Hypocrites and Backsliders Lesson 24

1
Hypocrites and BackslidersLesson 24

• Spiritual Death

2
Spiritual Death

• (Eccl 127 KJV)  Then shall the dust return to
  the earth as it was and the spirit shall return
  unto God who gave it.

3
Spiritual Death

• Romans 517 For if, by the trespass of the one
  man, death reigned through that one man, how much
  more will those who receive God's abundant
  provision of grace and of the gift of
  righteousness reign in life through the one man,
  Jesus Christ. ?Romans 518 Consequently, just as
  the result of one trespass was condemnation for
  all men, so also the result of one act of
  righteousness was justification that brings life
  for all men. (NIV)

4
Spiritual Death

• In the beginning, Adam had an intimate, personal
  relationship with God, his Creator. "The LORD God
  formed man of the dust of the ground, and
  breathed into his nostrils the breathes of life
  and man became a living Soul . . . Then the LORD
  God took the man and put him in the garden of
  Eden to tend and keep it" (Genesis 27, 15).
• In the beginning, Adam served the Lord and daily
  had fellowship with Him, when He would walk "in
  the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis 38).

5
Spiritual Death

• Adam and Eve previously had enjoyed intimate
  fellowship with God, but now their sins led them
  to flee in fear from His presence. "The LORD God
  called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?'
  So he said, 'I heard Your voice in the garden,
  and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid
  myself.' " (Genesis 39-10)
• Ever since that time, all of the descendants of
  Adam have been born "dead in trespasses and sins"
  (Ephesians 21).
• The only remedy for the spiritually dead human
  family would be through a relationship to a new
  "family head"

6
Spiritual Death

• Primarily it is Alienation from God.
• Ephesians 418 (AMP)
• 18 Their moral understanding is darkened and
  their reasoning is beclouded. They are
  alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the
  life of God with no share in it this is
  because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge
  and perception, the willful blindness) that is
  deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of
  heart to the insensitiveness of their moral
  nature.

7
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual ignorance is part of Spiritual Death.
• Matthew 416 (AMP) 16 The people who sat (dwelt
  enveloped) in darkness have seen a great Light,
  and for those who sat in the land and shadow of
  death Light has dawned.
• Luke 179 (AMP) 79 To shine upon and give
  light to those who sit in darkness and in the
  shadow of death, to direct and guide our feet in
  a straight line into the way of peace.

8
Spiritual Death

• Unbelief results is Spiritual Death.
• John 336 (AMP) 36 And he who believes in (has f
  aith in, clings to, relies on) the Son has (now
  possesses) eternal life. But whoever disobeys (is
  unbelieving toward, refuses to trust in,
  disregards, is not subject to) the Son will never
  see (experience) life, but instead the wrath of
  God abides on him. Gods displeasure remains on
  him His indignation hangs over him continually.
• 1 John 512 (AMP) 12 He who possesses the Son
  has that life he who does not possess the Son of
  God does not have that life.

9
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death is a consequence of the fall.
• Romans 515 (AMP) But Gods free gift is not at
  all to be compared to the trespass His grace is
  out of all proportion to the fall of man. For if
  many died through one mans falling away (his
  lapse, his offense), much more profusely did
  Gods grace and the free gift that comes
  through the undeserved favor of the one Man Jesus
  Christ abound and overflow to and for the
  benefit of many.

10
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death is the state of all men by
  nature.
• Romans 613 (AMP) Do not continue offering or yi
  elding your bodily members and faculties to sin
  as instruments (tools) of wickedness. But offer
  and yield yourselves to God as though you have
  been raised from the dead to perpetual life,
  and your bodily members and faculties to God,
  presenting them as implements of righteousness.

11
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death is the state of all men by
  nature.
• Romans 86 (AMP)
• 6 Now the mind of the flesh which is sense and
  reason without the Holy Spirit is death death
  that comprises all the miseries arising from sin,
  both here and hereafter. But the mind of the
  Holy Spirit is life and soul peace both now
  and forever.

12
Spiritual Death

• Mans production, the fruits of SD, are dead
  works.
• Hebrews 61 (AMP)
• 1 THEREFORE LET us go on and get past the
  elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of
  Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward
  the completeness and perfection that belong to
  spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying
  the foundation of repentance and abandonment of
  dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith by
  which you turned to God,

13
Spiritual Death

• Mans production, the fruits of SD, are dead
  works.
• Hebrews 914 (AMP)
• 14 How much more surely shall the blood of
  Christ, Who by virtue of His eternal Spirit
  His own preexistent divine personality has
  offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice to
  God, purify our consciences from dead works and
  lifeless observances to serve the ever living
  God?

14
Spiritual Death

• Deliverance from SD, is through Christ.
• John 524 (AMP)
• 24 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the
  person whose ears are open to My words who
  listens to My message and believes and trusts in
  and clings to and relies on Him Who sent Me has
  (possesses now) eternal life. And he does not
  come into judgment does not incur sentence of
  judgment, will not come under condemnation, but
  he has already passed over out of death into life.

