Chapter 3
Spiritual Death – What Does It Mean?
After the fall of man, we saw in Chapter 2 how radically different mankind became. As a sinner, he became spiritually separated from God. Now men and women will physically die one day. Also, from conception the human race is infected with a disease called sin, thus men and women have a sin nature for the rest of their lives. As sinners, we are spiritually dead until the moment we are made alive by God.
Dead in Trespasses and Sins
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:1-7)
Is Paul here talking about physical death or spiritual death? Of course he is talking about spiritual death as the people he is writing to are alive. They are alive physically, but, before they were saved, they were dead spiritually in trespasses and sins. Spiritual death had direct reference to the unsaved person’s will. It was his will that was dead spiritually. What else could it be?
Let’s take a look at the heart or will condition of the unsaved man since the fall.
5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen. 6:5)
We certainly don’t see free will here, just the will to do only evil continually.
44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:44)
The unsaved person wants or wills to do the evil of his father, Satan. These verses do not describe the freedom of the will; they describe the bondage of the will and its desire to do evil.
Mistaken Views of Spiritual Death
How severe is this spiritual death? What does it mean with regard to salvation? Let me share with you how this has been incorrectly described. One story goes like this: A man is on a hospital bed and is dying. The doctor has some medicine on a spoon that the man has to take to keep him alive. It’s up to the man to take the medicine and swallow it to stay alive. The doctor has done his part; now the patient must do his part to save his life. Here is another story: A man falls off a boat and starts to drown. Someone from the boat throws him a life preserver. However, the man must grab hold of the preserver to save himself from drowning.
The characters in these stories represent God who must do His part and draw men to Christ and the unsaved man who must do his part and use his free will to accept Him. If both parties do their parts, the unsaved man becomes saved. Another way to say this is that if God does His part and the man does his part, then God gives the man salvation. Do you see the problem here? Man gets salvation from God if he does something. If he is faithful in using his will properly, better than others, then he gets salvation. Does this not sound like a reward rather than a free gift? Has not the unsaved person earned or merited this gift of salvation from God for what he did?
Let’s go back to these stories. What is wrong with these two scenarios? What is clearly wrong is that, in both stories, the unsaved man in the hospital bed and the one drowning are not dead. They are both alive. Let’s correct the stories to make them accurate with Eph. 2:1-7.
The man on the hospital bed has died physically. He is lifeless. He can’t take any medicine because he has suffered physical death. The Holy Spirit comes and gives him mouth to mouth resuscitation and brings him back to life from the dead. The same is true with the person who is drowning. The correct biblical picture is that the man has already drowned and lies at the bottom of the ocean floor dead. The Holy Spirit jumps into the water, swims to the bottom of the ocean floor, picks him up, and swims with him back to the shore where the deceased man is laid down on the sand. Then the Holy Spirit breathes the breath of life into the dead man, and he is raised to life.
The Unsaved Cannot Receive Spiritual Matters
When the Scriptures say that the unsaved person is dead in trespasses and sins, it means dead to all spiritual matters. This person is incapable of using his will to come to Christ because the will is dead spiritually. What does the Scripture say about the unsaved person’s ability of will to understand or process spiritual matters? Let me share just a few verses in the Bible that address this matter of the spiritual inability of the unsaved man to use his will to come to salvation.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)
Perhaps this is the clearest statement in all Scripture regarding the ability of the unsaved person’s will to receive Christ. The unsaved or natural man cannot receive spiritual things because he doesn’t understand them. He thinks these things are too foolish to even bother with. This means his will cannot understand and receive spiritual matters. His will is entirely lost and incapable of receiving Christ. He cannot cooperate with the Spirit to bring about his salvation because he doesn’t understand spiritual concerns.
17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:17)
Again, the Scripture clearly teaches us that the world, the unsaved world, cannot receive the Spirit because their wills do not see or understand the truth. The word “cannot” means not having the ability or power to accomplish something. It takes gracious divine intervention for that understanding to happen so that spiritual sight and reception can take place. The unsaved world cannot receive spiritual things because their wills are dead spiritually in trespasses and sins. It takes God removing the spiritual blinders of the unsaved person for him to be able to see, understand, believe, and receive the truth of Jesus Christ.
I would also like to mention the word “world” in this verse does not mean every single person in the world. It means the world of unbelievers for the believers John is writing to have received the Spirit. This fact will be important when we take a look at salvation verses with the word “world” in them.
It is interesting that so many Christians believe that they are saved ultimately by their wills, and yet there is not one verse in the Bible that states that. How can a theological doctrine be based on silence? Yes, I know the word Trinity is not in the Bible, and we believe in it. The difference is that there are many passages in Scripture that prove the doctrine of the Trinity. There are none that prove the doctrine of free will salvation.
In the Old Testament, God established with the Jewish nation the principal of substitutionary atonement for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. God commanded His people to sacrifice animals to be a type or picture of the atonement of Jesus Christ which would come later. Many of these sacrifices were done because of a vow or because of some sin. Some sacrifices were a spontaneous or voluntary gift to God. These voluntary sacrifices were called free will sacrifices. However, these sacrifices only had to do with the Jews, and they were not done to prove any ability of the will. They were just voluntary gifts to God out of their love for Him.
In the New Testament, there is absolutely no mention of the words free will. There is no mention of mankind having any such power or ability of the will. How then could some theologians build such an important doctrine into salvation called free will when the Bible doesn’t even mention it? I will answer this question later.
