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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > 1 Corinthians 15 and Death as good? | Forum Quick Jump
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 10/14/2005 8:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hey Mark,
The biblical concept of death is never cessation of existence. It is always separation (spiritual, physical or both). Oh, I'm sure a verse or two can be found that seems to suggest otherwise, but the over-all concept of death in scripture is separation. The first thing out of God's mouth to Adam and Eve is not "You will cease to exist if you eat of the apple"; rather, it is "You will die." What is death here? It is obviously not immediate physical death (though that quickly followed). It is first spiritual death. But what is this death if it is not separation from the relationship with God Adam and Eve had prior to sinning? I mean, isn't that pretty much the issue? After sinning, Adam and Eve are outside of relationship with God? The issue of death in scripture doesn't change from this motif. It's the central theme of the Good News: come to God through Jesus and find relationship with God restored, the end of the reign of death (separation between God and man).
Seems to me, anyway...
Got to run,
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us?Post Edited (Starkman) : 10/14/2005 8:50:47 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 10/14/2005 11:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Starkman said...
Hey Mark,
The biblical concept of death is never cessation of existence. It is always separation (spiritual, physical or both). Oh, I'm sure a verse or two can be found that seems to suggest otherwise, but the over-all concept of death in scripture is separation. The first thing out of God's mouth to Adam and Eve is not "You will cease to exist if you eat of the apple"; rather, it is "You will die." What is death here? It is obviously not immediate physical death (though that quickly followed). It is first spiritual death. But what is this death if it is not separation from the relationship with God Adam and Eve had prior to sinning? I mean, isn't that pretty much the issue? After sinning, Adam and Eve are outside of relationship with God? The issue of death in scripture doesn't change from this motif. It's the central theme of the Good News: come to God through Jesus and find relationship with God restored, the end of the reign of death (separation between God and man).
Seems to me, anyway...
Got to run,
Starkman
Possibly - although is that really what is happening right then? Is it not more that they no longer have any access to the tree of life and now have nothing but a return to the dust to look forward to? Or that they no longer have life to its fullest? Sure, this is a consequence of the separation from God, but I'm not sure that to define it as that is truly correct. | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 10/14/2005 2:38 PM (GMT -6) | | | "The day you eat of it, you shall die." ...the "day" I assume a right-then-and-there context. It wasn't physical death that took place, not for a long time after. Further, you hit the theological nail on the head when you said, it not more that they no longer have any access to the tree of life. This is exactly what I mean by separation. This is the external testimony of the internal spiritual death that took place: separation of relationship with God. And, indeed, returning to dust is the only thing that is left for a being that is separated from eternal life (viz., the tree of life). Finally, it isn't that this is just the conseqences of separation from God, it IS separation. To be separate from God is to have no life. Think about it. If one does not have life (as is the case of the unrepentant), one has death. This IS the state of one who is outside of relationship with God. It's an either-or, not just a consequence. So, when Adam sinned, he was (yes, as a consequence, but much more than that) found to be in a position outside of relationship with God. "They day you eat...you die."
Well, without having to make too much of that issue, the point is that the biblical concept of death is not cessation of existence. It therefore must be something else, and that something else shows itself as being separated from something (from one's own body, from others, from God, etc). Here, let's look at the issue from the opposit of one who has sinned; one who has repentant. We'll see the same concept of death come to play.
Romans 6:1-4
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
One of the biggest mistakes Christians make when reading this is to assume that the word "death" here means cessation of existence; either sin or something in the sinner has ceased to exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here, look at the next few verses.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old selfwas crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set freefrom sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The issue here is that Christ suffered a death. He did not cease to exist, obviously! What then happened when He died? If we don't have all the answers, but the one thing we may be absolutely sure of is that at some point in time He separated from His body. It is that separation which forever sets Him free from the confines and control that the human element had over Him while He was alive. He is forever free from it. When He resurrected His body, He came back into that body BUT transformed it into the likeness, which we are told that one day our bodies, too, will have. This new body does not live by the laws of flesh and humanity. It is able to inherit eternity.
This death is what we enter into (right now by faith) so that we, too, can be said to be free from sin; we have become "separated" from it's dominion. This is why Paul in Col 1 states that we have been translated out of (separated from) darkness and brought into light. This is the opposite of what happened to Adam and Eve. Romans 6 is merely giving us a glimpse, though adumbratively, of the mechanics of it all.
So, when we start to stuggle with sin (which is all the more proof that it is by faith right now that we enter into His rest by way of His death), we can act on our faith that we are, in fact, dead to sin! For we are in Him, and He has died to (separated from) this world's strangle hold.
Hope that's clear...
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us? | | Back to Top | | |
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