In Neubauer’s newest “spin zone theology” he attacks the idea of original sin without analyzing the actual biblical theology used to explain the doctrine in any kind of sustained rational presentation. Nor did he give a distinct definition of what is “original sin.” The presentation of Neubauer argument is seriously flawed and disjointed in many numerous aspects based on misleading and heretical theology created by the necessity of inventing unbiblical arguments to uphold the tenets of Full/Hyper Preterism. It can be overlooked that much of Neubauer’s sources for the paper was garnered from Wikipedia and thin air so going to a scholarly source,
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct in need of regeneration.[1]
The concept of “original sin” is the idea that following after Adam’s sin, the nature of man was “weakened” in that it was now prone to sin. Therefore a baby born innocent, still had the fallen nature and would one day sin. In scriptures it is called a fallen nature, or sinful nature. It is what makes the human body carnal and lowly and what Neubauer called “a weakness.” The Catholic church determined that the fallen nature is what condemns the man to hell. Therefore infant baptism was introduced. Augustine then also accepted an age of accountability of seven where they could not be held culpable for any sin under that age.[2] Later it was argued a child who has sinned, cannot be sent to hell until he reaches the age of accountability. A child who does not understand sin and death, cannot be held responsible for his actions.
The idea of an age of accountability arose in the 19th century and the 20th century amongst non-Calvinistic Protestants who were attempting to address the issue of infant mortality and explain on the basis of Arminianism and freewill why all children who had been unable to exercise their own unaided faith by freewill didn’t go to hell.[3]
Midway through the paper Holger makes the statements that, “Though we have a weakness because we are human” is what gives up the farm. By identifying the nature of this weakness it can be shown that this weakness was a consequence of the fall of Adam when he sinned. The introduction of sin is what corrupts the nature of man and gives it this weakness and this weakness is passed on to all men. Neubauer offers no distinct answer for what the weakness in man is. This weakness is the sin nature. Man sins because he has a sin nature, a proclivity to sin and His nature is fallen, weak with a critical defect where it becomes subject to sin.
In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. BSB
In other translations the σώματος τῆς σαρκός, is literally translated as the body of the flesh. Col 2:11 teaches that, in regeneration the removal of the sin nature is accomplished through the new birth where the spirit of man is made alive unto Christ. Paul goes on in Romans 6-8 in describing the sin nature is a person born as a slave to sin. Paul described the struggle of a body “sold under sin” where the things he should not do, he does because sin lays with in the weakened members of his human body of flesh.
The fallen state of man then goes back to Genesis 3 with the fall of man when he becomes cursed, and the curse is the source for the weakness of human flesh. The curse placed on man by God was (1) Man is no longer immortal. He now becomes subject to sickness disease and the corruption of growing old. He is cursed to die a death after completing his years. Those “years of man” were set in Gen 6:3,
Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in a man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
Any logical reasonable human being recognizes that you don’t curse someone with physical death if a person is already made mortal (subject to death.) Adam was created as a spiritual and physical being in the garden. Neubauer spreads the doctrine of demons that man was made mortal in the garden and so “physical death” is not an enemy of God.
According to I Cor 15:50-56, the carnal body of flesh is raised and restored to its original nature of being immortal. Which implicitly implies that man was MADE immortal, and in the fall, he was weakened to a state mortality, so in the resurrection he is restored to “imperishability and immortality.” In the FP theology man always remains in his “weakened” condition until death when the body is turned to dust and will no longer ever exist.
(2) The ground becomes cursed and so now man has to work and till the soil to make bread to eat. According to Rom 8, there will come a time when all of nature is also restored to its original perfection and the curse is removed. Then for man the curse of death, the last enemy, physical death is abolished forever and in that same time the earth is restored to its original created goodness.
The Rabbit Hole of Gnosticism
Gnosticism in general denied the physical nature of creation as being important and it was only the spiritual that was imperative. Many Gnostics denied the body of Jesus even existed and that he was some kind of “spirit being.” Gnostics considered material existence flawed and evil and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment[4]
It is the belief held by many FP that Christ exists in heaven in a “spiritual body,” which denies that he has a physical body made of flesh that garners the moniker of “Gnosticism.” While many try to defend their position as not being Gnostic, any simple reading of their material can see the parallels. When the FP upholds that the physical (carnal) comes first and then the spiritual, from I Cor 15, they actual ignore and “despise” the flesh that God made man to be and that it was good. If the flesh, physical body was good there is no scriptural reason as to why the flesh body cannot be redeemed from its state of corruption and mortality, to return to the goodness in which it was created. To argue the human is weak is to accept that the introduction of sin resulted in the weakness of man.
Preston and others goes so far as to try and redefine Gnosticism into a small, pigeonholed belief but history demonstrates Gnosticism comes in a wide range of ideas and beliefs.
The irrational problem is developed in FP when the church has taught physical bodily resurrection of the saints for 2000 years. The FP claims this Resurrection of the dead took place in AD 70 as Neubauer references this point, yet not one person saw or testified that anyone rose from the dead in the same way as Matt 27:52. Therefore the FP is forced to change the nature of the resurrection from being bodily to some mystical corporate body resurrection. Neubauer argues it was a corporate body of the Jews being raised into the new covenant body. Yet again this illogical position is denied in the same way that transgender men claim to be women. Just because it is being claimed does not make it true. Every born-again Christian starting with the five thousand saved on the day of Pentecost were “raised” to new life in Christ into the new covenant. What further raising did the need? Hence Paul could say that those who had physical died, Fallen asleep, in Christ, will be raised first in the resurrection. These saints physically died and were “in Christ” before they died, and so raised.
If I Cor 15 is not about Physical death according to the FP, since a resurrection takes place, then it must be about spiritual death. So in what way does the “body of us” rise? It has to be a nonphysical resurrection, so Preston invented the “Corporate body of Resurrection where the OC saints are raised up to new life out of the OC law of death, and into the NC, which completely ignores the fate of the Gentile who were never in the OC. How can they be raised out of the Old Covenant body of Moses when they were never in it in the first place? Some suggest they “participate” with Old Covenant Israel by believing in Jesus.
