It was according to God’s decreed and published statute of men’s but once dying; for God the Supreme Lord, Governor, and Judge of them,  set, constituted, and appointed by an unalterable and irrevocable decree, as Lawgiver, and sentence, as Judge, to all of the sinful human race, the corrupt seed of apostate Adam, their grand representative, whom God threatened with this penalty upon his sinning and transgressing his law, Gen. 2:17; which sentence was denounced upon him, Gen. 3:19; compare Rom. 5:12, 14; 6:23.  This sentence was but once to be undergone by himself and all his sinful offspring, and by their Surety, and no more; so that the Second Adam needed but once to die by this statute.  No man can keep himself from this, it being the general rule of God’s proceeding with all persons.  The Supreme Legislator may make what exceptions and provisos to his law he pleaseth.  Those that were translated by him, did suffer a change proportionable to death, as Enoch, chap. 11:5; Gen. 5:24, and Elijah, II Kings 2:11, 12; and those that shall be changed at Christ’s coming must undergo the like, as I Cor. 15:51-54; I Thess. 4:17.  Those that were raised from death by Christ, Peter and Paul, etc., God might glorify his name by reiterating it; but whether they did die again, is not certain.  This is to be the general settled law and rule of God.—Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3, p. 852, on Heb. 9:27.

Death being the reality that it is, and claiming every person in his appointed season, no one can logically deny its reality.  Indeed, only one group that we are aware of has ever denied the reality of death and that is the so-called Christian Scientists, a group not renowned for either their soundness of reason or soundness and spirituality of doctrine.  A visiting Englishman in the late 1800’s after being in the United States returned home and gave this report.  He said that America was a very strange country for it had a breakfast food known as Grape-Nuts that had neither grapes nor nuts in it and a religion known as Christian Scientist that was neither Christian nor Scientific.  When a religion denies what is everywhere recognized by God and man as reality it shows its own blindness to truth and so, its folly.  And though the so called “Christian Scientists” deny the reality of death, and claim that belief in it is simply “mortal error,” they have never been able to convince the dead person that he is not dead, and they continue to make a practice of burying the dead nonetheless.  How much better it would be to honestly recognize the fact of death and seek for the Divinely appointed remedy for it than to deny the fact and cause of death, and so bring upon themselves the consequential second death.    

But the fact that the reality of death is almost universally recognized does not mean that everyone has a proper view of it.  No!  The natural man often accounts death to have no relevance to sin, but to be only our “debt to nature” that everyone owes.  And many, looking at death with only eyes of flesh and seeing no evidence of life after death has come, assume that there is nothing beyond death but a great eternal void.  There is no way that anyone has of knowing by experience what death is while living in this present life.

To say what it is, is difficult; we know nothing of it practically and experimentally, though there are continual instances of it before our eyes; our friends and relatives, who have gone through this dark passage, have not returned to us to tell us what they met with in it; nor what they felt when the parting stroke was given; nor what they were surprised into at once.  We know nothing of death but in theory.—John Gill, Body of Divinity, Book VII, chapter 1, p. 579.

And the mysteriousness of death has led yet others to imbibe false religious ideas so as to assume that everyone will be in the same condition in the after life.  These and others, are all false ideas.  Physical death is a transition from this life about which we know a little into another life about which we know nothing except by the revelation that God has given concerning it.

Death is simply birth into another world, in which we must henceforth live, i. e., grow and become developed, but in which also the beginning cannot possibly be the same as the continuation and the end.  If, in thus speaking, we carry over the notion of time into the domain of the World Beyond, we follow in this the unequivocal guidance of Holy Scripture, which teaches us clearly to distinguish between the condition of the departed before the Parousia, and that after it.—J. J. van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, p. 780.

Without a proper understanding of what is involved in the word “Death” no one can possibly understand his great need for the redemption that is to be found alone in Jesus Christ.  Doubtless this explains why Satan has so many false teachers that obscure the need for salvation by denying the great fact of man’s spiritual deadness and his utter inability to change that. The Lord’s statement in John 10:10 of His purpose in coming to earth moves upon the truth of man’s spiritual deadness and He contrasts Himself with all the religious thieves that had gone before Him.  There He said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  

The strongest language that our Lord ever used was against the false teachers and false prophets, and rightly so, for there is nothing worse.  To rob a man of money is to impoverish him materially.  To kill a person is but to take away his physical life.  But to lead a soul into falsehood is to damn his soul eternally.  By contrast with the thief, the Good Shepherd came in order that the sheep might not only have life, but have it more abundantly.  Only the Christian life is the more abundant life, and it is so because it is the life of Christ Himself, imputed to the sheep.  “To have more abundantly” is an adverb derived from a verb meaning to go beyond a measure, or to exceed a certain amount, to overflow.  How aptly this describes the Christian life, which does indeed overflow all expectation.  It is more abundant than that natural life which man has in this world.  Yea, more abundant even than that life of innocence which Adam had before his fall, for that, for all its beauty, was still but a human life, which could be lost, and was lost, and so, was but a temporary life.  But this life is spiritual, and so, is eternal, for it is the divine life which is given from God Himself, II Pet. 1:3-4.—Davis W. Huckabee, Studies On A Harmony Of The Gospels, p. 622.  Manuscript Sunday School Notes of Heritage Baptist Church, Salem, Ohio.