15
Spiritual Death

• Deliverance from SD, is through Christ.
• John 525 (AMP)
• 25 Believe Me when I assure you, most solemnly I
  tell you, the time is coming and is here now when
  the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God
  and those who hear it shall live.

16
Spiritual Death

• Deliverance from SD, is through Christ.
• 1 John 512 (AMP) 12 He who possesses the Son
  has that life he who does not possess the Son of
  God does not have that life.

17
Spiritual Death

• Eph 212 Remember that you were at that time
  separated (living apart) from Christ excluded
  from all part in Him, utterly estranged and
  outlawed from the rights of Israel as a nation,
  and strangers with no share in the sacred
  compacts of the Messianic promise with no
  knowledge of or right in Gods agreements, His
  covenants. And you had no hope (no promise) you
  were in the world without God.
• The Amplified Bible, Containing the Amplified
  Old Testament and the Amplified New Testament. La
  Habra, CA The Lockman Foundation, 1987, S.

18
Spiritual Death

• There is a distinct thinking process associated
  with SD
• Ro 87-9 That is because the mind of the flesh
  with its carnal thoughts and purposes is
  hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to
  Gods Law indeed it cannot. 8 So then those who
  are living the life of the flesh catering to
  the appetites and impulses of their carnal
  nature cannot please or satisfy God, or be
  acceptable to Him.

19
Spiritual Death

• 9 But you are not living the life of the flesh,
  you are living the life of the Spirit, if the
  Holy Spirit of God really dwells within you
  directs and controls you. But if anyone does
  not possess the Holy Spirit of Christ, he is
  none of His he does not belong to Christ, is not
  truly a child of God.
• Verse 9 contrasts the Death of living in the
  Flesh to the Life of living in the Spirit and
  concludes that the absence of the Spirit is
  Spiritual Death.

20
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death leads to Idolatry
• Gal. 48
• But at that previous time, when you had not come
  to be acquainted with and understand and know the
  true God, you Gentiles were in bondage to gods
  who by their very nature could not be gods at all
  gods that really did not exist.

21
Spiritual Death

• This Sd leads to a way of thinking
• Col 121 And although you at one time were
  estranged and alienated from Him and were of
  hostile attitude of mind in your wicked
  activities,
• 22 Yet now has Christ, the Messiah reconciled
  you to God in the body of His flesh through
  death, in order to present you holy and faultless
  and irreproachable in His the Fathers
  presence.

22
Spiritual Death

• Operating from Sd leads us to deny God
• Ro 121 Because when they knew and recognized
  Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as
  God or give Him thanks. But instead they became
  futile and godless in their thinking with vain
  imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid
  speculations and their senseless minds were
  darkened.

23
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death is the result of one mans act
• By one man's sin, death reigned (Romans 517)
• Through one man's disobedience a vast crowd were
  made sinners (Rom. 519)
• or, tersely, in 1 Cor. 1522, In Adam all die.

24
Spiritual Death

• Spiritual Death excludes man from Gods realm
• John 33,5,6 (YLT) If any one may not be born
  from above, he is not able to see the
  Kingdom-reign of God
• 5 he is not able to enter into the Kingdom-reign
  of God
• 6 that which hath been born of the flesh is
  flesh, and that which hath been born of the
  Spirit is spirit.

25
Spiritual Death

• There is a clear-cut release from SD
• Romans 81-8 (YLT) 1 There is, then, now no
  condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk
  not according to the flesh, but according to the
  Spirit 2 for the law of the Spirit of the life
  in Christ Jesus did set me free from the law of
  the sin and of the death 3 for what the law was
  not able to do, in that it was weak through the
  flesh, God, His own Son having sent in the
  likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, did
  condemn the sin in the flesh,

26
Spiritual Death

• 4 that the righteousness of the law may be
  fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the
  flesh, but according to the Spirit. 5 For those
  who are according to the flesh, the things of the
  flesh do mind and those according to the Spirit,
  the things of the Spirit 6 for the mind of the
  flesh is death, and the mind of the Spirit - life
  and peace 7 because the mind of the flesh is
  enmity to God, for to the law of God it doth not
  subject itself, 8 for neither is it able and
  those who are in the flesh are not able to please
  God.

27
Spiritual Death

• 12 Because of this, even as through one man the
  sin did enter into the world, and through the sin
  the death and thus to all men the death did pass
  through, for that all did sin 13 for till law
  sin was in the world and sin is not reckoned
  when there is not law 14 but the death did reign
  from Adam till Moses, even upon those not having
  sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression,
  who is a type of him who is coming.

28
Genetic Sin and Genetic Death

• If we view the sentence beginning with verse 12,
  recaptured (as to essence) in verse 18a, and
  completed in verse 18b, the apostle states,
• Just as through one man the sin entered the
  world, and the death through sin, and so the
  death spread to all mankind, since all sinned
  that is, as one trespass resulted in condemnation
  for all men, so also one act of righteousness
  resulted for all men in justification issuing in
  life.

