What Does It Mean To Be Dead? - Part 3

Part 1 described spiritual death. Not pretty.
Part 2 marveled that God would have mercy on the living dead.
Now, how did we get into this pickle in the first place.



Death Through Sin

"The wages of sin is death." Scripture makes is quite clear that we are dead because of sin. Disobedience against God's commands is tantamount to outright rejection of Him, His supremacy, and His standards. Anyone that chooses to follow their own inclinations in violation of God's own words suffers death. All sin is sin against God, and sin brings death. "When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." (James 1:15) Sin breaks relationship with the Giver of life, so death falls to the offender. Sin isn't a popular topic, or pleasant thought, but all have sinned, and eternal death awaits.

Baby Sinners

"Isn't he cute?" When my children were born they were miracles! Not only were they new people but innocent, uncorrupted, without guile. I would look into their face and feel renewed; they seemed to lift off the heaviness of the world from my shoulders, take years off me. However, by two years of age, they were adding to my years. They lied, disobeyed and took things that weren't theirs. Now my kids weren't criminals against society at age two, but while I certainly hadn't taught them to do such things it seemed these sins came naturally to them. I couldn't blame it on kindergarten, TV, or even my own behavior (for the most part), and I noticed it wasn't just my young children; my friends' children were exhibiting the same things (of course I blamed that on bad parenting.) No, what I was witnessing was the outworking of a corrupted nature. Sadly, sin was part of the package with my children. They were born into the world as sinners - their sinful nature led to the sins, not the other way around. I love my children dearly, but they each were born as sinners.

Death Through Adam

In Romans 5 Paul writes that, "Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." Adam sinned against God and so mankind's nature was fundamentally peverted. The obvious evidence of this fact given in this verse is that all men across all time have sinned. I've often wondered about this. Why did Adam's sin so effect the rest of us? Why am I born as a sinner when I had nothing to do with Adam's disobedience? If I now sin because I am a sinner at heart - and the state of my heart is beyond my control - then how is it that I am held responsible for my sin? Quite frankly, that seems a little unfair. Yet scripture goes on to say, "Through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners." This is tough stuff. How am I culpable for what Adam did thousands of years before I was even born? I've heard the old rejoinder, "Don't knock Adam - you would have done the same thing," but, well, I didn't... I wasn't there. Yes, I've sinned in my lifetime - things worse than eating forbidden fruit, but didn't I do that because Adam's sin gave me a sinful nature? This is a hard teaching, who can accept it? Two possible explanations for this are available to us in Scripture.

We Were There

The first explanation is that in some uncommon sense, we were physically present in Adam when he rejected his God. Hebrews 7 states that Levi was in the loins of Abraham, even though they were separated by several generations. Further it states that Levi - though not yet conceived - paid tithes through Abraham. As Abraham's actions were attributed to Levi, so Adam's actions were attributed to us. This is not a concept I like very much. If I'm going to be accountable for something bad, it better be something I actually did. However, the Bible clearly shows sins having an impact that extends beyond the law breaker to his descendants (e.g. Exodus 20:5-6 and 34:6-7.) While this notion is most foreign to our way of thinking, it is not foreign to the Bible. We were present in Adam when he sinned, and bear the reproach of what happened in the garden.

We Were Represented

If the Scriptural basis for the first explanation leaves you unconvinced, then consider this: we weren't there physically, but we were fully represented. As an ambassador speaks and acts for his people, all humanity was represented by its progenitor and the consequences for his choice fall to all humanity. Romans 5 says that Adam was a type (foreshadowing) of Christ, who is also called the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45.) Consider this from Matthew Henry:

• In this Adam was a type of Christ, that in the covenant-transactions that were between God and him, and in the consequent events of those transactions, Adam was a public person. God dealt with Adam and Adam acted as such a one, as a common father and factor, root and representative, of and for all his posterity; so that what he did in that station, as agent for us, we may be said to have done in him, and what was done to him may be said to have been done to us in him.

Verdict: Guilty

Whichever way you slice it, we are guilty because of what happened in Eden. Thus we are born sinners, and it is natural to us to sin. No one teaches a baby to sin, yet they do it. Every person that ever lived has sinned, but one. How could Jesus, being fully man, be without sin? Because He was not born a sinner - He was not of the seed of Adam or of His nature. His sinlessness is further evidence of our built in sinfulness. King David famously wrote that "in sin my mother conceived me." Every person ever born is already a sinner, desires to be nothing else, deserves the full wrath of a jilted God. Our predicament from the beginning is such that, unless we believe that Jesus is God, we will die in our sins. (John 8:24)

Conclusion: What Does it Mean to be Dead?

We do not desire God. His ways are unnatural to us. Not a fiber of our being remains untouched by the ravages of sin, and we do no God-honoring good. We are helpless to save ourselves from this mess, but do not mind that in the least - we are quite literally hell-bent, twisted away from God. Our sins reflect this reality: we are born sinners. We transgress God's will because we are not of Him in the first place. If a man is to be saved, God must act first. Man must be given the desire to love God in order to choose to do so. More on that later.