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Death, Second
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 3:7-21  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Here we have the Bible's first sermon. This is what Abel heard, believed, and submitted to. The same instruction merely informed Cain. Adam and Eve were the first sinners to stand before God and be called into account. In this passage are four elements that apply to what Abel believed. The first element is that, in order for a sinner to stand before God, nakedness must be covered. Nakedness, both spiritual and physical, has wide usage as a symbol. At its best, it indicates innocence, child-like simplicity, and vulnerability. At its worst, it indicates humiliation, guilt, shame, and punishment. Adam and Eve were attempting to hide their humiliation, guilt, and shame when they grabbed a few fig leaves to provide covering. An interesting spiritual lesson comes in understanding an application of the symbolism here. Adam and Eve threw together as a covering whatever was handy at the moment. What they chose to cover themselves with physically was totally inadequate as a spiritual covering. God immediately rejected their effort, which is the main instruction of this vignette. A secondary teaching is that many carnal people today think it does not matter what they physically wear when they come before God at church services. Oh, yes, it does! These days, people arrive at church to worship wearing all kinds of casual clothing. In fact, many churches invite them to do so, advertising themselves as "casual"! Sometimes this reflects a matter of ignorance; they just do not know any better. At other times, it reveals a serious matter of disrespect for the primary covering—Christ's sacrifice, as we shall see shortly. It is good to remember the overall principle to appear before God covered with acceptable covering. The symbolic instruction carries through to both physical and spiritual applications, and the person who cares what God thinks will do his best to conform to Him. God covered Adam and Eve with truly fine clothing. That is our example. The second element Genesis 3 reveals takes us a step further spiritually in regard to the covering: What humans devise in terms of covering spiritual nakedness is, in reality, worthless. The third element clarifies this further: God Himself must supply the only covering that is spiritually adequate. The fourth element is that the only adequate spiritual covering is by means of death. As in the first element, there are two lines of instruction. The first leads to the necessity of the second, if life is to continue. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). The underlying principle is that we are always to give of our best to the Master. When we fail, the death penalty is imposed. This, then, brings forth a second teaching: In a spiritual sense, the entire human race sinned in Adam and Eve, who represented all mankind at the time. Since the wages of sin is death, and all have subsequently sinned, all of us must receive that wage—or another, an innocent One on whom death has no claim because He never sinned, must substitute for us. However, we find it clearly spelled out in Romans that there must be a link between us and the Substitute (Romans 4:1-4, 11-12, 16, 19-20, 23-25; 5:1-2). Faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the link between us and God's forgiveness, which provides the acceptable spiritual covering necessary to be received into God's presence and receive the gift of life. The second aspect of the fourth element also involves another death—ours. In this case, it is not a literal death but a spiritual one: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? . . . knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. (Romans 6:1-2, 6-8) This death is achieved through repentance because one believes he is a sinner in need of God's forgiveness, having broken His law and earned death. What we have just reviewed must have been taught to Cain and Abel, probably by Adam. How do we know this? Because Hebrews 11:4 tells us that Abel offered by faith, and faith comes by hearing. He heard the divine words given by God to Adam and Eve, which were passed to him, and Abel believed. Cain heard the same words, but did not believe as Abel did. More proof is recorded following Cain's rejection. God says to him in Genesis 4:7, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." God clearly indicates a choice between right and wrong. Good and evil faced Cain and Abel. The one brother by faith chose what was right in God's eyes, while the other chose what was right in his own eyes. In essence, he chose death. John W. Ritenbaugh The Christian Fight (Part Three)

