6:16). . . Perpetuating or renewing earthly life was possible through the “tree of life” (v. 9), but once sin was committed, the sanction of disobedience necessarily meant the man and woman’s expulsion from the garden and its tree of life (3:22–24).[6]

In this case, we can describe death as: “separation from that which gives life, eventually leading to death.” During the time of separation, before the final death (cessation of activities), the person can still decide to accept God’s mercy, such as Adam and Eve accepting God’s provision of clothes (and probably the provision of sacrifice to cover sin).

Job does not see death as some state where he cannot see or experience anything.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
Job 18: 25–27

Job considers death separation from his physical body and physically being in the presence of God.

The idea of death as separation is stronger in the Apostles’ writings. One example of death as separation is found in the story of the Prodigal Son. Once the prodigal returned home, his father slaughtered the fat calf so he could make a great feast. The older son, who steadfastly remained with his father, complains about the situation:

And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”
Luke 15:31–32

The father considers the prodigal son not just lost, but dead. Of course, this is a parable, and we cannot always take parables as if they run on all four feet—but it is instructive that Jesus could have chosen any words he liked to describe the father’s relationship to the prodigal son, and he chose dead.

There are, of course, other passages among the writings of the Gospels that simply will not work if we define death as cessation, including:

• The narrative of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. While this is considered a parable by many, the entire point of the narrative hinges on the rich man’s conversation with Abraham after he has died.
• The discussion about Moses and the bush in Luke 20. What does it mean for God to be “the God of the living” if Jacob and Isaac have ceased to exist until God calls them from the grave on resurrection day? In what sense can they be considered “living?”

Finally, we come to one of the most difficult concepts: eternal death. Hell is described throughout the Scriptures as a horrible place of eternal fire:

• The sinners in Zion are afraid;
  trembling has seized the godless:
  “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
  Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
  Isaiah 33:14
• It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.
  Matthew 18:8
• His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
  Luke 3:17

Hell is described as eternal:

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2

Hell is also described as a second death:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Revelation 21:8

If death only and always means cessation, then dead people cannot feel or think or decide, and eternal death holds no threat.

While death is clearly described in very physical terms throughout the Writings and the Prophets, that death originates in Adam’s separation from God through sin should give us pause when defining death in this one specific way.

It is better to define death as a separation:

• Separation of the soul from the body is physical death
• Separation of the soul from the source of life (God) is spiritual death
• Separation of a family member from their family is considered a form of death

All of these imply an inability to act in some way:

• Physical death means the inability to act in the physical world
• Spiritual death means the inability to stand in the presence of God

None of these, however, implies an inability to desire. It is wholly within the realm of death’s semantic range to say of Lazarus:

Because Lazarus’ body was separated from his soul, he could not rise and walk. However, his soul could still hear the call and command of Jesus, and he could still accept that call.

This definition fits well with what the Scriptures say elsewhere about free will—but it does not fit well with the deterministic proclamation: “Dead men must be brought to life before they can even hear God’s call.”

“Sinners are dead” is not a strong argument for divine determinism.

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[1] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. (Merriam-Webster, 2003).

[2] Archibald Alexander Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1887), 143.

[3] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Soteriology, vol. 3 (Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 31.

[4] Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.

[5] Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989), 21.

[6] K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 211–12.