Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. We distinguish it from spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God; and from the second death, or the banishment from God and final misery of the reünited soul and body of the wicked.
Spiritual death: Is. 59:2—“but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear”; Rom. 7:24—“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” Eph. 2:1—“dead through your trespasses and sins.” The second death: Rev. 2:11—“He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death”; 20:14—“And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire”; 21:8—“But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.”
Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:303—“Spiritual death, the inner discord and enslavement of the soul, and the misery resulting therefrom, to which belongs that other death, the second death, an outward condition corresponding to that inner slavery.” Trench, Epistles to the Seven Churches, 151—“This phrase [‘second death’] is itself a solemn protest against the Sadduceeism and Epicureanism which would make natural death the be-all and the end-all of existence. As there is a life beyond the present life for the faithful, so there is death beyond that which falls under our eyes for the wicked.” E. G. Robinson: “The second death is the continuance of spiritual death in another and timeless existence.” Hudson, Scientific Demonstration of a Future Life, 222—“If a man has a power that transcends the senses, it is at least presumptive evidence that it does not perish when the senses are extinguished.... The activity of the subjective mind is in inverse proportion to that of the body, though the objective mind weakens with the body and perishes with the brain.”
Prof. H. H. Bawden: “Consciousness is simply the growing of an organism, while the organism is just that which grows. Consciousness is a function, not a thing, not an order of existence at all. It is the universe coming to a focus, flowering so to speak in a finite centre. Society is an organism in the same sense that the human being is an organism. The spatial separation of the elements of the social organism is relatively no greater than the separation of the unit factors of the body. As the neurone cannot deny the consciousness which is the function of the body, so the individual member of society has no reason for denying the existence of a cosmic life of the organism which we call society.”
Emma M. Caillard, on Man in the Light of Evolution, in Contemp. Rev., Dec. 1893:878—“Man is nature risen into the consciousness of its relationship to the divine. There is no receding from this point. When ‘that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home,’ the persistence of each personal life is necessitated. Human life, as it is, includes, though it transcends the lower forms through which it has developed. Human life, as it will be, must include though it may transcend its present manifestation, viz., personality.” “Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, And suns and stars forevermore have set, And things which our weak judgments here have spurned, The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet, Will flash before us through our life's dark night, As stars shine most in deepest tints of blue: And we shall see how all God's plans were right, And most that seemed reproof was love most true: And if sometimes commingled with life's wine We find the wormwood and rebel and shrink, Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine Pours out this portion for our lips to drink. And if some friend we love is lying low, Where human kisses cannot reach his face, O do not blame the loving Father so, But wear your sorrow with obedient grace; And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friend, And that sometimes the sable pall of death Conceals the fairest boon his love can send. If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God's working see, We could interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery find a key.”
Although physical death falls upon the unbeliever as the original penalty of sin, to all who are united in Christ it loses its aspect of penalty, and becomes a means of discipline and of entrance into eternal life.
To the Christian, physical death is not a penalty: see Ps. 116:15—“Precious in the sight of Jehovah Is the death of his saints”; Rom. 8:10—“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”; 14:8—“For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's”; 1 Cor. 3:22—“whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours”; 15:55—“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” 1 Pet. 4:6—“For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit”; cf. Rom. 1:18—“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness”; 8:1, 2—“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”; Heb. 12:6—“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”
Dr. Hovey says that “the present sufferings of believers are in the nature of discipline, with an aspect of retribution; while the present sufferings of unbelievers are retributive, with a glance toward reformation.” We prefer to say that all penalty has been borne by Christ, and that, for him who is justified in Christ, suffering of whatever kind is of the nature of fatherly chastening, never of judicial retribution; see our discussion of the Penalty of Sin, pages 652-660.
“We see but dimly through the mists and vapors Amid these earthly damps; What are to us but sad funereal tapers May be Heaven's distant lamps. There is no death,—what seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life Elysian Whose portal men call death.” “'Tis meet that we should pause awhile, Ere we put off this mortal coil, And in the stillness of old age, Muse on our earthly pilgrimage.”Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 4:5—“Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid; now Heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid: Your part in her you could not keep from death, But Heaven keeps his part in eternal life. The most you sought was her promotion, For 't was your heaven she should be advanced; And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced Above the clouds, as high as Heaven itself?” Phœbe Cary's Answered: “I thought to find some healing clime For her I loved; she found that shore, That city whose inhabitants Are sick and sorrowful no more. I asked for human love for her; The Loving knew how best to still The infinite yearning of a heart Which but infinity could fill. Such sweet communion had been ours, I prayed that it might never end; My prayer is more than answered; now I have an angel for my friend. I wished for perfect peace to soothe The troubled anguish of her breast; And numbered with the loved and called She entered on untroubled rest. Life was so fair a thing to her, I wept and pleaded for its stay; My wish was granted me, for lo! She hath eternal life to-day!”
Victor Hugo: “The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes with the twilight, to open with the dawn.... I feel that I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me.... The thirst for infinity proves infinity.” Shakespeare: “Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail, Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair.” O. W. Holmes: “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!” J. G. Whittier: “So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, The soul may know No fearful change or sudden wonder, Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.”