Ecclesiastes 7:1-4  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) If we believe these verses, we must accept that death must have its "better" points. We are all well aware of the reasons why we think of death as a negative thing, but how can we think of such an event and condition as positive? We must always remember that our Creator, the Master Craftsman who made everything of the highest quality (Genesis 1:4-31), built death into man's design. He did this for good reasons. Surprisingly, there really are good and positive purposes behind both the "first death" and the "second death" (Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). The first death is the one with which every person is familiar—the one everyone must face. This death terminates the physical life of every human being who lives during the 6,000 years allotted to man. Before the Flood, even though many people lived for multiple hundreds of years, they all still died. Afterward, God gradually shortened man's average lifespan to 70 years (Psalm 90:10). Perhaps He did this to show us the results of long lives of disobedience to God's law, such as we see in the record of the pre-Flood world, the Tower of Babel, and Sodom and Gomorrah. What would the world be like if it were filled with immortal, law-breaking humans? God is reproducing Himself. He wants children who will not turn to lives of sin, as Satan and his demons did, and continue to live forever in misery. Unlike the destiny of that miserable band of fallen angels, death is the wages of sin for human beings; death is our penalty for failing to live God's way (Romans 6:23). Is death, the just penalty for sin created by God, really the "bad thing" in this equation? Is it not rather sin, which causes the death penalty to be incurred, that is really bad? God does not want one of us to live a miserable, sinful existence for all eternity. He wants children who will learn to obey Him willingly, who will learn to reject sin and reap the positive results throughout eternal lives of joy. He has promised to give every human an opportunity to receive His gifts of salvation and eternal life in His Family and Kingdom. However, if any of His begotten children insist on continuing in sin after they have been given adequate time to learn, weigh, and understand the consequences of each alternative, they will incur the penalty of the second death, God's loving and merciful penalty of eternal sleep (Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). Romans 6:23 can be paraphrased as, "The wages of sin is death! Eternal death! Not eternal life in hell-fire, agony, and misery!" We can see by this merciful method of final punishment that, when God tells us to love our enemies, He is not asking us to do something that He is not willing to do Himself. What a loving and merciful God we have! We believe and hope that Jesus Christ will return very soon to straighten out the mess that man has made of His creation. However, if He does not return before our allotted time expires, we will experience the dreamless sleep of the first death as He did. Jesus' sleep lasted only 72 hours. We should not be concerned that ours will probably last longer because, when we are in a deep, sound sleep, we are unaware of time passing (Ecclesiastes 9:5). John Plunkett Death of a Lamb

Luke 13:23-28  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Many will seek to enter the Kingdom of God but be barred from it because of flagrant sin. Jesus will refuse to answer the knock of unruly sinners who have rejected salvation, though they weep and grind their teeth when they find out they cannot enter God's Kingdom. When the third resurrection arrives, all humanity will have had the opportunity to be saved; everyone's ultimate destiny will have been eternally set. It will be too late for anyone who, after coming to the knowledge of the truth, sins willfully and thereby rejects eternal life. Those who reject God and His way of life must then reap the consequences of that decision—the second death following the third resurrection to judgment. Martin G. Collins Basic Doctrines: The Third Resurrection

Luke 16:19-31  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) In the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the latter, a heartless person, speaks to Lazarus while being "tormented in this flame." This alludes to the wicked being cremated when God burns up the earth, turning it into the final Gehenna, called elsewhere "the Lake of Fire." The rich man is raised out of his grave at the end of God's plan for humanity on earth. Because the dead know nothing, he does not realize the passage of time, but he certainly realizes that he has failed to receive salvation. He sees "a great gulf fixed" between him and those who are with Abraham in the Kingdom of God. At this point, it is impossible for anyone to change his fate. Martin G. Collins Basic Doctrines: The Third Resurrection

Luke 16:19-31  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) In the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus illustrates death—total unconsciousness—as being followed by a resurrection from the dead and a restoration to consciousness. Secondly, Jesus describes the second death, eternal death, in the Lake of Fire that will totally destroy the wicked. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), not endless torment. Jesus shows that the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear the voice of God and come forth—those who have lived righteously to the resurrection of life, and those who have lived wickedly (including the rich man) to the resurrection of condemnation (John 5:28-29). We need to understand how vital it is to hear and submit to God's voice now. Martin G. Collins Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Part Two)

1 Corinthians 15:22-24  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Even as all men die, the same all will be made alive (verse 22). God wants eventually to call and save everyone—but within the order He decrees (II Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:4). Everyone who has ever lived and died will be resurrected—first Christ was resurrected, then later the saints who lived and died before Christ's second coming will be resurrected. But what about the vast majority who never were Christ's? Verse 24 includes them all in "the end"—when Christ completes His job of conquering every enemy (verse 25). That happens after the Millennium (Revelation 20:7-10). Those who have not heard or understood the truth have not been consigned to eternal death. They have not sinned willfully. They never had a chance! Even if some have lived up to the best they knew while alive, the Bible teaches only one way to salvation—through belief in Christ (Acts 4:12) and spiritual conversion as defined in the Bible. Most of our loved ones who have died "unsaved" in all probability did not die lost. They most likely were not called during this age, but their call is coming later. They shall be resurrected to mortal life and given spiritual understanding and the opportunity to become members of God's Family. Revelation 20 tells us when this great resurrection will occur. Staff Is This the Only Day of Salvation?