Though death is mysterious, we are assured of its certainty for almost everyone of the human race. The exceptions being Enoch and Elijah, who were translated that they should not see death, and those believers that shall be living upon the earth when Christ comes again, who are represented by these two saints.   

It is recognized in almost every realm of life that before there can be a remedy accomplished for any bad thing, there has to first be a proper diagnosis of the problem.  To try to reverse some bad thing without understanding the cause and character of it, is simply to blunder and flail around pointlessly.  Therefore we consider—

I. DEATH DEFINED.

The first mention of death in Scripture in Gen. 2:16-17 is sometimes erroneously assumed to be in reference to physical death, but this cannot be so, for neither Adam nor Eve died in this sense.  None of us would have been around now had that been so.  Adam lived to be 930 years of age, Gen. 5:5. Wicked people sometimes make such erroneous interpretations just so that they can point the finger at such a text and claim that the Bible made a mistake there.  No!  The death that was threatened was spiritual death, and it immediately befell our first parents.  And though they physically lived for many years after this and begot many sons and daughter in their own images, they were spiritually dead by their rebellion, and every child born of them or their descendents thereafter were born physically alive but spiritually dead. 

The New Testament moves upon the supposition that this is the case with every person born after the flesh, Eph. 2:1-3—that they are dead in trespasses and sins—and they continue in this state until they are born again.  Physical death which we all can see more readily, is meant to give evidence of the state of spiritual death that is not so readily discernable to the eye of flesh.  Physical death is more prominent in Scripture than other forms of death, and probably necessarily so, but it is referred to in a number of ways in Scripture as the following shows.  It is expressed as—

A departure out of this world, 2 Tim. 4:6.  A going the way of all the earth, Josh. 23:14.  A being gathered to one’s fathers, Judges 2:10; and to one’s people, Deut. 32:50.  A dissolving the earthly house of this tabernacle, 2 Cor. 5:1.  A returning to the dust, Eccles. 12:7. A sleep, John 11:11.  A giving up the ghost, Acts 5:10.  A being absent from the body and present with the Lord, 2 Cor. 5:8. Sleeping in Jesus, I Thess. 4:14.—A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 436.

And perhaps there may be other expressions as well, physical death being such a common, yea, a universal, experience of all Adam’s fallen race.  The definition of death in James 2:26 as a separation of the spirit from the body is fundamental to proper understanding of many aspects of death.  This is true both in a physical and in a spiritual sense, for as physical death is separation of the body and spirit, so spiritual death is separation of the soul from its God.  But neither is the end of existence.

Death is the cessation of the physical life,—the stopping of that unexplained vital process by which the physical organism is maintained in action.  In death the material of the body is released from the control of the vital principle or power, whatever that may be, and left to the control of the common forces of nature external to itself, which proceed to effect the disintegration and decay of the organism… If one looks back, death is the end of a career; if forward, it is the beginning of a career; but an event in a career, an experience of life.  It closes life in one scene, and opens life in another; but what we often call two lives are but parts of one life of the spirit, which moves on through both unaltered by the change.  In this single and continuous life of the human being, death is only a change of scene and condition.—W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 449-450.

But the threatened death in the first Divine prohibition given to the race of man in its representative head, Adam, in Gen. 2:16-17, was more than just physical death, it was spiritual death.  And but for this aspect of death, the termination of human existence would hold no terror for anyone, as it holds none for animals unless they are in pain at the time of their death.  Since God is the only source of all good either here or hereafter, to be separated from Him is to be separated from all good and spiritual death is an eternal separation from God.  

Because of his total incompatibility with his Creator, man, in the present life, wants to have nothing to do with God, Job 21:13-15; Ps. 10:4-6.  But in his spiritual blindness he is ignorant of the fact that all good of all kinds and degrees comes from God alone, so that every kind and degree of human enjoyment is a Divine gift, James 1:17; John 3:27.  In his spiritual blindness man thinks that all the good that he enjoys in the present life is something that he has earned. But though men, even the most wicked and rebellious of men, are constant partakers of God’s goodness in this world, Matt. 5:45f; Luke 6:35f, it will not be so in the life beyond physical death.  Luke 16:23 reveals what unsaved man’s immediate state is the moment he dies.  And though Hades is only temporary until the judgment of Rev. 20:11-15, it will be no improvement when the unsaved are finally transferred to the final Hell—the Lake of fire.  There will then be the permanent separation of the soul from God, and, consequently, from all good of all kinds and no one can fully visualize all that that entails.  The natural man would like to think that everything comes about naturally, Isa. 56:11-12, and that God is, consequently, irrelevant to their enjoyment of good.  Yea, most people have imbibed that Satanic parody about God, that He is a great cosmic killjoy that is doing His best to make His human creatures as miserable as He can, but there is not a word of truth in that, but rather the opposite.   It is impossible to separate good things from God.

As we have already observed death is of a universal character for it comes upon all men because all have sinned, and this explains why death is a universal thing.  But some may argue that all have not sinned in committing actual transgressions, but that some die as newborn infants.  This is true, yet the Scriptures reveal that all mankind sinned in Adam, for when Adam sinned, he did so as the federal and natural head and representative of the whole human race which was in him seminally at the time of the transgression.  Because of Adam’s transgression he brought sin as a nature upon all of his posterity, so that every child is born into the world with a natural propensity to sin, and therefore is susceptible to death, which is the result of sin.  “…By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” Rom. 5:19.

