What does the Bible say about death?
The Origin and Nature of Death
Scripture presents death not as a natural process but as the direct consequence of man's disobedience to God. Before ever a death occurred, God made the penalty plain: "Thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17).
Morrish's Bible Dictionary gives a concise four-fold summary of how death appears in Scripture:
Morrish's Bible Dictionary1. The general appointment for sinful man — the death of the body by the separation of the soul from it. Heb. 9:27; Rom. 5:14; Rom. 6:23.
2. The spiritual condition of fallen man, 'dead in trespasses and sins.' Eph. 2:1, 5; Rom. 7:24.
3. Death personified as a power of Satan: the last enemy to be destroyed. 1 Cor. 15:26; Rev. 20:13-14.
4. THE SECOND DEATH: eternal punishment. Rev. 2:11; Rev. 20:14; Rev. 21:8.
A. J. Pollock traces the origin vividly, noting how even unevangelized peoples instinctively sense the truth:
A. J. PollockIt is an ancient Eastern Book which alone furnishes the answer. Before ever a death occurred in the world, God made it plain what its nature would be. It is the fruit of man's disobedience, the direct inevitable result of his fall.
He notes a series of names that African peoples have given to death — "the Secret," "the Puzzle," "the Stripper," "the Arrival," "the Wages" — each of which, remarkably, touches a scriptural truth. But the definitive word is:
Death"The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).
The Sphere of Death — Man's Fallen Condition
Death is not merely physical; Scripture describes the entire condition of fallen humanity as a realm of death. James Boyd unfolds this powerfully:
James BoydThe moment he sinned all this was changed. He found himself in another sphere. His joy in God was at an end. Fear filled his heart. The poison of his guilty attempt to grasp at Divinity coursed through the channels of his sin-bitten Soul. Death now lay upon him as the judgment of God, and he was also in a state of moral death toward God.
Boyd describes the full dimensions of this spiritual death:
Death_and_LifeAlive to sin, alive to the satisfying of his carnal appetite, alive to the pleasures of this world, alive in his rebellion against God; but dead toward God, estranged in heart and mind from his Creator, his ear deaf to the call of God in the Gospel, his eye blind to the glory that invites him, his conscience often past feeling, and the energy of his whole moral being put forth to keep God out of his existence. Such is man's dreadful condition — dead in trespasses and sins. This is the sphere of death.
Christ's Death — the Divine Answer
The great turning point is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. G. V. Wigram takes the striking phrase from 1 Corinthians 3:22 — "all things are yours … death" — and shows how death, the very curse, has become a possession of the believer through Christ:
G. V. WigramDeath is mine in the highest sense; not merely in the lower sense, that, as it is appointed unto men once to die, I may have to die; but, in the highest sense, death is mine; for death itself, in the divine use of it — in the way God has used it, has been, and is marvellously mine, my own: my boast and my song.
He traces how Christ's death exposed and defeated every enemy:
Deathiso"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; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." (Heb. 2:14-15.)
Dead and Risen with Christ — the Believer's Standing
Edward Dennett opens up Romans 6 and Colossians 3 to show that the believer is identified with Christ in His death and resurrection:
Edward DennettIt is a marvellous thing, if we consider it, that we, as sitting here tonight (if believers in the Lord Jesus Christ), can be said to be before God as those who have died with Christ. Thus we see at once it is the light in which God regards us, His judicial estimate of us, as having died in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And practically:
What is it that troubles me most in my daily life? Is it not the old nature? Is it not the flesh that is still in me? Yes, it is quite true that I have the flesh in me; but God has put it in the place of death. … "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The believer is not only dead with Christ but risen with Him, and even seated in Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6):
DEATH"So near, so very near to God, More near I cannot be; For in the Person of His Son, I am as near as He."
Death for the Christian — Departure into Christ's Presence
What then does physical death mean for a believer? J. N. Darby writes to a bereaved mother with characteristic tenderness:
J. N. DarbyDeath is not an accident that happens without the will of God; it has no more dominion over us: the risen One holds the keys of it. How immensely blessed to know that He has won a complete and final victory over death and over all that was against us, so that there is entire deliverance!
And to the daughter herself who was dying:
23025EDeath is only the unclothing of that which is mortal and the passing of the soul into the light, into the presence of Jesus. One leaves that which is defiled and in disorder: what a joy that is? Later on the body will be found again in power and in incorruptible and immortal glory: we have but to wait a little while.
Wigram echoes the same confidence:
WigramIf, ere He rises up from the Father's right hand, He call me, I die; but I know that the "I die" means only "to all that is mortal," to all that is corruptible down here … and, absent from the body, am present with the Lord — there to await with Himself that time when He shall put forth His glory as the resurrection.
The Last Enemy Destroyed — Resurrection and Victory
Death, though conquered at the cross, still exercises its power over the body. But it is the last enemy, and it will be abolished. Norman Anderson traces the argument of 1 Corinthians 15:
"BUT NOW IS CHRIST RISEN FROM AMONG THE DEAD, AND BECOME THE FIRSTFRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEPT."
He lists seven devastating implications if the dead do not rise — and then the triumphant answer. At the resurrection:
1CORIN15"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (v. 55). … "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law" (v. 56). … In conclusion, may we give thanks to God Who "giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 57).
A. J. Pollock brings the whole arc to its glorious conclusion:
A. J. PollockThank God, THE DEATH — the death of our Lord Jesus Christ has put a different complexion upon things. Death is ours, is the triumphant cry of the apostle (1 Cor. 3:22). "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:26). One of the sublimest, most thrilling statements as to the Christian's eternal state is, "There shall be no more death" (Rev. 21:4).
And yet even now, the Christian's hope is not death but something greater:
DeathStill we wait, not for death but for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Scripture presents death under four aspects: physical death as the wages of sin appointed for all men (Rom. 6:23); spiritual death, the moral condition of alienation from God (Eph. 2:1); the power of death wielded by Satan as an instrument of fear (Heb. 2:14-15); and the second death, eternal separation from God (Rev. 20:14). But the death of the Lord Jesus Christ has answered every aspect. Through His cross, the believer's old nature has been judicially put to death (Rom. 6:6), Satan's power has been annulled (Heb. 2:14), sin's penalty has been fully borne, and the believer has passed "out of death into life" (John 5:24). For the Christian, physical death — should it come before the Lord's return — is simply departure into His presence, which is "far better" (Phil. 1:23). And at His coming, death itself will be swallowed up in victory: the dead raised incorruptible, the living changed, and the last enemy destroyed forever.