Hebrews 9:27  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Hebrews 9:27 says that all men are appointed to die once. Considering this, some have asked: How can one die a second death? How many times can one die? First, baptism is symbolic of death (Romans 6:2-11) and so is "dying daily," as Paul describes the sacrifices of the Christian life (I Corinthians 15:31). Paul mentions this latter death in the context of the resurrection chapter to emphasize our need to crucify the old self daily and renew or resurrect the inner man as symbols of actual death and resurrection (see II Corinthians 4:16-17). In this sense, we die every day of our lives. When speaking of great embarrassments, many have used the phrase, "I died a thousand deaths." That is just what God expects of us if we are to reach maturity of thought and conduct! Each of these deaths is just as difficult and excruciating as the one before, and thus Paul describes them as crucifixions (Galatians 5:24). These play a major role in overcoming, and it is never easy. Apart from symbolism, the general rule is that we each die physically at least once and then await the resurrection to eternal life. But some few humans have already died twice! Lazarus, Dorcas, Eutychus, those who came out of their graves when Christ died and others were physically resurrected and physically died again. It is conceivable that some few might even die three times! If those who were resurrected physically were converted and accepted for the Kingdom, they will be resurrected when Christ returns—changed "in the twinkling of an eye" into immortal spirit beings (I Corinthians 15:52). If they were not called and converted—not yet having had an opportunity for salvation—they will come up in the second resurrection to be alive a third time. At the end of that life they will then be either changed to spirit or die in the Lake of Fire, a third death. Why, then, does Revelation 20:14 call the Lake of Fire "the second death"? The emphasis is on the fact that it is a permanent death. Once a person experiences the second death, no hope remains for another resurrection. However, for a few it could represent a third physical death. The point is that all of us are appointed to die at least once! Even those "blessed and holy" individuals who are alive and changed at Christ's return will go through a kind of death. As Paul writes, "For this corruptible [body] must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (I Corinthians 15:53). Staff The Third Resurrection: What Is Its Value?

Revelation 20:13-15  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) This third resurrection will comprise those who are unwilling to live by God's laws and refuse to repent. These incorrigible people will be cast into the Lake of Fire and completely burned up. They can never be resurrected again, having rejected God's wonderful offer of salvation and eternal life. Staff Basic Doctrines: Eternal Judgment

Revelation 20:13  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) This verse proves there is to be a future resurrection to judgment. Notice that those who are in watery graves (the sea) are to be resurrected; those who were killed by other means and left unburied ("death") are to be resurrected; and those who are in earthy graves ("hell"—the Greek word here is hades which means the grave) are also to be resurrected at this time. So all the wicked dead on land or in the sea, wherever they may be, are to be resurrected to "judgment" in the future. That is when God will formally sentence them! No one is, or ever has been, down in a fiery "hell" dancing around on hot coals, shrieking in terror and torment! God's time for judging and condemning the wicked has not yet arrived! How clear! The Bible clearly shows that the time the wicked are condemned to their fate is in the future. The idea that wicked "souls" are right now suffering torments in a fiery hell is a pagan myth! What Is Hell?

Revelation 20:13-15  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) This is the third resurrection. It will occur after all who can be saved are saved. All of the wicked who have knowingly rejected God's way and died in their sins will be raised to physical life. Their attitudes will be evident. No one will ever claim these people were unjustly condemned. None of them will repent. They will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive their penalty—extinction in the Lake of Fire. This will be their second death. They will never again be resurrected. The Last Great Day: God's Master Plan Completed!

Revelation 21:8  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) The Bible describes the "hellfire" into which the wicked will be cast as a lake of burning fire and brimstone. Some have pictured this Lake of Fire to be like an active volcano spewing out molten rock. Into such a fiery liquid the incorrigible will be thrown. After having died once and been resurrected to judgment (Hebrews 9:27), they will die the "second death" by being burned up in the Lake of Fire. Earl L. Henn (1934-1997) Basic Doctrines: The Fate of the Wicked

Revelation 21:8  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) All who stubbornly refuse to repent and persist in breaking God's commandments ultimately find themselves in a lake of "fire and brimstone." The fate of the wicked is gehenna fire (Matthew 7:15-19; 13:30; 23:33; Hebrews 10:26-27). So gehenna and the Lake of Fire are the same. A very large fire would have the appearance of a fiery lake, hence its description. Mortals naturally die once because we just "wear out" (Hebrews 9:27). But if anyone dies the second death, that individual will have been judged by God to be guilty of persistent disobedience and incorrigible rebellion. The second death will be for all eternity! What Is Hell?

 

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