But aside from being universal, physical death relates only to the physical part of man.  Man is both a material and an immaterial being, and the immaterial part of his being is comprised of soul and spirit.  When therefore the body—the physical and material part of man—is sundered from his spiritual and immaterial part, physical death occurs.  “…the body without the spirit is dead…” James 2:26.  It is for this reason that physical death is characterized as the dissolving of the earthly house of our tabernacle, for it is the dissolution of that wherein resides the soul and spirit.  “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” II Cor. 5:1.  Because of this, death is often described as being a separation—a separation in the case of physical death, of soul and spirit from the body.  It was to this aspect of death that the preacher referred when he said, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it,” Eccl. 12:6-7.  The moment death takes place, the body immediately begins to decay and to return unto the dust of the earth from whence it was made.  But the spiritual nature of man returns to God to either be joyously received if it was saved, Acts 7:55, 59-60, or if not, to be sent away into the flames of Hades, Luke 16:22-23.

When we once realize this about death then the fear of death has been in a large part removed and we shall be like Paul, “In a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better,” Phil. 1:23.  For we shall be “confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,” II Cor. 5:8.  It is to be noted in the context of the latter passage, that Paul earnestly desired, as the supreme hope of the believer, the enrobement with the new body from heaven that is to take place at the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth again, V2-4.  But he also expresses the assurance that even death is a preferable thing to living in the flesh, for at death the saint is transported into the immediate presence of the Lord, V5-8.  The thing that prevents all unbelievers, and some Christians, from having this outlook is their consciousness of not being accepted of the Lord.  In the case of unbelievers, they have an inwrought consciousness that for them to stand before the Lord is for them to be condemned because of unforgiven sin.  For the believer, it is sometimes because of a consciousness that he is not living the life that he should, and, because he has inadequate views of his acceptance before the Lord.  A person may be genuinely saved, yet not have the assurance of it because of false teachings, ignorance of the meaning and extent of grace, or simply because he puts too much confidence in the flesh.

The Scriptures never characterize death as a thing to be dreaded by the saved person.  On the contrary, as the above Scriptures show, it is the return of man’s spiritual nature to God to enjoy eternal fellowship and felicity with God.  Concerning the body, death is characterized as a sleep.  “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,” Matt. 27:52.  “And they stoned Stephen… And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.  And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” Acts 7:59, 60.  “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption,” Acts 13:36.  And in the great teaching concerning the coming of the Lord in I Thes. 4:13-15, Paul three times refers to dead Christians (see V16f) as “them which are asleep.”  “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” Dan. 12:2.

However we must not make a mistake here, for the sleep referred to is not a “soul-sleep” as some have taught, but it is predicated only of the body of the Christian.  The believer’s spiritual nature is fully conscious and is comforted in the Lord’s presence when death severs his spiritual nature from his physical.  Not only so, but even the unsaved person is also fully conscious in the after-world, but he is tormented instead of being comforted.  In Luke 16:19ff the veil is held aside so that we might get a glimpse into the spirit world and see briefly the conditions of those that have died and passed into the two respective conditions of those in the spirit world.  This is a very instructive passage, and this is in no way altered by the claim of some that it is a parable. Parables were the Lord’s method of teaching, and every parable has a lesson. Whether or not it is a parable in no way lessens the important teachings here set forth.  But there is no reason to believe that this is a parable, for Scripture does not say so, and in none of the many parables that Jesus taught did He ever name the people in the parables, as He does here.  It is better to take this as an actual, historical event, taught by the lover of souls in order to prevent presumptuous or even careless souls from dying without hope.

In this passage we find two men, both of whom died, but one was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom, that is, into the place where faithful believing Abraham, “the father of all them that believe,” Rom. 4:11, resides with all his spiritual children.  But the other man suddenly awakened in Hades in torment.  Nothing is said about Lazarus being an extremely good man, nor about the rich man being an extremely evil man, so that human works had nothing to do with the determination of the destiny of either of them.  As is intimated in V30, the difference in their conditions was solely because the one had taken heed to the Scripture injunction to repent, while the other had been occupied only with fleshly satisfaction.

But what we wish to note is the condition of the two men in their disembodied states, and we observe that neither of these men was delayed from immediately entering into his respective state.  Lazarus was “comforted,” which makes it clear that he was fully conscious of all that was going on. And the formerly rich man was also fully conscious as is shown from several facts. “He lifted up his eyes…and seeth Abraham afar off,” V23, and “he was in torments,” V23-24, he prayed, V24, reasoned, V27-30, had desires, V24, 27-28, and generally speaking, manifested a full consciousness of all that was happening to him.  Yet he had no power to change his status.  He who had had no concern for anyone but himself on earth, now has a great concern lest his relatives, whom he had probably adversely affected by his own selfish example, also come to this place of torment, V27-28.  Suddenly, in Hades, he becomes very missionary minded, but it is now too late.  How quickly death changes a person’s outlook and values, but after death one has no ability to alter anything.

