What does death mean?

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What’s Your Question? for Feb. 16, 2011

The word death never means non-existence. It means separation. The body separated from the spirit is dead (Jas. 2:26). Isaiah said “your sins have separated you from your God” (59:2). The “second death” (Rev. 20:14) is eternal separation from God. One who is dead to the law (Rom. 7:4) is not under it. None of these mean non-existence. Jesus said “you have passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5:24). They had not changed from non-existence into existence! When Jesus said, “let the dead bury their own dead” (Mt. 8:22), He was saying the spiritually dead could bury the physically dead. One who is “dead in sins” (Eph. 2:1), is separated from God. When one is baptized into the death of Christ (who didn’t cease to exist when He died, Rom. 6:3), he is raised to walk a new spiritual life.