Then Gen 3 has to be changed to mean a spiritual death is what Adam brought into this world. Physical death can not be the death of Adam, or the resurrection would be of the physical body. Death is then declared Good because it had to exist in the Garden before the fall as Neubauer makes allusions to this in his paper. The Last enemy then is spiritual death and not physical death.
Neubauer points to Romans 7:9, “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.” In which he ripped the verse from the context to suggest that Paul was “spiritually” alive without the law, and yet states in the same breath that he was a jew born under the law of Moses. Neubauer stated that, “He is alive, because his relationship with God is intact.” At birth and before he sinned.
Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Paul is simply using a figurative language where he becomes the “Israel” where from Abraham to Moses, there was no law, “For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.” (Rom 4:15) With the introduction of the law Israel was able to see their sin against God.
Neubauer makes the claim that in Rom 3-8 it only speaks to “spiritual death.” Yet one simply verse destroys this whole premise;
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Neubauer claimed it was “spiritual death” and yet here in this verse Paul says sin results in physical death. The spirit is life because it brings the body back to life in the same way it brought back to life Christ body.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesusd from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
The mortal body is a body subject to death as a judgment for sin, sin-death.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The death being discussed is death that leads to eternal separation from God in the lake of fire. It is sin that lives within the members of our body then this weakness must be removed in order to come “back to life.”
we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.[5]
Neubauer stated, Paul, “like everyone else, followed his covenant forerunner (Adam), and sinned and died.”
The emphasis of Gen 5:5 and following after each name says, “and he died,” “and he died,” “and he died,” demonstrates that death spread to all men was physical death. Neubauer completely misses the part in Romans where that the unsaved person is under God’s wrath. Therefore the wages of his sin (plural for all his sin) is the punishment (wages) of death. Some one who lives in sin is considered “dead in sins” yet is alive but under the condemnation of death for his sin and under the wrath of God, and to face judgment once they die.
Now Neubauer went on to say,
Paul uses the word “sleep” to contrast the “death” of which he speaks. When Paul speaks of biological death in this text, he uses the word “sleep, slept, asleep.” When Paul speaks of “death” in 1 Corinthians 15, he speaks of spiritual death.
And yet what do we find in I Cor 15, the complete opposite as death and “fallen asleep” are interchangeable and there is no hermeneutic that has death meaning the opposite of “spiritual death” since the subject is: What happens to those who have fallen asleep.” The Greek Christians were not asking, “what happens to spiritually dead people in Christ.” It is again absolutely ludacris to suggest when they asked the question, “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” they were not asking, “How are the spiritually dead raised and with what kind of body do they come,” as Neubauer implicates in his doctrine. Or when Paul mentions, “what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?”, No where does this suggest people were being baptized for people who were alive but spiritual dead.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. … And the dead in Christ will rise first.
There is no such thing as the “spiritually dead” in Christ.
Now Neubauer states,
“The Corinthians held to the same false doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus, arguing the resurrection was “past already”
There is simply no biblical support for this statement. This is why I charge Neubauer of pulling things out of thin air. What I find incredible but not surprising is that many agreed and said wonderful job but not once did anyone question such statements nor recognize how unbiblical the claim is. Full Preterist leaders are never questioned seriously by their followers. This implies those who follow Neubauer do not know scriptures. They are novices being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
D.A. Carson in his New testament commentary affirms that the Corinthians, coming from a Greek culture, He stated, “to the first century mind the immortality of the soul was unquestionably true for most pagans. The resurrection of the body was absurd to them (cf. Acts 17:32).”[6] It is in this background defends the Resurrection of Christ as being true, a physical bodily resurrection. By the time Paul has reached verse 20 he has in fact proven that Christ indeed has risen. This fact is not open for debate and is the heart of the Gospel message. In answering their question “are the dead raised”, Christ is presented as the firstfruits. Not the first person in the sense he is the only one, but in the sense, he is the first of a group as compared to the first fruits of the harvest. The Harvest implies that of souls, Paul is citing the parable Jesus used concerning people in John 4:35, are to be reaped from off the earth through the resurrection that happens at his coming. It is Jesus who puts forth the sickle to reap. These firstfruits then are of those who have died.
Death came upon all men through Adam sin and the consequential judgment that follows in Genesis 3. So, by Christ’s resurrection, life will come to all men through their resurrection on the last day, in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:5). He is the first and so in order, those who come after, reflect him.
In the sub pericope of I Corinthians 15:24-26 Paul speaks of the end, D.A. Carson concludes its “the last event in this cosmic history, when Christ delivers into the hands of the Father the kingdom, having subdued all[7].” The word “end” (τέλος telos[8]) designates the limit, or termination of the furthest extent, the completion of anything, and in the case the work of redemption in which he completes his work of mediation. In this usage by Paul he indicates the end comes when he delivers what came to him from God, is given back to God. From verse 27 and 28 tells us all things, or all (verse 24) rulers, authorities, or powers, on earth which represents governments or nations to demonic forces (Ephesians 6:12), Christ rules over.
When this end is completed, he delivers this authority up. The word “deliver”, (παραδῷ paradō). means properly to give “near, with,” or “to” anyone; to give over, to deliver up, it’s usually defined by the act of delivering up “persons” to the power or authority of others, like a prisoner given over to the court. This is completed when and after he has destroyed, or rendered inoperative every authority. When he is finished the task given Him by the father and it is completed, and is known to be completed by when all rule[9] is given back to God.
All enemies, anything openly hostile to Christ and his purposes will be subdued, under his feet, a metaphor for being in subjection. He rules over all powers and authority but has yet to take away the free will of His enemies, in eliminating their ability, power or rule.
The last one, the end of it, the one that openly opposes the will of God is death, in physical death of the body, it will be annulled[10] made inactive, and unable to be of effect, abolished in the sense impossible to happen, ceases to exist, the possibility of death ends. This accomplished at his coming when Paul later explains that at his coming the saints are change and made immortal thus death ceases.
Again Neubauer states without warrant,
Paul is combatting the Judaizers who argued the Law would continue and there was no need for the dead ones to be raised. That is why Paul says, “the strength of sin is the Law” (1 Cor. 15:56). The Law had to end, in order for resurrection to be completed.
