How Does God See Death?

15 Dec How Does God See Death?

‘The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.’ Revelation 20:14b-15.

If the Lake of Fire, and final judgement in the book of Revelation is the second death, then what is the first death?

It would seem from the thoughts of a number of believers, that the first death is physical, it is when your body ceases to exist.  But there are a few reasons to question this idea.  Firstly, the Body doesn’t actually cease to exist in eternity.  While the Body does die an decompose on Earth, we are told that in the resurrection our bodies rise, some to glory and some to contempt.  In other words, the resurrection is something that takes place in the body both for the righteous and the wicked.

The body does die however, so it doesn’t completely extinguish the suggestion.  There is however an even more powerful idea in the Bible.  There is a death that precedes the death in the Body, and it is the one which the Bible itself labels as death.

The Lord warned Adam and Even, ‘in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.’  Gen 2:17.  

Satan of course challenged that thought saying to Eve, ‘you shall not die.’  Gen 3:4  But when Eve ate and then gave it to Adam who also ate, something did happen to them.  The Bible calls it death.  And it is this death that is the first death.  It is first both in the sense that it is the first death anywhere mentioned in the Bible.  It is also the first death anywhere in human history.  And it is also the first death any one individual person experiences.

St Paul knew it well.  He wrote to the  Ephesians saying, ‘You were dead in your sins.’  Ephesians 2:1.  But when they found Christ something changed inside of them, and it saved them.  They lived because of that.  Paul wrote about that too, saying, ‘Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.’ Ephesians 2:4-5

Anyone who has been truly born again knows they have changed.  The experience of living for the first time is undeniable.  And all of that occurs inside the same physical body which was already alive.

So it seems the first death is the death we are born into.  If we don’t find life in Christ (aka the first resurrection) we enter Judgement and ultimately the lake of fire, or the second death.  Our physical death is a third death, but has no bearing on whether we end up with Christ or not.  It is state of our soul before God that counts.

So where is your soul before the Lord?  If you are dead in your sin, it is time to confess your sins, reach out for his mercy, and the receive the gracious gift of eternal life.