Romans Verse twenty-one
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. (Romans 6:21)
What was produced by our slavery to sin? Every form of corruption, humiliation, pain, sickness, destruction of all that we value, the loss of the respect of our family and loved ones, and spiritual death.
Sin is a hard master and pays off in misery and spiritual death.
In several instances in the Book of Romans Paul tells us that obedience to the body of sin results in death. Precisely what is spiritual death?
Spiritual death is the absence of the eternal Life of God.
There are two kinds of life. One kind is physical life. The other kind is eternal life.
Physical life is produced as the body burns oxygen, providing the energy and heat the body needs to operate. The body thus is able to grow, think, move, change its environment, speak, reproduce, and perform all other acts we associate with living. Physical life is corruptible and temporary.
Eternal life comes from Christ and is Christ. Eternal life also provides energy to perform the functions of living. Eternal life is different from physical life in that it is without sin and is in union with God. Also, eternal life is neither corruptible nor temporary.
The term resurrection refers to the animation of the body of a human being by spiritual force. All of the dead at one time or another shall stand before God in a spiritually-animated body.
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (John 5:28,29)
There is a resurrection that is not to life but to judgment. In this case, the body is animated by spiritual life but not the eternal Life of God. Satan and his angels are animated by unclean spiritual life rather than flesh and blood life. The spiritual life that animates the wicked is not the Holy Spirit of God.
The bodies of the righteous dead will be animated with the eternal Life of Christ. Eternal life had been available to mankind in the garden of Eden. Access to eternal life was lost because of the rebellion of our ancestors. The goal of the redemption that is in Christ is to attain to the first resurrection, the resurrection that animates the body with the incorruptible resurrection Life of Christ.
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection (Greek, out-resurrection) of the dead. (Philippians 3:11)
Let us keep in mind that eternal life is not a legal state in which we live forever. All spirits live forever in one form or another. Eternal life cannot be imputed (ascribed) to us, it is an actual Presence, virtue, substance, energy, wisdom that are given to us.
When we first receive Christ we are given a portion of His Life. God's intention after this initial gift is that we become the slave of righteousness, thus entering ever-increasing eternal life. Our Christian discipleship is a continual warfare as death and life struggle for supremacy over our personality.
The objective is to keep pressing into eternal life until we attain the resurrection to eternal, incorruptible Divine life. The Lord Jesus came that we might have abundant eternal life.
Each day a portion of evil confronts us in the form of lust, unforgiveness, rage, doubt, fear, discouragement, drunkenness, sorcery, or some other aspect of spiritual darkness and death.
Each day we choose either to call upon the Lord to help us put down the evil and live in His eternal Life, in His body and blood, or else to yield to the invitation to dwell in the darkness of sin.
If we choose to live in Christ's eternal Life, a portion of our adamic personality dies and is replaced with eternal life.
If we choose to yield to the invitation to continue in sin and rebellion against the righteous ways of the Lord, no change occurs in our sin nature and the eternal life we received in the beginning is weakened.
It is entirely possible to lose the eternal life given when we received Christ. It is entirely possible to slay our own resurrection unto life.
They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. (Luke 8:13,14)
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. (John 15:2)
"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away."
Well-intentioned teachers make plays on words and draw analogies to "prove" that once we have eternal life we cannot lose it. The Scripture clearly states otherwise.
Eternal life is not a legal state or an intangible that we cannot perceive. The mature Christian will know of people who began in the way of righteousness and then drew back into the pleasures of the world. The difference in their personality is noticeable. The glow of the Lord has departed. The "oil" has gone from their lamp. Eternal life has slipped away. That which would have raised them at the appearing of Jesus has departed. By choosing sin they have died spiritually.
Today's teaching that we cannot lose our eternal life by sinning is a deadly error, a destructive teaching. As we have said, the blind are leading the blind and they both are in the ditch of spiritual death.
The Word states "the end of those things is death."
Are we to claim that these words are addressed to the unsaved? Is it not indisputably clear that the Apostle Paul is warning believers that if they choose to be servants of sin they will die spiritually?
For if ye live in the appetites of the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)
"If ye (believers) live in the appetites of the flesh, ye shall die (spiritually)."
"Ye shall die"!
Let us recognize that the teaching of today, including the footnotes in the Christian editions of the Scriptures, are promoting deadly error. It is time for a reformation of Christian thinking. The overemphasis on grace and mercy is no trivial theological error. It comes directly from Satan and creates moral havoc in people.
Dispensationalism is a destructive model of interpretation. The lawless-grace-rapture-Heaven model of salvation is erroneous. We have been deceived. Salvation is not from earth to Heaven but from death to life, and these two objectives are not the same.