This revelation of the states of these two men after death sets forth some very important facts about the hereafter.  (1) There is no intermediate place—no purgatory—for people to pass through at death.  Both these men went directly and immediately to their respective abodes.  (2) Lazarus, the one that had repented, was comforted in the hereafter, and manifested no concern or regrets for life on earth.  While the rich man, who had not repented, was full of torment, had much remorse for his failures on earth, and much concern for his loved ones’ spiritual condition on earth.  (3) Here is proof of the utter futility of praying to the saints in heaven, for here is the only recorded prayer made to a saint, and it availed nothing.  (4) Here is also proof that there can be no transference for any reason of a person from heaven to hell, or from hell to heaven.  There is a great impassible gulf between the two places, V26.  (5) This proves that there is no “second chance” in the hereafter, for this man was now full of remorse for his earthly life, but it could not be changed, and it is too late for repentance in Hades.  Note how it is suggested that memory and remorse are sharpened here—“remember,” V25.  (6) This evidences the unscripturalness of the doctrines of “soul-sleep” and annihilation of the lost, for neither of these were true of this formerly rich man.  (7) It refutes the idea of communication with the dead, and of their counseling of the living.  This rich man desired to do this very thing, but the answer to him was, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them… If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead,” V29, 31.  Thus, this sets forth the sufficiency of the Scriptures for all of man’s knowledge of spiritual duty, and shows that necromancy is not from God.  The testimony of Scripture is God’s greatest proof of anything.  If man will not receive this, he must suffer the consequences.  (8) Although this rich man was not yet in Hell—in the eternal place of torment—yet he was nonetheless already in torment as soon as he was thrust into Hades.

Throughout this whole section, we see one thought that stands out very clearly, namely, how death changes a man’s condition, outlook, circumstances and desires.  Before death Lazarus was sick, hungry, ill-clothed and desired nothing more than the crumbs from the rich man’s table.  While the rich man was well, full, clothed in rich garments and desired nothing, nor was he concerned for the dirty old beggar at his gate.  But immediately upon death entering the picture Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom, comforted and in need of nothing, while the rich man is suddenly a total pauper, tormented in Hades, thirsting for just one drop of water and reconciled to his eternal condemnation.  Notice that he doesn’t ask to be released from this place, for he knows instinctively that this is impossible.  His only concern now is to prevent his brothers from following his own insane example of impenitence and self-sufficiency.

It will be observed that death does not break the continuity of being in either case, nor interrupt the exercise of the senses of the disembodied soul.  Both are alive, conscious, sensible (the one to enjoyment, the other to pain), seeing, speaking, hearing, feeling, remembering.  It will further be observed that there is no midway stopping place for either after death, but both pass at once to a final place and state; to the one, a place and state of happiness; to the other, a place and state of wretchedness.  It will be noted that in this world Lazarus may pass to the rich man and the rich man to Lazarus; not so after death; neither can pass to the other.  Here wealth may help poverty and poverty may serve wealth.  The rich man may send crumbs to hungry Lazarus.  Yonder the opportunity is dead; Lazarus may not bring water to thirsty Dives [the traditional name of this rich man—DWH].  It will be more particularly observed that neither Dives nor Lazarus may return to this world for any service to the living; that opportunity is dead.  The rich man, conscious that hell’s restrictions prevent his own return, pleads that one from heaven may return and bear a message for him.  But the one from heaven is not permitted to return.  Each has gone to a bourne from which no traveler, except One, has ever returned.  If, therefore, we desire to make friends with our money or our service, we must do it in this world or never.  If we desire to keep the lost from hell and lead them to salvation we must do it while we are living in the body and they are living in the body.—B. H. Carroll, An Interpretation Of The English Bible, Vol. XI, p. 149.

Death makes a person “absent from the body, but present with the Lord,” II Cor. 5:8, yet this is not a permanent separation of body and spirit, for the Lord has promised the resurrection of the body at His return.  This is when the body shall also be redeemed, glorified and re-united with the redeemed spirit that abides in the presence of the Lord between death and the resurrection.  What a glorious promise is this, and one well calculated to remove all dread of death from the mind of the Christian who believes and rests upon these things.  With all of the labor and sorrow of this present evil world, why should we not rather desire to borne away to be with our Lord?  Is not heaven better—infinitely better than earth?  And is not Jesus infinitely better than the fondest loved one we have on earth?  “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away,” Ps. 90:10.

Physical death ought not to be feared nor dreaded by God’s people, for it is but a doorway by which we pass from this present evil world into a better world wherein we shall be with our Redeemer and Lord.  Death can no longer have its sting for the saints, for our Lord Himself drained it of its bitterest dregs and extracted all of its venom as it is written.  “Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” I Cor. 15:54-57.

II.  DEATH DECREED.

As noted before, death was divinely decreed as the penalty for disobeying God’s initial test law in Gen. 2:16-17.  And Rom. 5:12-14 gives an explanation of what came about as a result of the violation of this law.  “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.)”   Continual death proved that men continued to sin though not in the same manner as Adam did.  They sinned because of their congenital sin nature.

Sometimes it is mistakenly thought that death is always a direct punishment for some personal sin, but this is not always the case.  Rather physical death is always a result of sin as a nature, though there are instances where God decrees death for personal sin, especially in the case of the sinning saint, I Cor. 5:4-5; I John 5:16-17.  A sinful nature is thus a nature that is prone to death, and upon which death naturally comes in the process of time, and it is this alone that explains the universal prevalence of death.

