Introduction
Immediately after Adam and Eve experienced spiritual death, they also began to experience physical death, even though it took many years for this process to have its full effect. This can be better understood with the example of a flower. When you see a flower growing in a garden, you know it is alive, because it is connected to the stem and the roots and is receiving nourishment from the ground. When you separate the flower from its life source, it still has the appearance of life, and can maintain that appearance for several days, depending on the conditions. Regardless of the care it is given, though, it is already dying, and that process cannot be reversed.
Main Points: Romans 5:12
- Death entered through sin: The physical death that entered into the world with Adam's sin affected all living things. It is difficult for us to conceive of a world without death, but that is what Scripture teaches was the condition before the Fall. When physical death occurs, there is a definite separation of the soul from the body.
- The wages of sin: The wages of sin is death Romans 6:23 , and death comes upon all because all have sinned. Everyone is subject to physical death because of the presence of sin in this world, as well as their own personal sins. From a human perspective, physical death seems to be the ultimate punishment, but the Bible teaches there are deeper meanings of death to be considered.
- Body, soul, and spirit: James 2:26 tells us that: "for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead". The body has to be conscious, otherwise, it is just mere animal. This conscious part of man is the soul, and it is this area of the senses – it is the area of premonitions and dreams. It is the spirit part of man, that the Spirit of God resides in Romans 8:9 , hence gives the life force to the soul Genesis 2:7 .
- The car analogy: An analogy is the car. It is a physical object ("body"). What makes a car a car however, is the ability to give transport, comfort and carry load. This is the "soul" of the car. It however cannot carry out this function, without chemical energy, its "spirit". Man's soul cannot function without the breath of God's Spirit.
Memory Verse
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever— Daniel 12:2-3
The body will die, but temporally, because: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever." This passage promises a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. When we die, our bodies return to "dust" Genesis 3:19
. From that dust the body will return to either "everlasting life" or "everlasting contempt." The soul will be reunited —otherwise, the resurrected bodies would be soulless and therefore inhuman.