Jews as noted by Jesus and Paul, believed in the resurrection of the dead, where dead people come back to life. Even Martha said that Lazarus would be raised back to life on the last day. There is simply nothing in the text that would suggest that they were arguing the law would continue. If you notice all FP replace the word “dead” or the Greek, Nekron, with “dead ones.” This is done as a twisting as no translation uses “dead ones” to support their belief that the “dead ones” were raised out of Hades is AD 70 which again is another form of “resurrection of the dead.” Which is simply not true. The Greek is “anastasis Nekron”, the standing again of a lifeless corpse. The dead in Hades were not ever described as laying down or sitting. It is the body that is laying down dead in a grave and is standing again just as Christ dead body was laid in a tomb and raised back to life.
The Last Enemy: Physical death.
Let me simply destroy FP teaching on this matter. “Spiritual death” was defeated on the cross hence Paul and other disciples were saved by the terms of the NC, through regeneration, the new birth. They were transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light. They were a new creation in Christ. “spiritual death” then was defeated spiritually first on the cross by his shed blood. The last enemy then must be physical death where in the resurrection of the dead, death is abolished when the dead are raised immortal and imperishable. The following then unscrambles the heretical doctrines of the death of Adam in the FP paradigm.
The Genesis Account
1. Adam and Eve were created from dust.
2. God Commanded them NOT to eat from the tree of Good and Evil or they will die a physical death as punishment in the day they eat it.
3. They ate. They came to the knowledge of what is “right and wrong” experientially.
a. They became guilty for violation of the law.
b. They became subject to punishment for the violation.
4. God killed an animal in their place. (sacrificial system for sin instituted)
5. Consequences for their sin; God cursed the “snake,” the ground to produce thorns and thistles, women with pain in childbirth, and man to turn to dust (mortality). God kicked man out of the garden.
In Genesis 6 God limited man’s years to 120…
The Deaths defined in scriptures:[11]
1. To be killed in punishment, “die a death” – mō-wṯ tā-mūṯ., ‘surly you will die.’
2. Physical death at the end of ones “120” years. (natural or unnatural)
3. Second death in the Lake of Fire.
Adam was to be killed for disobedience in the day he ate as a punishment. Adam was forgiven of sin through the shedding of the blood of the animal in his place. Then Adam is cursed, given consequences for his sin. Adam could walk away forgiven but must pay a price for his sin. Man’s nature has fallen from its created position through the guilt of sin, even though an animal has been provided for the forgiveness of sin, Adam’s blood is still required. (Heb 10:4) Adam remains under a death sentence, but God promised that another would pay the price for him.
“… he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Because Christ died in his place to atone for his sin it demands that the price to be paid was physical death or the animal would have sufficed to make full atonement, but because Christ died, even for Adam’s sin, demands death, the shedding of blood, the legal requirement is physical death for payment when the law is broken. Christ did not have to suffer “spiritual death” and be raised from “spiritual death” to atone for sin, it demands the blood to be shed, not of an animal but of a person. Christ being equal with God, of a divine nature and spirit cannot experience a “spiritual death” in which he is separated from God, or from himself because of sin. Because Christ was sinless and not guilty, he simply is accepting the penalty of sin upon himself. He bore the guilt on the cross but did not become guilty. Spiritual death only comes when a person becomes guilty.
Life is defined in scriptures as …
1. Living out your years after birth.
2. The new birth in being saved is coming “back to life” in Christ, where the Spirit in man was once dead due to sin is now made alive. No longer subject to the second death because of sin.
3. Life after death, in the resurrection of the dead, the dead come back to the realm of the living.
What is Spiritual death?
“Sin separates and condemns a person to death” until blood is shed that restores the relationship through forgiveness, sin does not make one “spiritually dead”. Separation by sin from God does not make one dead, as the spirit and body continue to live. One is “spiritually dead” in that the Spirit of man is not alive in Christ (even from birth), his spirit lives apart from the life that is given to the spirit and body through being “IN Christ.” Meaning he is not born saved or loses his salvation the first time he sins. His sin is not forgiven, and he is not saved until he confesses his sin and puts his faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross.
The fallen nature that resides in the flesh of man is not removed in the new birth, as Paul described the struggle against sin in Romans 7 remains in the flesh even though the Spirit has been set free from its bondage to sin,
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
Paul also said, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” The struggle against sin then continues through the fallen nature of man. The Spirit has been made alive in Christ as a new creation, but the “flesh” of man remains in bondage to sin, a slave to sin. IF the body is made into a new creation the sin would no longer reside in the flesh, therefore the new creation is the new birth where the Spirit of man becomes alive by being placed in Christ. ALL men are born apart from being in Christ, hence the need for the spiritual new birth, because the spirit of man is born outside of the life found in Christ and is considered dead, bound for the second death, until they have been made a new creation.
No one is born “in Christ” then kicked out of Christ for sin. If this were the case, then we would need to be “born again” every time we sin because that “sin” would place us again outside of Christ(Catholicism) . When we are in Christ, we still struggle with the sin nature. (but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.) Until the flesh dies and is raised to new life, freed from sin and death, I remain in a struggle with the fallen nature that rules over my flesh. When I choose to sin, being freed in my will, I am no longer a slave, or forced into sin, I sin because I choose to but now with my mind I can choose not to sin. Nothing can force me as a Christian and being in Christ, to be an “adulterer” unless I choose to be one.
“Spiritual death” therefore is the condition of the soul of man from birth, living apart from God’s life found in Christ.
The Doctrine of Regeneration
When Jesus confronted Nicodemus, he challenged him in that he needed to be “born again”. This word is appropriated into the Epistles as “regeneration”, the Greek word παλινγενεσίας, palingenesias, meaning to regenerate, or have a new birth. Paul in Romans speaks of the person spirit “being made alive in Christ” while it was once now dead it is being made alive, and we identify with His death and resurrection, we are resurrected with him as an analogy for the new birth. Paul says we are dead in our sins but made alive in Christ. The Spirit in man is recreated without the taint of sin or separated from God but now made alive in Christ, rejoined in fellowship and unity with the creator through the Spirit. The issue then at hand is that every person is born with a fallen nature. One only has to observe a child to see his selfish desires as Paul calls it the struggle of sin that lies within our members wars against the mind.[12] It is the idea a baby is born a sinner, born in separation to God, not alive in Christ, and born in need of a savior. A baby given time will and does sin because of the sin nature that resides in them.
