Revelation 20:14-15 “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (15) And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
So what is the second death? The above passage of scripture describes it as the lake of fire, and in this passage we see that even death himself and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire on that day. It was never God’s intention that men should be cast into the lake of fire and thus incur the second death, for that lake was prepared for Satan and his angels, and not for men (Matthew 25:41). Nevertheless, the second death is the eternal death that all unbelievers will incur on their day of judgement, for the same passage mentions that anyone whose names are not recorded in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire. But also, in order for there to be a second death, there must of necessity be a first death. And so, if being cast into the lake of fire for all eternity is the second death, what then is the first death? To answer that question we need to understand the nature of the second death. The second death is spiritual in nature and not physical. So how do we know that to be the case? We know that, because Satan and his angels will partake of that death, and Jesus taught us that angels are immortal and so they cannot incur physical death (Luke 20:36) and we also know that angels are spirit beings (Hebrews 1:7). Therefore, in order for angels to partake of the second death it must be a spiritual death. And so, we have already seen that all men die spiritually, which would make that death the first death that all men partake of, and the second death is therefore the second spiritual death that mankind will incur. And so, in order to prevent men from partaking of the second death, God allowed His Son to die that death for us. In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, not only did He die physically, but He also died spiritually. God then used the death of His Son to deliver us from the second death.
Michael E.B. Maher
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