Ephesians 4:17-18 “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, (18) having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”
So what does it mean to be spiritually dead? Unlike physical death, spiritual death does not mean cessation of existence. Natural man assumes this to be the case, because when their bodies die they cease to function and eventually decay to become dust. The difference between the bodies of men and the spirits of men however, are that the bodies of men are mortal while the spirits of men are eternal creations of God. The bodies of men are not designed to live eternally, for they are made from dust and to dust they eventually return. The spirits of men on the other hand are eternal creations of God. And so it can be said that the spirits of men are immortal, from the point of view that they never cease to exist. Nevertheless even though the spirits of all men are eternal creations of God, as revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture, those who are spiritually dead are separated from the life of God. We also saw in the previous section that those who have the eternal life of God know God. And so conversely it can be said that those who do not have the eternal life of God do not know God, for even though they know of God they do not know Him.
John 8:44 “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.”
When the spirits of men die they do not cease to exist, but rather they are transformed in their nature. And so we see that when the spirit of man dies it no longer has the nature of eternal life which is the nature of God, but rather takes on the nature of death which is actually the nature of the devil. In the above quoted passage of scripture our Lord teaches us that those who are spiritually dead are of their father the devil, because of which they take on the nature of their father. The reason that unbelievers take on the nature of the devil is because when Adam and Eve listened to Satan in the garden of Eden and sinned against God, they in effect bowed their knee to Satan and he became the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). And so when mankind transitions from spiritual life to spiritual death they in effect bow their knees to the god of this world and the nature of their spirits are transformed. In the above passage our Lord tells us that Satan is a murderer and a liar. And so those are just two of his traits that all those who are spiritually dead take on themselves.
Mark 7:20-23 “And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. (21) For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, (22) thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. (23) All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the Lord gives us some further insight into the nature of one who is spiritually dead, for in this passage our Lord was referring to the spirits of unbelievers. If you compare the list of evil things quoted above which describes the hearts of those who are spiritually dead, to the list of the fruit of the spirit of those who are spiritually alive as described in the previous section, clearly we can see that the nature of those who are spiritually dead is completely opposite to the nature of those who are spiritually alive. And so we see that when the spirit of man dies its nature is completely transformed from that which is good to that which is evil. And so as we have seen in this section spiritual death is the absence of the eternal life of God. Spiritual death is also, not knowing God and it is taking on the nature of the devil. The spirits of all unbelievers are in this condition, from the most wicked even to the noblest of them.
Michael E.B. Maher
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