But death was not a part of the original constitution of man when first created, for he was created in holy innocence and placed in an ideal setting in order to test him.  When he sinned in disobeying God and transgressed the one prohibition placed upon him, Adam died spiritually at that moment, and made his physical nature to become mortal—i. e., subject to death through natural weakness and decay.  Had Adam, instead of partaking of the forbidden tree, partaken of the tree of life instead, he would have become immortal in holiness and innocence.

That the body of Adam was not mortal by creation, is proved by the threatening of death in Gen. 2:17; which implies that as things then were, there was no liability to death.  No sin, then no death.  Also by Gen. 3:22, God “drove out the man from the garden, lest he take of the tree of life and live forever.”  This implies that in the original plan provision was made for the immortality of the body.  After the transgression, it was necessary to prevent the immortality of the body by a special act of God.—W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, p. 158.

Man was created in innocence and his will at that time had no natural bias toward evil as it does now that everyone comes into the world with a fallen and totally depraved nature.  In the garden man stood in a state where it was possible for him not to die had he taken of the tree of life.  But he disobeyed God and became a sinful being and died spiritually at that moment and began to die physically.  “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” Gen. 2:16-17. 

The bodies of Adam and Eve did not die actually on the day of transgression, but they died virtually. They were at once placed under the law of mortality—sin put them there—and the seeds of death were planted in them. There was, in consequence of sin, subjection to disease, infirmity, and dissolution; and the physical death of the guilty pair became just as certain when they sinned as if it had occurred while yet they were eating the fatal fruit. Not only did the natural death of Adam result from his sin, but the natural death of all his posterity results from the same cause. This fact, as it seems to me, is utterly destructive of the theory that the body of Adam would have died even if he had not sinned. The Bible knows nothing of death where sin is not.—J. M. Pendleton, Christian Doctrines, p. 167.

The certainty of physical death for every person except a very few rare and privileged exceptions is what caused Job to speak of death as “the house appointed for all living,” Job 30:23.  This same fact is also affirmed in Rom. 5:14 where death is said to have “reigned” from Adam to Moses over all regardless of the kind of their sin.

Rom. 5:12 thus points us back to the very beginning of the history of man as the origination of both physical and spiritual death.  It was brought upon the whole human race through the sin of Adam, in whom we all resided seminally at the time.  Some rebel against this view, saying that such great results should not be made dependent upon such a slight transgression.  Yet the sin of Adam was no slight transgression.  It was a case of outright rebellion against a clear revelation of the will of God.  That the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was insignificant in itself is all the better for this to be a test of man’s willingness to obey.  For had the prohibition been of some great or important thing, Adam might have attempted to justify himself in eating of the tree, but since he already had all things needed and all things desirable, there was no justification whatsoever for his transgression.  The authority of Him that commands, not the significance of the thing commanded, determines the heinousness of disobedience.  God has never given man the option of determining what to obey or what he is free to disobey.  When God speaks, man is obligated to obey whether he understands all that is involved in the command or not.

Again, some might try to excuse all of Adam’s posterity from guilt in this by saying that no individual has a right to act for another without his consent.  Yet we find that this is exactly what the Scripture declares to be done, for just as Adam’s sin brought condemnation upon all who were reckoned one with him, so also the just life of Christ is reckoned to all those that are accounted in a covenant relation with him.  “Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous,” Rom. 5:18-19.  Nor is this the only place where we find one individual acting for another, for we read in Heb. 7:9-10: “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.  For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.”  Thus Abraham acted for Levi in paying tithes to Melchisedec.  God, who makes all the rules, has decreed this representation and no one has the option of challenging it.  Thus, instead of every person to the end of the world having to be tested as to whether he would obey God or not, the test was made in the very beginning by the best and most qualified man ever being tested and found wanting by the Lord.  The issue was tested and settled from the beginning, which is why death is decreed for all mankind—all were found sinners in Adam, and so, died in him.  This was God’s decree, and human unbelief cannot disannul it.

Rom. 6:23 declares that “The wages of sin is death,” but it is to be noted that this death is not the wages of sins—plural, for it is not the deeds of sin that are under discussion so much as it is the principle of sin.  If it were only the deeds of sin that cause death, then no unconscious infant would ever die since none of them are of accountable age before God.  It is the nature of sin that causes the acts of sin, just as the root of a tree is what produces the fruit of that tree, and it is for this reason that reformation can never avail in God’s sight.  It only has to do with the outward deeds of sin but it never touches the inward root of sin—the sinful nature.  Reformation is as foolish as picking the leaves off a dandelion plant.  It never touches the real root of the problem, and only gives a temporary appearance of destroying it, yet there is the perennial flourishing of the plant of sin in spite of the picking off of the leaves of sins.

Physical death is a stark reality to all people, and it is one of the divinely decreed means that have been given to keep man cognizant of eternal values and of his need for Divine assistance in order to attain to those eternal values.  No one can completely forget his accountability to God while he constantly observes death occurring to his fellow creatures all around him.

When the body dies and turns to dust, all that is visible and discerned by our senses, is left behind, and the invisible part of man, departs into another state insensibly (By this, he does not mean to teach that one is unconscious in the future state, but, as he explained earlier, the future state is invisible to sense, and so no one knows fully what awaits him beyond death—DWH); and thus the future state is kept invisible, as the object of faith, not of sight.  And this tends more sensibly to keep in view, the fallen, sinful state of man, while all are doomed to death, which could not take place, had man been innocent; and it tends to humble man in his own eyes, since his body is soon to turn to dust; and to make him feel his wretchedness, if he have no security of existence and happiness in a future state, and to excite an attention to Christ and the gospel, which brings life and immortality to light, and a future resurrection of the body, formed every way perfect, beautiful and glorious, never to die again.—Samuel Hopkins, A System of Doctrine, Part II, chap. IV, sec. 14, pp. 214-215.