Not only are the Scriptures silent about a free will ability of the unsaved person, they openly declare that salvation has nothing to do with our wills.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
This spiritual reception does not take place as a result of the will of man but only by the will of God. The Lord must graciously intervene and touch the person’s will so that he can believe since his will is spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. An unbeliever becomes born again, not as the result of his dead will, but as a result of God’s grace that awakens him from spiritual death and gives him spiritual life.
14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Eph. 5:14)
Let’s move on to some other verses that prove we can’t use a free will power to receive Jesus Christ. When discussing the calling of Jacob over Esau in Romans 9, Paul states the following:
So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. (Rom. 9:16)
Paul is showing us that our salvation does not depend upon two key factors that many are mistaken about. It does not depend upon our good deeds or works that we do. This has reference to him who runs in verse 16. It is equally not of him who wills. In other words, our salvation is also not dependent upon our wills. Paul has the opportunity here to clear up the issue about the will and state that our salvation does depend on how we use our wills if that were the truth. However, he does the opposite. He clearly states that our wills have nothing to do with our salvation.
So then, what does our salvation depend upon? Paul makes that clear at the end of the verse. It is all about God and His mercy. This was true in the case of Jacob and Esau. What is said in this passage about God’s mercy?
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” (Rom. 9:15) Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. (Rom. 9:18)
God has the sovereign right and power to extend mercy, grace, and compassion to whomever He wills to do so. In Rom. 9:11, God chose to bestow mercy to Jacob and not to Esau. He made that decision before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad.
11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” (Rom. 9:11-13)
I will be discussing the case of Jacob and Esau in more detail later.
6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isa. 64:6)
What is this verse saying about the wills of the unsaved? Even all the good things they try to do are like filthy rags to God. Why? This verse tells us it is because of their iniquities or sinfulness. It is that sin nature that drives them away like the wind from doing the right thing. It has so damaged their wills that they no longer have the power or ability of the will to do what is right with the motive to please God.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer. 17:9)
This verse clearly tells us the state of the heart or will of man. It is desperately wicked. So, if the will of man is desperately wicked, how is it free? The will is not free because the sin nature is causing it to commit sin, to be full of lies and wickedness.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom. 8:7-8)
The mind or will of the unsaved man has hatred toward God and the things of God. His will is carnal, motivated by the pleasures of the flesh and sin. In this unsaved state, he can never please God. He and his will are totally lost, and he does not have the power of the will to turn things around. He is lost and needs a Savior to seek him since his will cannot seek the Savior. (Rom. 3:11)
Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. (Eccl. 9:3)
Here we see a clear indication of the condition of the hearts or wills of the unsaved man. The Scripture says their wills are full of evil and madness. Can the unsaved man use his will to freely choose good or evil? Not according to this verse. The will is in complete bondage to sin and evil.
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Cor. 4:3-4)
Here we see that the gospel message is veiled or hidden from those who are perishing. Why has the gospel been hidden from them? There are two reasons they can’t see Christ. One, they are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins and don’t have the spiritual ability of will to come to Jesus. They are full of evil. Second, Satan has blinded their wills so that they can’t see or come to Jesus. There is no free will ability here. Their wills are no match against Satan and their own sinfulness.
6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. (2 Cor. 4:6-7)
The only way these unbelievers who are perishing can see the light of the gospel is if God, in His almighty power, removes the veil of darkness, defeats Satan, and imparts to the unbeliever the knowledge of Christ. It is not by the power of any free will of ours but only by the power of God (vs. 7) who commands light to shine out of darkness. This power is the new birth or the regenerating power of God which is given to His people at the appointed time so they can see by faith and enter the kingdom of God.
Lazarus and the Rich Man
The story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man is important here. (Luke 16:19-31) Jesus told this story and does not refer to it as a parable. He named a person called Lazarus. Therefore, it is an actual event that took place.
Lazarus was a poor beggar with sores over his body and had only crumbs to eat from under the table of the rich man who lived in comfort and ease. At death, Lazarus went to paradise, called “Abraham’s bosom,” and the rich man went to hell where he suffered. The one who in his life had been rich asked Abraham if he would have Lazarus dip his finger in the water and come and place it on his tongue so he could have some relief as he was tormented in the flames. Abraham said he couldn’t send Lazarus to him because there was a great gulf between them. Let’s pick up the story from that point.
27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”
Notice that the rich man wanted to warn his brothers by sending Lazarus back from the dead to them. He felt certain that his brothers would heed someone who rose from the dead to pass on a heavenly message. Abraham said they would not listen to someone who came back from the dead if they didn’t listen to Moses and the prophets.
Why would some people not listen to a person who came back from the dead? Wouldn’t their free will accept what that person said? You certainly would think so. The reason why they wouldn’t believe is because their wills were dead in sin and could not understand spiritual matters. Those spiritually dead people could never believe even if someone came back from the dead to warn them. It would take the grace of God, in the new birth, to awaken their wills and give them spiritual sight, hearing, and understanding.
In this chapter, I have provided many verses that prove that the unsaved man’s will is spiritually dead and unable to receive Jesus Christ. There are many more that could be quoted, but those provided here are more than sufficient. The only way the spiritually dead person can be saved is if Jesus brings him back from the dead and gives him new life called eternal life. The difference in our salvation does not depend on us or our will, the difference in our salvation is what God does for us by His mercy and grace.
Oh, how amazing His wonderful free grace is to us!