The Death of Adam
Adam was formed of the dust and was created to be immortal. He was not created to be subject to death[13]. Why?
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—Romans 5:12
If death came into this world because of sin then for death to exist before Adam, it would require that Adam sinned previously. Death came into this world because of Adam’s sin NOT because God created Adam to die.
Death is counted as an enemy of God no matter how you define death to be as it is not how God made man to be, to spiritually die or to physically die. God does not create death in the Garden and then declare it is “good”, then call it an enemy. As any preterist will tell you, Adam was not created “spiritually dead”[14] but through sin his nature “fell” from its position. In the same way man was not created to die but by the introduction of sin man now must die for his sin. In the obvious understanding, turning to dust is not “spiritual death” but physical death. Dust to dust is physical death, the consequence for sin.
IF God calls death an enemy and in I Cor 15 the “last enemy”, and you define the last enemy as Spiritual Death and yet (for the sake of argument) “spiritual death” is reversed at the cross where man through the new birth is made alive to Christ this means man is now “spiritually alive” upon the new birth and does not have to wait for some future events to be born again. Paul declares we are a “new creation in Christ” when we are born again (2 Cor 5:17). There cannot be some type of corporate resurrection where everyone was made alive, to pass into the New Covenant at a so called coming in AD 70. The New Birth is then being placed in “Christ” according to the terms of the New Covenant at the moment of confession and belief. The evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit was the down payment in the guarantee that a person was saved and born again. Paul did not need to wait for AD 70 to be transferred out of the Old Covenant into the new, especially since he died long before. (this is the error of CBV)
IF death then is the first enemy to be defeated at the cross then the death Paul is speaking about in I Cor 15 cannot be Spiritual death as the last enemy. Or Paul remained spiritually dead until his death which was long before AD 70.
“Mortal” means subject to death if in the curse God declared man would return to dust, (which means to be made mortal), from which he came (Gen. 3:19) then you do not pronounce a curse on man mortality if he is already mortal.
Physical death that comes years later for Adam, is a part and parcel of the curse placed upon man by God for Adam’s sin. All men now suffer physical death because of the sin nature passed on to them from Adam’s sin. This is called a consequence for sin. A consequence is the result of one’s behavior and choices. Because Adam sinned death spread to all men. Because Eve sinned woman would now have to suffer pain in childbirth. Before Adam sinned, Eve would not have experienced pain in childbirth. Nor was the ground cursed and producing thistles before the fall. There for death of any kind did not exist in the Garden.
The argument can be made that if there is a tree of life and there is a choice to be made, then man was not made mortal or immortal but was allowed to choose which he would be. And until he chose, he would remain alive. He could not have made a choice after he had “died”, because he had never chosen to die or to live forever, he would remain in the state in which he was created, alive and living until that choice was made. To be obedient or to rebel, one produced life, the other death. Therefore, he was made to remain alive until the choice was made. He was not made or created to be subject to death as death comes into the world through sin. In order for Adam to have been made mortal requires that he had sin prior to his creation. All men are created mortal because the sin / death nature was passed on through Adam. Adam became mortal so all who are born from Adam are made mortal (death passed on to all men). All men born from Adam are created with a fallen nature (also of the body) that is subject to the curse of physical death, life coming to its end.
The tree of life did not demand that they continue to eat from it in order to maintain their mortality as some have suggested. The equal spiritual reality then would mean men would have to keep producing good works in order to continue to be in Christ, but by a single point of belief and confession eternal life is given. By the same point, the tree represented that eternal decision for life in Christ. At the moment of eating of the tree the decision would have been made and man would have been made eternal and the struggle of sin and death would never had entered the equation.
Physical death is the way of escape from these mortal bodies.[15] It allows for redemption of the body to occur for all men. Simply put, if Adam did not die, he would remain immortal in that fallen state in which sin and death exists within the human nature and exhibited through the human body, which is called the flesh, carnal nature, lowly boy, and even “flesh and blood,” from which there would be no escape. The plan of God was not for man to live forever in a fallen state but to be redeemed from the curse that was placed upon it. It is in this hope that we live. Therefore, God made Adam mortal, after sin came into the world, so that the body could die and be redeemed from the fallen condition through the Resurrection.
The “second death”, is being cast into the Lake of Fire after the GWT judgment for those who have never been born again. To die a physical death without being born again is “the death” that results in the lake of fire.
The death due to punishment[16] is the idea that person is to be physically killed for his sin. The Hebrew expression found in Genesis 2 is “you shall surely die.” This is death by punishment. It is not about a pronouncement of someone turning to dust, or that one day they will die, this is a declaration of a sentence, a consequence for violating Gods law. Gen 2:15-17
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
4191 [e] מ֥וֹת mō-wṯ surely V-Qal-Inf Abs
4191 [e] תָּמֽוּת׃ tā-mūṯ. you shall die V-Qal-Imperf-2m
mō-wṯ tā-mūṯ., “You shall surely die,” is used in many places throughout scriptures to pronounce the death sentence.
Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. Genesis 20:7
He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.
Whoever strikes his father, or his mother shall be put to death.
Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
Whoever curseshis father, or his mother shall be put to death (Exo 21).
In every verse above mō-wṯ tā-mūṯ, is used and implies the person is to be killed for violation of the crime. Later in the book Preston brings in his Hebrew “expert,” Dr. Dallas Burdette (BA, MS, M.Div. from Amridge University, D. Min from Erskine Theological Seminary) in discussing the double use of infinite absolute construct, argues the death of Adam was Spiritual, Adam and Eve had two natures, and were created mortal. All three ideas are fraught with major issues. When this issue was discussed with Dr. Rodney Cloud from Amridge University, a Hebrew scholar, he refutes the position that the death of Adam was spiritual in nature. Burdette states,
The general consensus of the “death” of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is normally believed to be “physical death.” In spite of this belief, the context does not allow for “physical death,” but rather, it addresses “spiritual death.” When God created Adam and Eve, they were created as “mortal beings” as well as “spiritual beings.” Location: 3,113
The problem is that Burdette never addresses the idea of the animal sacrifice in Genesis 3 or how it relates to Adam and the covering over of sin. Preston only rebuttal to this is,
“In reality it brings us back to the issue of the substitutionary death of Christ. Let me ask the reader to consider once again the question: If the substitutionary death of the animals prolonged the life of Adam and Eve by 900 years, why does the substitutionary death of Jesus not prolong the life of the Christian for even one day?