By thus decreeing death as a natural consequence of the fallen nature that every person has, God keeps man cognizant of his own deficiency before God, of his inability to remedy it, and therefore prepares him to feel his need of a Savior.  Many people try to shut their eyes to the fact of sin in their lives, but they are unable to shut their eyes to the fact of death, and the very universality of it proves the universality of sin.  But let us once admit the reality of sin in ourselves, and then receive the benefits of the death of Christ whereby He accomplished the death of death, and we should never henceforth have any fear of the “grim reaper.”  Let us have a proper outlook on death, and instead of it being a grim, fearful thing, it will be recognized as nothing more than a portal through which we pass into the glorious presence of our God and Savior and a means by which we may glorify God.

The removal of sin is the extraction of the sting of death.  Believers in Christ, therefore, die safely, peacefully, and even triumphantly.  God gives them the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.  No process of philosophical discipline gives it.  Reliance on self-righteousness does not give it.  Dependence on morality does not give it.  God gives it.  His grace alone prepares for the dying hour.  The dying Christian’s preparation for death is so manifestly the work of God that HE is glorified thereby.  All the glory redounding from the preparation is the Lord’s; and he so presides over the death of his people as to glorify his own name.—J. M. Pendleton, Christian Doctrines, p. 370.

But in seeking the cause of death, we may go yet one step further back of man’s sin, and there we find the moving cause of sin, and therefore of death, to be the devil himself.  He it was that, moving in the subtlety of the serpent, suggested doubts to Eve of the truthfulness and rightness of God’s commandment to abstain from the fruit of the forbidden tree.  And so led her to sin and to lead her husband to sin in eating of the forbidden fruit.  It was in this way that the devil “murdered” the human race.  “He was a murderer (Greek anthropoktonos = manslayer) from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him,” John 8:44.  At one fell stroke the devil caused the whole human race to die spiritually, and to become subject to physical death as a consequence of the nature of sin that they henceforth possessed.

It is to this power of death that the devil has, that Heb. 2:14 refers when it says, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”  But this power of death was never an arbitrary power to be exercised by the devil at his own whim, for he could only put to death those whom the Lord had specifically given to him for that purpose.  The “power of death” that the devil possesses, was the power to tempt men to sin, thereby bringing upon them both spiritual and physical death.  But this power has been lost by the devil through the death of Christ.

III. DEATH DESTROYED.

Before we get deeply involved in this aspect of the matter, it must be noted that there are different aspects of death, and if these are not distinguished confusion will come about and we may be found in error.  In answer to the question, “What was the nature of the death threatened in case of disobedience?” the following is given.

This word, in this connection, evidently includes all the penal consequences of sin.  These are,—1.  Death natural, Eccl. 12:7. 2. Death moral and spiritual, Matt. 8:22; Eph. 2:1; I Tim.  5:6; Rev. 3:1.  3. Death eternal, Rev. 20:6-14.  The instant the law was violated its penalty began to operate, although, on account of the intervention of the dispensation of grace, the full effect of the sentence is suspended during the present life.  The Spirit of God was withdrawn the instant man fell, and he at once became spiritually dead, physically mortal, and under sentence of death eternal.—A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 236.

Man has never been able, in and of himself, to conquer death. Many foolish and fanciful schemes have been tried, but all were to no avail, for death has ever claimed its due in every generation.  Neither can any person now face death calmly and impassively except by the grace of God.  Atheists and infidels have been very blatant and brazen in their folly while they were in good health, but when they have had to face death, they have without exception quailed in horror.  Not even the faithful Christian finds death to be a desirable thing in itself, and the physical nature naturally rebels against it with all its being.

As to the physical act of dying, there is in it nothing desirable.  Nature recoils from the dissolution of soul and body.  Even the grace of God does not make death welcome for its own sake, but for the sake of the blessed results that follow it.  “To die is gain.”  Something is gained when the expiring struggle is over, and the struggle is willingly encountered because of the advantages that succeed it.—J. M. Pendleton, Christian Doctrines, p. 371.

Christ alone has conquered man’s great enemy, and He did this by being borne down to the grave by death, then rising again to tear away the power and sting of death.  Hear His triumphant cry in Rev. 1:18:  “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”  He did this that “through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” Heb. 2:14-15.

The sum of all is,—The death and blood-shedding of Jesus Christ hath wrought, and doth effectually procure, for all those that are concerned in it, eternal redemption, consisting in grace here and glory thereafter… God only, whose will and good pleasure is the sole rule of all those works which outwardly are of him, can never deviate in his actions, nor have any end attend or follow his acts not precisely by him intended.—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, pp. 47, 50.