29
Spiritual Death

• Scripture describes our condition before
  believing in Jesus Christ as being under the
  wrath of God
• "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
  but whoever rejects the Son will not see life,
  for God's wrath remains on him."?     - John 336

30
Spiritual Death

• Regeneration is an instantaneous work of the Holy
  Spirit in originating a new nature in the
  believing sinner so as to transform the believer
  from a state of spiritual death to spiritual life
  (cf. John 35, 1010,28 1 John 511-12)

31
Spiritual Death

• The Bible is very clear that death is not
  restricted to merely the physical death of the
  body, but the death of the spirit.
• When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they died
  that very day spiritually and lost their personal
  relationship with God.
• Here are more scriptures (many by Jesus Himself)

32
Spiritual Death

• But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me and allow the
  dead to bury their own dead." (Matthew 822) -
  (How can physically dead people bury anyone?)
• "And do not fear those who kill the body, but are
  unable to kill the soul but rather fear Him who
  is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
  (Matthew 1028)

33
Spiritual Death

• "'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
  and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the
  dead but of the living." (Matthew 2232)
• And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead
  because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because
  of righteousness. (Romans 810)

34
Spiritual Death

• And when you were dead in your transgressions and
  the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you
  alive together with Him, having forgiven us all
  our transgressions, (Colossians 213)

35
Spiritual Death

• For just as the body without the spirit is dead,
  so also faith without works is dead. (James 226)
• For the gospel has for this purpose been preached
  even to those who are dead, that though they are
  judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the
  spirit according to the will of God. (1 Peter 46)

36
Spiritual Death

• Just as it happened for Adam (and all who are in
  Adam), Isaiah defines Spiritual Death to the
  Jews
• Isa 592 your sins have made a separation between
  you and your God And your sins have hidden His
  face from you, so that He does not hear

37
Spiritual Death

• Jn 524 he who hears My word, and believes Him
  who sent Me, has eternal (spiritual) life, and
  does not come into judgment, but has passed out
  of (spiritual) death into (spiritual) life.
• Jn 1028 and I give eternal (spiritual) life to
  them, and they shall never perish (spiritually)

38
Spiritual Death

• Jn 1125 "I am the resurrection and the
  (spiritual) life he who believes in Me shall
  live (spiritually) even if he dies (physically),
  and everyone who lives (physically) and believes
  in Me shall never die (spiritually). Do you
  believe this?"

39
Spiritual Death

• Rom 62,11 "How shall we who (spiritually) died
  to sin still live in it?" "Even so consider
  yourselves to be (separated) dead to sin, but
  alive (united) to God in Christ Jesus."
• Rom 623 For the wages of sin is (spiritual)
  death, but the free gift of God is eternal
  (union) life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

40
Spiritual Death

• Rom 74 Therefore, my brethren, you also were
  made to die (separated) to the Law through the
  body of Christ, that you might be joined
  (spiritually alive) to another Christ
• Eph 21,5 "And you were (spiritually) dead in
  your trespasses and sins" "even when we were
  (spiritually) dead in our transgressions, made us
  (spiritually) alive together with Christ"

41
Human Life and the Soul

• The natural (Soul) man receiveth not the things
  of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness
  unto him neither can he know them, because they
  are Spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 214).
• There is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of
  the Almighty giveth them understanding (Job
  328).

41
42
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• 17 So this I say and solemnly testify in the
  name of the Lord as in His presence, that you
  must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles)
  do in their perverseness in the folly, vanity,
  and emptiness of their souls and the futility of
  their minds.

43
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• 18 Their moral understanding is darkened and
  their reasoning is beclouded. They are
  alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the
  life of God with no share in it this is
  because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge
  and perception, the willful blindness) that is
  deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of
  heart to the insensitiveness of their moral
  nature.

44
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• 19 In their spiritual apathy they have become
  callous and past feeling and reckless and have
  abandoned themselves a prey to unbridled
  sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every
  form of impurity that their depraved desires may
  suggest and demand.

45
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• 17 This, then, I say, and I testify in the Lord
  ye are no more to walk, as also the other nations
  walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 being
  darkened in the understanding, being alienated
  from the life of God, because of the ignorance
  that is in them, because of the hardness of their
  heart, 19 who, having ceased to feel, themselves
  did give up to the lasciviousness, for the
  working of all uncleanness in greediness (YLT)

46
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• This I say then and testify
• Paul uses a word which causes the reader to sit
  up.
• ???t? ?e?? ??? and then there is the long verb
  µa?t????µa? which means to make a solemn
  statement (without any injection of humor).
• It excludes anything which is superficial,
  anything which is light, and anything which is
  humorous.
• From µa?t????µa? we get the word Martyr - someone
  who will die for their belief.

47
S D Mechanics - Eph 417

• From this solemn warning to Believers, we learn
  exactly what Spiritual Death is, the Mechanics,
  if you will.
• We see it coming when Paul says
• that you do not walk as the other Gentiles
  the Unsaved walk.
• Then, Paul proceeds to describe the inner
  workings of Spiritual Death for us in the
  remainder of the passage -
• Which we will cover, next week.