It did not prolong the life of Adam and Eve for 900 years, it prevented them from being killed on the spot for their sin. The consequence of turning dust was given after the sin was committed. It was not part of the threat of punishment. So, the animal died in their place. Substitutionary atonement.
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22
From Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. Rev 1:5
The implication is that physical death is what is being pronounced, not spiritual death. Spiritual death is the result of the sin, as two friends are divided when one offends the other and no forgiveness is given or offered. The relationship cannot be restored until the guilty one seeks to be forgiven for the offense. Once the sin has been committed it can never be undone, the stain remains until one is washed in the blood of Christ. Unlike man who can simply walk away and cannot demand restitution for the offense from another person, in God’s Justice, restitution or payment for sin must be paid since he is the lawgiver. He alone has the right to judge and sentence, hence God says, “vengeance is mine, I will repay,” and tells us not to “repay evil with evil.” It is not our law that people violate it is God’s law that says do not steal, therefore it is God who exacts justice.
Secondly it demands immediate fulfillment of the punishment upon the completion of the violation of the law or according to the terms that necessitated the sentence to be carried out. When Uzzah touched the ark to steady it, God struck him down dead instantly as a punishment. He did not wait two years or nine hundred later to do it. God had mercy on Adam in his sovereignty.
So properly, death is when the body and soul separate by any means, which negates the ideas of “spiritual death” as being the Biblical definition of Thanatos. It remains primarily in the area of the physical. The death of a relationship becomes the separation of two parties, God, and man, in a spiritual sense. There is no verse that describes in detail “spiritual death” or by using those words explains spiritual death. The best way to explain what is “spiritual death,” is the spirit of man being under condemnation for sin and is therefore subject to the death and judgment, he is a “dead man walking.” It is a state of being, outside of right standing with God because a sin has occurred that has broken fellowship with God or another person. Until forgiveness occurs, the relationship remains broken. The Spirit or soul remains tainted by the deed and in a fallen state.
The only remedy for a broken relationship due to sin, is for the death of the accused. “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin,” but once you have been killed for your sin, you face the second death and there is no way to be reconciled back to God when your physically dead. If you cannot be reconciled to God after your dead, how is it possible to be reconciled to him at all or ever? Because of Gods desire to reconcile men to himself he “over looks their sin” until they come to repentance. Because once a person is dead, he faces judgment before the throne. The answer is you cannot be reconciled after death. That is why he sent his son to shed his blood for us. So that we might live and be reconciled to God while we are still alive so that we will not have to face the second death. The sacrificial system was designed so that man was not “instantly” punished for his crime, a death occurs that allows for forgiveness. Now if every person were killed in the day, they sinned then no one could make it into heaven, but the Bible says, “he overlooked our sin” (Acts 17:30) so that he might send a deliverer. The whole reason the sacrificial system was created by God was so that man could understand what Christ was to do.
We are declared guilty in his court of law and condemned to death, but it is his son who dies in our place so that we might live.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify ourconscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:13-14).
Now Preston, he turns the argument that if God said they would die in that day they ate, then if they did not physically die that day, then the death they were threatened with was not physical death. He tries to argue if it were physical death being threatened (as a punishment) and they did not die that day that makes God a liar and the devil is correct in saying they would not die that day.
I have absolutely been floored by the denial Preston makes by not understanding the sacrificial system yet mentioning it as part of his argument.
This perfect lifestyle allowed Jesus to not only be the perfect example for us, but it also fulfilled the type/ antitype prophecies of the Old Law concerning the lamb without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19). The undisputable fact of Jesus’s sinless life is what makes His willingness to die a substitutionary death all the more precious. There is no small number of verses that teach that Jesus died in our place.[17]
In the construction of the temple God directions are clear, Christ covers over our sin, and he made for the tent a covering of tanned rams’ skins and goatskins (Exo 36:19).
Then they shall spread over them a cloth of scarlet and cover the same with a covering of goatskin (Num 4:8).
Gen 3:21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them (covered their nakedness).
The animal died in their place and their sacrifice covered over their sin. Hence the animal died in their place, which is the forerunner of the sacrificial system. For Preston to admit this covering over of sin took place in the garden, is to concede the death of Adam was physical death. That would then mean the last enemy would be physical death, and not spiritual. It would also demand that the Resurrection of the dead is redemption from physical death. This then upsets the apple cart because it proves that the context of Resurrection in I Corinthians 15 is of physical death. It was William Bell who said in the introduction,
Getting the former correct is critical to getting the latter correct. The time and nature of Adam’s death is the critical one-million-dollar question that must be answered. Directly linked to the nature of Adam’s death, is the time and nature of the resurrection.
Preston argues all enemies were put under his feet in A.D. 70, yet physical death did not end, it still exists, therefore the death Christ died for was not for Physical death, but spiritual since spiritual death has come to an end but not physical death. This argument remains inconsistent to the text when the issue of the sacrifice made in which an animal’s blood was shed is ignored and is given no Creedence or importance to the narrative.
In essence, Preston’s foundational mistake all the way through the book, the one error that makes his whole theology corrupt, is to claim the death of Adam is only spiritual. The physical death was only to represent the fact he also died spiritually, as the proof he died spiritually.
Preston assumes futurists believe the natural death of a person is the death God threatened him with for eating of the tree. Since they had to die that day then the death cannot be a natural death to occur some 900 years later for Adam. Preston argues that since Adam did not die on that very day proves then it was a spiritual death and not physical. The truth is that the curse of Adam is physical death, this is not what Jesus came to save us from. He came to save us from the punishment of our sin, instant death upon breaking his laws. Preston fails to understand the death they were to die that day was instant “death” to be killed in punishment, but God had in his mercy provided the animal and then provided the sacrifice of his son to once and for all remove our sin from us. (Abraham sacrificing Isaac).