This was the purpose of the incarnation—that He might suffer and die and rise again, thereby defeating death and procuring a ransom for man, and this was exactly what was accomplished by Him.  “But we see Jesus who was made a little while (so the Greek word brachus is rendered in Luke 22:58) lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned once for all with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every one,” Heb. 2:9, literal rendering.  The “every one” for whom he tasted death is not defined in this verse.  Many mistakenly assume that this is used absolutely for all mankind.  But the verses following limit this to “the many sons that are brought to glory,” to those of whom He is the Captain of their salvation, V10, to the sanctified, V11, to the “brethren,” V11-12, to the “children which God has given me,” V13, etc.  Jesus died only for those chosen in the covenant of redemption in eternity. 

By submitting to the death of the cross even though it had no claims upon Him personally, Christ actually took Satan’s own weapons and turned them against him, thereby both destroying him and his power.  And while we still see many evidences of the devil’s workings, yet his defeat is certain and only lacks the running out of the time allotted to him to conclude his day of evil work.

But Christ not only conquered death in its source, He also conquered it in its effects.  For by His own death and resurrection, He tore away the bonds of death so that every one of His people have the promise that they shall some day follow Him in the likeness of His resurrection.  “If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection,” Rom. 6:5.  There is a resurrection unto eternal life awaiting every truly born again person.  “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” I Cor. 15:53-55.

Unbelievers have often cast doubt upon the fact of a coming resurrection from among the dead, for if there is a resurrection, there shall also be a judgment unto condemnation for all unbelievers, Acts 17:30-31.  But this is to call in question the very power of God, and to turn victory into defeat.

If God formed man’s body in the beginning out of the dust of the earth, is it not reasonable to believe that He can reform that body out of the dust of the earth?  Is it not consistent to believe that when the critical home of man’s soul falls into decay that He will provide another for that being which has endless existence? When physical death came upon the human race it meant victory for sin.  Shall sin continue to be victorious?  If death continue its unbroken reign over the bodies of men, Yes.  If there is no bodily resurrection from the dead, then sin through death remains unconquered.  “But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—E. H. Bancroft, Elemental Theology, p. 298.

This fact was the strong comfort that Jesus spoke to Martha when He was standing almost as it were over the dead body of her brother.  Martha knew of the resurrection at the last day, but Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” John 11:25-26.  There is a unity between Christ and His people, and their bodies can no more remain in the graves than His could.  For, “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you,” Rom. 8:11.

As in the fall of man in the garden, he became spiritually dead, physically mortal, and under the sentence of eternal death, so in redemption man becomes spiritually alive, given the promise of the resurrection of the body, and forever freed from the sentence of eternal death.  This victory over sin and its consequential penalty is accomplished only through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and it is brought to light through the preaching of the gospel.  “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” II Tim. 1:9-10.

As the Victor over death, Christ met and vanquished the King of terrors in a fourfold way: at the bedside of the little maid (Matt. 9:24); at the bier of the widow’s son (Luke 7:11-15); at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:43); at His own burial, when He entered the citadel of the grim destroyer and emerged as Conqueror.  He is alive forevermore (Rom. 1:4; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 1:18)!  Would that the Church as a whole [more correctly, All Christians—DWH] would realize this!  By a crucifix attention is focused on a dead Christ.  But both the cross and the tomb are empty.  He lives!  Is He real to us—as the living One?—Herbert Lockyer, ALL THE BOOKS AND CHAPTERS OF THE BIBLE, p. 246.

All of man’s hope and assurance of victory over death lie in his conscious grasp of these facts.  For while one may have genuinely repented and trusted Christ for salvation, yet he may not have confidence and assurance because he does not realize the completeness of the victory that was accomplished by Christ on the cross.  But whether one realizes it or not, the victory is complete in Christ, and however feelings or circumstances may indicate otherwise, he is saved if he has trusted Christ, and nothing can separate him from God’s love in the Lord Jesus Christ.  “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Rom. 8:38-39.  What a blessed expanse of grace is shown in these verses!  No created thing can separate the saved soul from its God and Savior.  Comforting also is the fact that death is specifically mentioned as one of the many things that have no power to separate us from God.  It is evident from this fact as contrasted with the state that man is in by nature, that Christ has conquered death for man, and has made His people to be sharers in His own immortality.

IV.  DEATH DESIRED.

Death is not a mere natural calamity!  No!  It is a Divinely decreed punishment for original sin, but for God’s elect it has been destroyed, and can never befall them.  If it is not destroyed for any—that is to say, if any refuse the only Divine remedy for sin induced death, that state of spiritual death is destined to endure forevermore with their full consciousness of it.  Little wonder that the rebel against God is so fearful of physical death!  He knows instinctively that there is a judgment to come that will allot him his portion of eternal death.  There is no such thing as universal salvation, for Scripture warns in too many places of the many upon whom eternal death will abide.  Rev. 20:11-15 foretells of the great final judgment of all of the spiritually dead, and the result will be their casting into the Lake of fire—the eternal hell—of which Hades is merely the temporary place of confinement until this judgment.  But no saved person has any part in this judgment except, perhaps, as a witness against those being judged.

For the saint physical death is only a portal into eternal bliss, and the fulfillment of all of his hopes, for it results in our being “present with the Lord,” II Cor. 5:1-8.  Yea, more, for there is included in this also the expectation of the someday reuniting of our born again spiritual nature with a glorified human body, for which Scripture says that we groan in expectation, Rom. 8:23.

