God’s Work for Our Salvation: Death

Death is a sure thing. Since its origins in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:17), death has visited all but a few select people (Enoch, Elijah, and in the future, the last generation at the second coming of Messiah). Scripture is clear, “In Adam, all die” (1 Cor 15:22). Death was and still is the result, the wages of sin (Rom 6:23). It entered into the world through one man (Rom 5:12). It spread to all people who were ever conceived in their mother’s womb (Ps 51:5). It is appointed for a man to die, once, and then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27). Without salvation, the sentence of judgment is eternal punishment in the fiery hell of the lake of fire (Mt 25:41, 46; Jude 7; Rev 20:14–15).

Death is, therefore, an enemy (1 Cor 15:26). It is for this reason that people work so hard not to die in their physical bodies. There is a real fear in people, inherently (Heb 10:27), because they know they must stand before the great white throne of judgment (Rev 20:11), at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10), to whom judgment rights have been given (Jn 5:22). For all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to the Lord Jesus Christ, by Yahweh, God His Father (Mt 28:18).

Judging the living and the dead includes everyone, for at His second coming, all souls will be raised from the dust from which they came and to which they returned (Eccl 12:5). In this end times resurrection event (Jn 5:29), the separation will be evident (Mt 25:31–46). The elect, redeemed, regenerate, believers — vessels of mercy prepared for glory — will be resurrected to life (Rom 9:23). The reprobate, unredeemed, unbelieving — vessels of wrath prepared for destruction — will be raised to judgment (Rom 9:22). Having been condemned already (Jn 3:18; Rom 5:16), these only need to be assigned to their eternal home (Eccl 12:5).

Death has three parts that must be discerned. When Adam and Eve first sinned by disobeying the Word of God, they experienced the death of the soul before the death of their physical bodies. The death of the soul means one is dead to God. All who are conceived, having the original sin of Adam, are said to be dead in trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1). There is nothing in them that desires to be reconciled to God (Rom 3:10–12).

Sin, and the threat of death, hardens one’s heart toward God. The natural man, a sinner en route to the fires of hell (1 Cor 2:14), is a hater of God (Rom 1:30), a hater of Christ (Jn 7:7), and a hater of Christians (Jn 15:18–19). This is why one must be made alive (Eph 2:5), to be born anew as a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). The dead soul is regenerated, given new life, by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11; Acts 2:38).

He that is spiritual has received the Spirit of Christ (Jn 1:12–13; 1 Cor 2:15) — now permanently indwelling the Christian (Rom 8:9, 11). Death no longer enslaves the one made alive, for death has lost its sting (1 Cor 15:55–56). The believer in Jesus is an overcomer (1 Jn 5:4), even as Christ has overcome the world (Jn 16:33). Death no longer claims victory over the saint. The born again have eternal life and none of them comes under judgment because they have passed out of death and into life (Jn 5:24). Notably, one reality that is difficult to comprehend is the Christian already sitting in heavenly places in Christ (Eph 2:5–6).

Second, once the experience of the soul being resurrected from the dead has occurred in regeneration, the passage through death for the physical body is understood by the bodily resurrection of Christ Jesus, the first fruit of those who are asleep (1 Cor 15:20), that is, the first born from the dead (Col 1:18; Rev 1:5). He goes before us.

Believers in Jesus and unbelievers outside of Christ both suffer and die, physically. One soul goes to be with the Lord (Phil 1:23), which is very much better than life in these perishable bodies. Meanwhile, the other descends immediately into hell (Lk 16), awaiting the day of resurrection, in which a physical body, fit for eternal damnation, will be conjoined to the soul of each unrighteous, unbelieving, worker of iniquity (Mt 7:23).

For the two groups, death is diametrically different. It is an ultimate terror in this life for those who spend their days denying the revelation of God regarding hell. For those blessed of God, death is the transition point to everything hoped for and described by the writer of Hebrews with the word “better.” Everything is better on the other side of death for the Christian.

Grace is the will of God being worked by the Spirit of God for the glory of God. When the grace is deemed “sufficient” then all things, including death, work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28). Simply put, nothing, including death, can separate the saint from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:31–39). To be absent from the body, for the believer, is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor 5:6–8).

It is comforting for the Christian to know that Yahweh knows our days before there is yet one of them (Ps 139:16). Therefore, it is wise for us to redeem the time (Eph 5:16), first by asking God to teach us to number our days (Ps 90:12) and then to always remember death. Death consciousness is not morbid. The devil has always been deceiving people with the assurance, “You will surely not die” (Gen 3:4) and most people live their vaporous lives believing Satan and not believing God (Jas 4:14).

It is futile to pay attention to people who claim that they have come back from the dead, physically, when everyone born again of God’s Spirit can attest to the wonder-working power of having been dead, spiritually (Eph 2:1), but now living, with God Himself in our souls (Gal 2:20; 1 Pet 1:3). Who do you believe regarding the doctrine of death? Believe God and believe Jesus by believing the Holy Bible.

In summary, we have seen death’s origin. We have considered the body and the soul, as pertaining to the death of both. We have also mused upon the two groups who live and die very differently from one another. Finally, we pressed the impetus to live now in light of death and what is beyond for both groups.

In conclusion, it is clear that the devil is blinding the minds of those who deny some facet of death (2 Cor 4:4). Instead, we must remember death every day that we might live life more abundant in Christ (Jn 10:10). We must prepare for death in whatever exit strategy God has planned for each one of us.

May God bless the writer and the reader with a much greater sense of the temporal, meaningless aspects of life in this world, and may we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2), by setting our minds on the things above (Col 3:2), which is the best way to prepare for that which is to come very soon, no matter how old you are, today.

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

March 18, 2026