This then demands that God died a physical death for Adam and all mankind, then the resurrection of the dead is also to be a physical resurrection. The Corporate Body View is defeated when the death of Adam is physical death, as a punishment for sin.
Preston’s Challenge
In his book Preston repeats this challenge to anyone who can answer, over and over again:
If the substitutionary death of those animals prevented and forestalled the physical death of Adam for 930 years, why doesn’t the substitutionary death of Jesus, the greatest expression of God’s mercy—not prevent or prolong the death of a Christian by even one single day?”[18]
Because the substitutionary death of Jesus was not about saving man from Physical death at the end of his life. It was about saving man from the punishment for sin, it prevented man from being struck down dead in punishment “on that day” he sinned and then becoming subject to the second death in the lake of fire with no possibility of redemption. Jesus died taking our punishment upon himself which means he was killed in our place; it should have been us on the cross. Physical death at the end of life is not the punishment for sin but the curse placed upon man as a consequence of his sin, it is the curse of Adam, not the punishment of Adam. Christ took on the punishment of Adam.
Preston repeats this same problem throughout his book thinking the punishment and physical death at the end of life is the same kind of death. Logically dying at the end of life is not being struck down for sin in punishment. Christ is the example of facing a death of punishment for sin, not his own but ours. Preston goes on to repeat this argument time and time again but in different words.
Now in Daniel Roger’s book he teaches the same thing.
It can be argued that there are two major types of death outlined in scripture: physical and spiritual. Both of these deaths are important to us for both effect every person who has ever lived.[19]
Tragically this point is partially incorrect. The Bible speaks of the sin that separates man from God, the guilt of sin which destroys the relationship is a “spiritual death” of the relationship in which sin prevents a holy God joining with man on a spiritual level. This was overcome by the blood of the Lamb and now his spirit dwells within the “born again – new creation” believer. This is a major factor to understand, and the implication have many ramifications towards FP theology. The least of which is the idea that a person is not born again in the “first resurrection” but is made a new creation in order to experience the first resurrection after they have died.
The second type of death is mortality. In the curse God declared man would return to dust from which he came. (Gen. 3:19) You do not declare the sun will rise today for the first time IF the sun is already rising and setting every day. You do not declare man will now turn to dust IF man was already going to turn to dust one day. Physical death then is a part and parcel of the curse placed upon creation by God for Adam’s sin. All men suffer physical death because of the sin nature passed on to them for Adam sin.
Physical death is the way of escape from these mortal bodies. It allows for redemption to occur for all men. Simply, if man did not die, he would remain immortal in that fallen state in which sin and death exists within the human nature and exhibited through the human body, which is called the flesh, carnal nature, lowly boy, and even “flesh and blood,” from which there would be no escape if one is immortal.
The third death is the second death, being cast into the Lake of Fire after the GWT judgment.
The fourth death, in one sense Rogers totally ignores, is the death due to punishment.[20] The Hebrew expression found in Genesis 2 is “you shall surely die.” This is death by punishment. It is not about a pronouncement of someone turning to dust, or that one day they will die, this is a declaration of a sentence, a consequence for violating Gods law.
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
In every verse mō-wṯ tā-mūṯ, is used and implies the person is to be killed for violation of the crime.
The implication is that physical death is what is being pronounced, not spiritual death. Spiritual death is the result of the sin, as two friends are divided when one offends the other and no forgiveness is given or offered. The relationship cannot be restored until one seeks to be forgiven for the offense. Unlike man who can simply walk away and cannot demand restitution for the offense from another person, in God’s Justice restitution or payment for sin must be paid since he is the lawgiver. He alone has the right to judge and sentence, hence God says, “vengeance is mine, I will repay,” and tells us not to “repay evil with evil.” It is not our law that people violate it is God’s law that says do not steal, therefore it is God who exacts justice.
Secondly it demands immediate fulfillment upon the completion of the violation of the law or according to the terms that necessitated the sentence to come.
This demonstrates there are basically four “deaths” that Bible talks about not two.
As Daniel then notes that what physical death is, based on James 2:26,
Physical death is defined in James 2:26: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” As you can see, physical death is the state that man is in whenever the spirit is separate from the body.[21]
So properly, death is when the body and soul separate by any means, which negates the ideas of “spiritual death” as being the Biblical definition of death. It remains primarily in the area of the physical. The death of a relationship becomes the separation of two parties, God and man, in a spiritual sense. There is no verse that describes in detail “spiritual death” or by using those words explains spiritual death. The best way to explain what is “spiritual death,” is the spirit of man being under condemnation for sin and is therefore subject to the second death, he is a “dead man walking.” It is a state of being, outside of right standing with God because a sin has occurred that has broken fellowship with God or another person. Until forgiveness occurs, the relationship remains broken.
The only remedy for a broken relationship due to sin, is for the death of the accused. “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin,” but once you have been killed for your sin, you face the second death and there is no way to be reconciled back to God when your physically dead. If you can’t be reconciled to God after your dead how is it possible to be reconciled to him at all or ever? Because once a person is dead, he faces judgment before the throne. So the answer is, you can’t be reconciled after death. That’s why he sent his son to shed his blood for us. So that we might live and be reconciled to God so that we will not have to face the second death. The sacrificial system was designed so that man was not “instantly” punished for his crime, a death occurs that allows for forgiveness. Now if every person was killed the second, they sinned then no one could make it into heaven, but the Bible says, “he overlooked our sin” (Acts 17:30) so that he might send a deliverer. The whole reason the sacrificial system was created by God was so that man could understand what Christ was to do.
We are declared guilty in his court of law and condemned to death, but it is his son who dies in our place so that we might live.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify ourconscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb 9:13-14)
Now Daniel asks the question; was death created by God?
“Death” is not created. It is the “uncreation” of what God had joined together. Death is not a natural process that happens to a person, Adam after being created to be “alive” was meant to live. God put man together, body and spirit as the intent and purpose for man in the way he was created. He was not created a “spirit” alone nor a “body” alone but both united. If God’s intent in creation was the joining of spirit and body, then the separation is not his intended purpose or its envisioned final destiny, it becomes an enemy to his purposes. Resurrection of the dead is reuniting of the body and Spirit, the restoration of his purpose.
