Once upon a time you were spiritually dead. Then you met Jesus and now you are spiritually alive.
Or so the story goes.
Like many religious phrases the idea that we were spiritually dead makes sense until you start asking questions like “what is spiritual death?” and “why isn’t spiritual death mentioned in the Bible?”
What does it mean to be dead spiritually? And where does this idea come from?
It comes from something God said to Adam in the Garden:
From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:17)
God told Adam that if he ate from the forbidden tree, he would die the same day. But Adam didn’t die, at least not straight away. He lived for hundreds of years and had lots of children (Gen. 5:4–5).
So how do we explain God’s warning?
“Since Adam didn’t die physically, he must have died spiritually.”
Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Makes perfect sense. Hand me a theological degree because I just solved the problem. But did I? What exactly is spiritual death?
Spiritual death defined
Spiritual death means to be cut off or separated from God. “Those who are spiritually dead are dead to the things of God,” said the 19th-century Methodist minister Joseph Benson and many others. Apparently sinners cannot communicate with God.
Except Adam did. In fact, there is more evidence of God talking with Adam after he sinned than before.
God also spoke with Adam’s murderous son Cain and many of his other descendants (e.g., Job, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc.). The Old Testament is a record of God talking and dealing with people who were supposed to be spiritually dead.
Because I’m a curious sort of person, I did a bit of digging into the meaning of spiritual death. I went looking for a definition that fitted with scripture. Guess what. I couldn’t find one. Instead, I found a lot of sloppy exegesis, like this:
“God walked with Adam in the cool of the evening but after Adam sinned that didn’t happen anymore.”
Actually, the only mention of God walking in the garden came after Adam sinned (Gen. 3:8).
“Adam was filled with the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit left him after he sinned leaving Adam spiritually disconnected and spiritually dead.”
There is not one bit of evidence that the Holy Spirit indwelled anyone before the Day of Pentecost and plenty to suggest that he didn’t (Luke 24:49, John 7:39, 16:7). If the Holy Spirit left us when we sinned, Christians would be in trouble. Happily, the Holy Spirit never abandons us (John 14:16, Heb. 13:5).
“God drove Adam and Eve out from his presence.”
Again, that’s not true. God did drive the first couple out of the Garden of Eden, but he went with them and continued to talk with them and their children. God did not wash his hands of these sinners or drive them from his presence.
It’s true that killer Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:16), but he left God; God didn’t leave him.
“Spiritual death means Adam acquired a sinful nature which he passed on to his offspring.”
This is Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, another religious idea that is not supported by scripture. Adam’s transgression condemned him and his offspring (see Rom. 5:12-19), but it did not give him horns, a tail, or a sin gene to pass onto his children. Your sinful nature – when you had one – was acquired, not inherited, the result of living in a world held captive by sin.
What really happened to Adam?
What did God mean when he told Adam “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die”?
This is an easy question because God answered it. If we want to know what happened to Adam, we only need to hear the sentence of death that was pronounced on the day he sinned:
By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)
To return to the dust from whence you came describes physical death, not spiritual death. God said Adam’s body would end up in the ground and that’s what happened.
God warned Adam, “You shall surely die.” This phrase appears repeatedly in the Bible, and every time it refers to physical death (e.g., Gen. 20:7, Num. 26:65, 2 Kgs. 1:4). It has nothing to do with spiritual death, whatever that may be.
But what about when God says “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die”? That sounds like Adam would die the same day. In a manner of speaking he did. From the moment Adam ate the fruit, he began to die.
“You will surely die” can be read as “dying you will die” and Adam began dying that very day. The moment he said yes to sin, he entered death row and life as he knew it was over.
But don’t take my word for it. Let scripture interpret scripture.
Learning from Shimei
There is a story in the Bible that illuminates the surely-die passage. It is the story of a rebel called Shimei, a relative of King Saul, who became embittered after David ascended to the throne.
Shimei created trouble for the House of David and Solomon knew that he had to keep the troublemaker on a short leash. King Solomon warned Shimei to confine himself to Jerusalem. The king said that if he ever left the city, his life would be forfeit.
For on the day you go out and cross over the brook Kidron, you will know for certain that you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head. (1 Kings 2:37)
Note Solomon’s choice of words: on the day… you shall surely die. It’s the same warning that God gave to Adam.
And like Adam, Shimei didn’t listen.
After a couple of his slaves ran away, Shimei left the city and pursued them halfway across the country. When Shimei eventually returned to Jerusalem, Solomon had him executed just as he promised.
Shimei did not literally die on the day he broke parole, just as Adam did not literally die on the day he ate from the forbidden tree. But like Adam, his life was forfeit on the day that he sinned.
What did Paul say?
No one wrote more about the consequences of Adam’s offence than the apostle Paul, and Paul never mentioned spiritual death. Not once. “The wages of sin is death,” he said, not spiritual death, but the real, final death that closes the curtain on life (Rom. 6:23).
When Paul said, “through one man sin entered into the world… and so death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12), he meant Adam’s transgression brought death and condemnation to us all (Rom. 5:18).
Adam put humanity on death row.
When Paul said “you were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1), he meant you were doomed to die on account of sin. And when he said “you were made alive with Christ” (Eph. 2:5), he meant you now have everlasting life through Christ Jesus (John 3:15–16, 5:24).
“In Adam, all die” (1 Cor. 15:22). That’s the bad news. The good news is that in Christ all will be made alive.
Spiritual death sounds Biblical but isn’t. (Click on the Table below for a larger version.) It conveys the impression that unbelievers are spiritually numb and incapable of communicating with God. But if that were true, how could anyone repent? How could anyone pray the Sinner’s Prayer?
The Bible never says that natural man is spiritually dead. Instead it says he lacks fellowship with the Lord (1 John 1:3), is alienated in his mind (Col. 1:3), and excluded from the life of God (Eph. 4:18).
His spirit is very much alive, it’s just not connected to the Spirit of God (John 3:5, Rom. 8:9).
Dumb things we say in church
Spiritual death, like original sin, is one of those religious phrases we should stop using. To say unbelievers suffer from spiritual death is to minimize all that Jesus did for us.
Jesus does not deliver us from some half-baked version of death that no one understands; he delivered us from real, final, pushing-up-daisies death. He did this by giving us a brand new life, one that does not end in death.
If you have been joined to the Lord you have everlasting life and a hundred blessings besides. In fellowship with the Lord, you have been made a partaker of his divine life.
With the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide and keep you, you have it far better than Adam ever did.
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Extracted and adapted from Paul’s new book, Original Sin: What Does the Bible Really Say? available now on Patreon.