The body is an essential part of the normal man, who was made dual in nature, and even in paradise God had provided for the elimination of the mortality of man’s body, through the continued eating of the tree of life.  But the immortality of the body in sin would have been an unspeakable curse to man, and hence God, in expelling man from the garden, said, “Lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and live forever.”  But when our souls are regenerated the hope enters the heart that the body also will be saved, and we wait patiently for that part of our salvation… The fullness of the salvation in us is the regeneration of the soul, its ultimate sanctification, and the resurrection and glorification of the body.  It has ever been impossible to satisfy the cravings of a human heart with the hope of soul salvation only.  It is ingrained in the very constitution of our being that we long for the revivification of the body.—B. H. Carroll, An Interpretation Of The English Bible, Vol. XIV, pp. 168, 169.  On Rom. 8:23.

Entirely too many genuine Christians have an abnormal fear of death, and one that is dishonoring to Christ.  As a general rule, death is the appointment of every person, and so it should be expected if the Lord tarries His coming.  But so far from dreading it, it ought to be made an occasion to glorify God.  “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God,” John 21:19.  Do we ever think about physical death and pray that when our time shall come we will be able to glorify God in our death?  Too often it is so that we have no concern either in life or in death to glorify God, but this should not be, for our whole purpose on earth is to glorify God.

For the true believer death has been destroyed, and while we must pass through its dark passage into the throne room of our King, yet it ought to have no fears for us.  For though our physical house must decay, yet there is to be a resurrection of the bodies of the saints, and that will be inconceivably glorious, and so, ought to be desired.  “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming… The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” I Cor. 15:20-23, 26.  The only limitation that is put upon those that shall be raised is that they be Christ’s “at his coming.”  All who are in this category are to be raised and glorified. 

Now having said all this about the desirability of death for the saint, it is necessary to prevent an erroneous conclusion from being drawn from this.  Often the saints of the past have expressed their desires to die—especially when they were undergoing great trials and afflictions.  Thus did Moses, Elijah, Paul and others, but in no case did they ever attempt to take their own lives that they might be freed to enter into glory.  For the genuine saint suicide is never an option under any circumstances or for any reason, and it would be presumptuous for any one to take such a solemn step.  There have been many instances where professed believers have taken their own lives because of great suffering, discouragement, sin or other reasons, but self-murder is still murder, and it is a violation of the Law of God.  So how can anyone think to step into God’s presence and find acceptance when his last act on earth was an act of disobedience of the known will of God and an act of rebellion?  Suicide is often a manifestation of lack of faith in God to work out the problems in life, and a failure to wait patiently for Him to do so.  It has been well called “A permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

We have said that for the saint death is but a portal by which we pass into the immediate presence of God.  By the same token, for the unsaved person death is a portal by which he passes into eternal perdition where there is nothing good, but only unending disapproval of God and all His angels and saints.

God’s dominion is universal; and the inhabitants of hell are as much bound to love and obey him, as those of heaven or earth.  Men who die in their sins, will carry with them not only the guilt accumulated during the present life, but the inclination, confirmed by habit, to continue in sin.  They will hate God and blaspheme his name, and their sins cannot cease to be offensive to God, because their moral character has become fixed and unalterable.  A sinner cannot become innocent by being confirmed in sin… Sin continued, will deserve and provoke continued wrath; and the future condition of the wicked is chiefly terrible, because they are abandoned by God to the full exercise and influence of their unholy passions, and the consequent accumulation of guilt for ever and ever.—John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology and Church Order, p. 373.

That there will be a continuing looking on of the wicked with disapproval is clear from Isa. 66:23-24.  “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another [monthly], and from one sabbath to another [weekly], shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.  And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”  What a horrible sight this is, but that it refers to the eternal destiny of sinners in hell is made certain by the fact that our Lord Himself made reference to this passage in His teachings on hell in  Mark 9:43-48.  Here, Jesus repeatedly spoke of “hell” (Greek gehenna) as the fire that “shall never be quenched,” thus refuting all those that deny the eternal character of perdition.  Heretics, in an endeavor to get rid of the doctrine of eternal punishment, have denied the Greek words rendered “eternal” and “everlasting” to mean this, claiming that they only mean age-lasting, which is not true.  We have elsewhere shown that whereas “age” is sometimes used for the present life, which is limited, there follows another “age” that is unlimited, and so, is everlasting. But here in Mark 9 are two other entirely different Greek words used (asbestos, V43, 45, and sbennumi, V44, 46, 48) both of which mean unquenchable.  An unquenchable fire in which the wicked are kept is clearly eternal punishment, and cannot be otherwise!  The denial of this doctrine is the heinous crime of belying the Lord Jesus Himself, and proves the unsaved state of those that do so.

Someone has asked, “Where is hell?” to which the answer must be given, At the end of every Christless life.  Scripture declares that, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not,” John 1:4-5.  Man’s little feeble candle of physical light is not sufficient to show him the path of light that he is obligated to walk in this world.  But Jesus promised that, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” John 8:12.  Thus the darkness and death of sin can have no power over those that come to Him in repentance and faith.  Death is coming to every one except that last generation before Jesus’ returns, but death’s sting has been extracted by our Lord Jesus Christ for every true believer in Him.  Dear reader, Is He your Lord and Savior?

—O—

This sermon was preached to the congregation of the First Baptist Church  of Kirk, Colorado, on March 26, 1967, by Pastor Davis W. Huckabee, and was edited and enlarged by him in July and August, 2008.