In his next argument we demonstrate his inability of understanding the theology, which leads to false beliefs. Rogers is claiming that because a seed dies, because in reproduction sperms dies, therefore it is “death” and so death existed in the Garden. Yet Rogers already defined what is death based on James 2:26. The separation of body and spirit.
When he asserts that death existed in the garden, he is equating the order of things before the fall as the same way after the fall.
Notice that physical death was created by God as a natural process.
“And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:12). In order for a seed to produce fruit, what needs to happen to the seed? “Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36).[22]
In the previous point he stated death was the separation of the body from the spirit yet contends that based on the word “die” of a seed it equates to “death”. The Greek word used for a seed to “die” is apothnḗskō, which stresses the ending of what is “former” – to bring what (naturally) follows. (notice also that a seed cannot die spiritually?) Secondly, in contradiction to his beliefs, life of the body is in the blood. The shedding of blood ends the life. A seed is not experiencing “death”, but the transition from the former to the new, there is continuation of the seed’s life. If the blood is shed, then the life ceases to exist in the body. Seeds have no blood to shed, nor is there a spirit that leaves the body.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Lev. 17:11
For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore, I have said to the people of Israel, you shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
Theologically life is found in the creature which has blood. Plants are not considered “life” as if you cut a tree down and it dies you have not taken its life, it has no blood, you’re not condemned for the murder of a tree. Hair is made up of dead cells. Fingernails are created from dead cells. Or can we argue because we eat a piece of fruit, the moment we picked it, it “died?”
Death is a transition; the seed goes from one form to another. The Bible makes the distinction of what is “alive” and protected as sacred from what is the natural order of things and he defines death, the taking of a life, the shedding of blood as the just punishment for sin. Seeds or trees are not considered “life” that is protected by a law. Only those things with blood can have their life taken from them, and only innocent humans are prohibited from being killed.
Because he has wrongly defined what real physical death is, he concludes that since these are the natural processes of life, then death was created in the Garden, and it was good. Again, confusing that the life of a creature is vastly different from the life of a seed.
Rogers states,
Was physical death part of creation? Yes, and it was good. [23]
Unfortunately, because he did not correctly define “life,” Biblically but instead used human reasoning, he makes a theological mess. Meaning he is stating that death exited in the Garden, Adam was created mortal, and it was all good, the Last Enemy of I Corinthians 15, by implication is “good.”
Rogers then argues that because Adam and Eve had to eat to stay alive, demands they were mortal and subject to death. Even if this was true, the declaration of God was not that “you will die 900 hundred years later”, as defining what “surely you shall die” means. Let me point out that in the new heavens and earth we also see the tree of life and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.” Do we assume then that because a tree is seen in heaven in the Heavenly Jerusalem that demands that the people need to eat in order to stay alive? Decidedly not. Death and Hades are no more.
Can it be that just as the heavens declare his handiwork, the smells of flowers are there for man’s pleasure, the animals are there for the pleasure of man, the sights and sounds are all created for the pleasure of man that somehow food cannot be a pleasure to enjoy? (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste). Trust me, they were not eating the fatted calf in the garden. Also as much as I like a Ribeye steak, I don’t think we will be eating beef in the new heavens and earth..
Roger’s viewpoint fails to take into consideration that in the restoration we are not returning to the state of Adam post-fall but of Pre-fall. What was lost in the Garden is being restored to its perfection, hence the tree of Life in the New Jerusalem, a restoration of all things and all things become new.
How is it new if the condition after the fall is the same condition of man before the fall? Man could not die before the fall but now after the fall, can die, his body and spirit separate and the body turns back into dust. Then to say the restoration of all things is a return to death is simply dead wrong. (pun intended)
Rogers then reaches his conclusion about physical death
Physical death is obviously not the enemy of God because He created it, and everything He created is good. Read the following passages where New Testament authors commented on death.[24]
He then quotes a Revelation 14:3 to prove that death was “good” and blessed just like Neubauer.
13And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
They are not blessed to die, dying by beheading is not a blessed way to go out, they are blessed because the woes of the tribulation are over for them. This kind of illogical thinking always leads to trouble for interpretation. It also demonstrates that the subtle nuances of language are not necessarily easily seen but experience and study are needed to inform the reader of what is being said. It is this basic charge against Daniel Rogers that demonstrates why he is not to be trusted as a teacher or to be recognized as a “bible teacher,” if what you preach cannot be trusted to be true and so easily demonstrated to be in error, we must throw out the baby with the bath water. It’s not to be trusted just like a broken clock, its only right twice a day. Either throw it away or get a new battery for it.
Now, like Preston, he turns the argument that if God said they would die in that day they ate, then if they did not physically die that day, then the death they were threatened with was not physical death. They try to argue if it was physical death being threatened (as a punishment) and they didn’t die that day that makes God a liar and the devil is correct in saying they would not die that day.
We see then that spiritual death is the only death that could adequately punish Adam, and, at the same time, meet the time requirements of God’s law[25]. The physical death theory causes God to lie and the Devil to be correct.[26]
The correct argument is that God did not lie, and neither did satan fully lie.
I have absolutely been floored by the denial Preston and Rogers makes by not understanding the sacrificial system yet mentioning it as part of his argument.
This perfect lifestyle allowed Jesus to not only be the perfect example for us, but it also fulfilled the type/ antitype prophecies of the Old Law concerning the lamb without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19). The undisputable fact of Jesus’s sinless life is what makes His willingness to die a substitutionary death all the more precious. There is no small amount of verses that teach that Jesus died in our place.[27]
Christ covers over our sin, And, he made for the tent a covering of tanned rams’ skins and goatskins. (Exo 36:19)
Then they shall spread over them a cloth of scarlet and cover the same with a covering of goatskin, (Num 4:8)
Gen 3:21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them (covered their nakedness).
In Conclusion the animal died in their place and their sacrifice covered over their sin. Hence the animal died in their place, which is the forerunner of the sacrificial system. For Preston or Rogers to admit this covering over of sin took place in the garden, is to concede the death of Adam was physical death. That would then mean the last enemy would be physical death, so if the FP asserts all enemies were put under his feet in A.D. 70, physical death would have ended, yet it still exists, therefore the death Christ died for was not Physical death, but spiritual. We have proven that false.
