Mark McCulley
Judge by the Gospel

The Death of the God-Man

Jesus Christ is the God-man. What can be said of the man can be said of Jesus Christ. What can be said of God can be said of Jesus Christ. God is immortal by nature. But my question is if man is immortal, so that even the reprobate can never really die, not even after death is put in the pit?

"Really die" begs the question of the definition of death.

1. Are all humans created with immortality?
2. Are all humans given immortality at the last resurrection?
3. Are only the elect given immortality?

The traditions of Christendom say that physical death is the separation of the immaterial being from the material being. But where do we find this definition in the Bible? When Satan said: you shall not surely die, was Satan talking about "physical death" or "spiritual death" and how would we know? When we say to all humans: you shall not surely die but live immortal somewhere, does that mean that God was only warning about spiritual depravity?

Does death involve separation and exclusion from God? Does death involve destruction? Is death parallel to life or its opposite? You can ignore these questions, or even begin to ask questions about my orthodoxy and motives. Or before you attend your next funeral, you can check a concordance to study the Bible's definition of death. If saved people can have two resurrections, then lost people can have two deaths, but that still does not mean that death means life or immortality.

God did not become a man. God became incarnate, and never stopped being God. In Acts 2, when Peter talked of Christ in Hades, that was His body, "cause His soul went straight to heaven" when He commended His Spirit to God??? I am not convinced of that "going to the Father" meant consciouness with the Father those three days.

Better and more biblical to hope in resurrection that the "immortality of the soul".

Mark McCulley
mcculley@redrose.net