Man is born with a “weakened” nature which is called the carnal nature, and so we have shown conclusively that Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct in need of regeneration. Therefore because of the weakened nature of man, who will sin, becomes sold under sin by his fallen nature.
[1] Vawter, Bruce (1983). “Original Sin”. In Richardson, Alan; Bowden, John (eds.). The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology. Westminster John Knox.
[2] Letter 98, St Augustine
[3] Duncan, Ligon (5 May 2020). “Is There An Age of Accountability?”. Reformed Theological Seminary. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
[4] Pagels, Elaine (1989). The Gnostic Gospels. Knopf Doubleday.
[5] Roman 1:32, “ 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.”
Rom 4:15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
Rom 5: 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
15-21 Death reigned… Gen 5:5 and he died, and he died, and he died,
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6:9-11 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 21 For the end of those things is death. … For the wages of sin is death,
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Rom 8: For the law of the Spirit of life has set youb free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6For to set the mind on the flesh is death.
[6] Carson D.A. New Bible Commentary 21st Century Edition Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, USA 2013 I Cor 15 entry.
[7] Ibid
[8] 5056 télos (a neuter noun) – properly, consummation (the end-goal, purpose), such as closure with all its results.
Thayer, Joseph H., Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Hendrickson Publishers Peabody, MA, 2000
[9] arché: beginning, origin Original Word: ἀρχή, ῆς, ἡ Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine Transliteration: arché Phonetic Spelling: (ar-khay’) Definition: (a) rule (kingly or magisterial), (b) plur: in a quasi-personal sense, almost: rulers, magistrates, (c) beginning.
746 arxḗ – properly, from the beginning (temporalsense), i.e. “the initial (starting) point”; (figuratively) what comes first and therefore is chief (foremost), i.e. has the priority because ahead of the rest (“preeminent”).
[10] katargeó: to render inoperative, abolish Original Word: καταργέω
Part of Speech: Verb Transliteration: katargeó Phonetic Spelling: (kat-arg-eh’-o) Short Definition: I bring to naught, sever, abolish Definition: (a) I make idle (inactive), make of no effect, annul, abolish, bring to naught, (b) I discharge, sever, separate from.
2673 katargéō (from 2596 /katá, “down to a point,” intensifying 691 /argéō, “inactive, idle”) – properly, idledown, rendering something inert (“completelyinoperative”); i.e. being of no effect (totally without force, completely brought down); done away with, cause to cease and therefore abolish; make invalid, abrogate (bring to nought); “to make idle or inactive”
[11]. Futurists claim there three deaths discussed in scriptures, Preston argues, “Romans and 1 Corinthians nullify this claim by the use of the invariably singular “the death” when discussing the Death of Adam. In his discussion of Adamic Death and resurrection, Paul knows nothing of “deaths” or “the deaths.” He never uses a plural form of “deaths.” LOC 1233
[12] Location: 1,213 – Paul said that all men die because they sin. That demands that if “the death” he is discussing is physical death, that the death of infants, even newborns, (perhaps miscarriages??) must be seen as proof that the infant was a sinner. This is truly an illogical and un–Biblical position. I well understand that it is actually a tenet of Calvinism, but, with apologies to my Reformed friends, I find no merit to the idea. The very idea that a new–born baby, at his mother’s breast, is a sinner worthy of death is surely to be rejected.
Location: 1,218 – The indisputable fact is that Paul said that “the death” is experienced as a direct result of, a direct consequence of, the wages of―SIN. Thus, you cannot identify “the death,” the Adamic Death of Romans 5, (or 1 Corinthians 15) as physical death without demanding that all infants are full of sin, full of rebellion against God, and worthy of death. Jesus’ “allow the little child to come unto me, for such are the kingdom of heaven” is sufficient refutation of that idea.
Location: 3,724 – Keep in mind that as a Calvinist, Frost has no problem affirming that infants inherit the sin, the guilt, and the penalty of Adam. This in spite of the fact that those doctrines are not found anywhere in the Bible. The Bible is truly clear that, “death passed on all men, because all men sinned” (Romans 5:12). Notice that the text says not one thing about inheriting Adam’s sin. There is no inherited sin here. It says not one word about all men inheriting the guilt of Adam’s sin. There is no inherited guilt here. What the text undeniably affirms is personal, individual responsibility for death “all men die, because all men sinned
[13]. Arguments made by FP that man and animals had to eat proves man was mortal, assumes man had to eat to stay alive and not eat to enjoy God’s creation through, touch, taste, sight, and smell. Animals were given “herbs” to eat as well as man not each other.
[14] If Adam was created “spiritually alive.” then the presence of spiritual death or physical death could not be present in the Garden since physical death is a result of sin.
[15]. Without physical death, physical immortal man would be destined to live on the earth forever in a “flesh and blood” body. He would be eternally bound to earth. This creates insurmountable problems for the IBD people since they erroneously understand “flesh and blood” in 1 Cor. 15:50 to speak of human biology. Adam and his “immortal posterity” would therefore be unable to enter the kingdom in such condition.
[16]. Death by disease or sickness is a result of the curse but is not imposed on every person as “the” punishment, that they are to get sick and die, yet examples in scriptures exist where God made people sick unto death as a punishment for their sin.
[17]. Preston, Don D.Div. We shall Meet Him in the Air, JaDon Management, Ardmore, OK. 2010. p 334
[18]. Preston, Death of Adam kindle Location: 1,735.
[19] Daniel Rogers, The Last Enemy, 120
[20] Death by disease or sickness is a result of the curse but is not imposed on every person as “the” punishment, that they are to get sick and die, yet examples in scriptures exist where God made people sick unto death as a punishment for their sin.
[21] Rogers, Last Enemy, 80
[22] Rogers, Last Enemy, 125
[23] Rogers, Last Enemy Kindle loc 122
[24] Rogers, Last Enemy, 177
[25] God’s law always demanded physical death for sin, never “spiritual death”.
[26] Rogers, Last Enemy, 314
[27] Ibid 334
Leave a Reply