The term “dead man walking” is a term introduced into the American prison system in the early 1900s to mean a man condemned to death and slated for execution for a capital crime, a crime which statutorily requires the death penalty. Under various state laws there are only a few crimes that are seen as deserving this penalty. They include premeditated murder, murder during commission of another crime, or mass murder. Federal law includes these offenses as well as treason and espionage, kidnapping, large scale drug trafficking or attempted murder of a witness, juror or court officer in certain cases. Death in this context refers to the cessation of physical functioning, permanently cut off from life in this present material world.
I would suggest that from God’s perspective we all exist in this world as dead men walking, as we all have been judged by God to be guilty of sin, of opposition to and rejection of God’s glorious purpose for and rule over our lives (Romans 3:23), the penalty for which is death (Romans 6:23) (Ezekiel 18:4).
Death as revealed in the Bible is threefold. There is spiritual death, which is to be cut off from the glorious life with God for which we were created, subject to His wrath, which is the present condition of all mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3) (Romans 1:18-32). There is physical death as described above, which everyone has an appointment with (Genesis 3:19) (Hebrews 9:27). (Note: God makes that appointment, we don’t (Job 14:5).
Physical death will be followed by what is referred to in Revelation 21:8 as the “second death”, which is essentially confinement to Hell of all who continue in their rebellion and opposition to God’s purpose and rule over their lives throughout their time in this world. There they will forever be the objects of God’s hatred and wrath (Matthew 10:28) (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).
In Romans 1:28-32, we find a much more expansive list of actions and heart attitudes that are worthy of this death. This list is certainly not all inclusive but represents the types of actions/behaviors that proceed from the heart of a person who is living in sin, in defiance of or opposition to the righteous laws and commandments which God has given to uphold His glory and ensure human flourishing and happiness in Him (Mark 7:20-23).
As I noted in my previous post, sin and death entered into God’s good and glorious creation through one man, Adam (Romans 5:12). Adam, created as the federal head of the human race, and his wife Eve were made in the glorious image of God to display the beauty, the excellence, the awesomeness of the glory of God in the totality of their being (Genesis 1:26-27) (Isaiah 43:7).
Being made in the image and likeness of God, they were created immortal with God’s righteous nature and character. As such, they and the race of beings that would proceed from them (us), would come to know their greatest joy, their greatest pleasures, their greatest satisfaction and significance in knowing, loving and being loved by God and one another, freely enjoying and ruling over all that God had created for that purpose, not as divine equals, but as beloved children, fully submitted to God’s sovereign and fatherly rule (Genesis 1:28) (1 Chronicles 16:31).
Their willingness to submit would be tested. God, having given them all of His good creation to freely enjoy, prohibits them from eating of the fruit of one and only one tree in the garden paradise in which they lived as objects of God’s goodness, grace and love. He warns them that to do so would result in death, with them and their descendants being cut off from this glorious life with God for which they were created (Genesis 2:15-17).
The agent who God allows to test them is none other than the one who had already failed his test, the fallen angel we come to know in the Bible as the serpent, Satan or the devil (Revelation 12:7-9).
The devil, acting out of his fallen, rebellious nature will use deception and lies to seduce in them a mindset of dissatisfaction with God and envy of God’s inherent freedom as God to do whatever He pleases, whenever He pleases, however He pleases, accountable to no one, determining in Himself what is good and what is evil (Psalm 135:5-6). The serpent promises them that they will have that same prerogative upon eating the forbidden fruit. The serpent then audaciously contradicts God’s promise of death for disobedience, assuring them that they will not surely die, implying that it is an idle threat made by God to keep them under His control (Genesis 3:1-4).
And in the freedom of their will, Adam, who was given charge by God to keep or protect the Garden from evil (Genesis 2:15), and Eve his helpmate, foolishly and tragically believed the serpent’s lies and acted upon them (just as we do), committing what is essentially cosmic treason, joining the devil in his opposition to God’s purpose for and rule over their lives. In doing so, the tyrannical rule of sin and death and its horrific precursors of conflict and violence, suffering and sorrow, enter God’s good creation.
Adam and Eve immediately experience fear and shame and separation from God. The corrupting power of sin takes hold of both their bodies and souls, with them now needing clothing to cover the fading glory of their bodies as they proceed to blame others, even God, for their sin (Genesis 3:7-13). The righteous, holy nature and character of God with which they were created will degenerate into the unrighteous, prideful, self-centered, rebellious nature of the one whose word they believed over God’s, namely the devil. This nature will be passed on to the race of beings that will proceed from them, such that the devil essentially becomes the spiritual father of the whole, now fallen, human race as well as its ruler (John 8:44) (John 14:30). He will be allowed by God to rule through his lies and deceptions over the hearts and minds of those who have joined his rebellion against God, those who will ultimately join him in his final never resting place, Hell (2 Corinthians 4:4) (Ephesians 2:1-2) (1 John 5:19) (Matthew 25:41) (Revelation 14:9-11).
In Genesis 3:24, we have God banishing sin corrupted Adam and Eve from His glorious presence, where they and their descendants would have known only fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). Now, not only will man live under Satan’s cruel dominion, but on an earth cursed by God (Genesis 3:17-18), wherein all of nature that was created to bless mankind will now, in judgement on man’s sin, be used by God to oppose man’s prideful purposes, wherein it even becomes an instrument of death, such that physical death can result from everything from violent hurricanes to the rays of the sun, from great white sharks to tiny viruses (Amos 3:6).
Thus, sin and death and the fear of death will dominate life in what the Bible now refers to as this present evil world or age (Galatians 1:4). And man’s best efforts to overcome sin through religion, and death through science have been nothing, if not totally futile. (In our desperation we have now resorted to transplanting a pig’s heart into a man).
However, God, who is rich in mercy, who delights in demonstrating his loving kindness and tender mercies in the midst of His judgement, (Ephesians 2:4-5) (Lamentations 3:19-24) will provide a means, the only means by which sin can be overcome and the judgement for sin, death, nullified. And that is through the fulfillment of His promise in Genesis 3:15, of the seed of the women, who is revealed in the New Testament as God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 1:30-35), who will as a man destroy the works of the devil and reconcile men and women back to God (1 John 3:8) (1 Peter 3:18).
But he will only do so for those who will believe in and entrust their lives to Him. He warns in John 8:23-24 that those who do not will die in their sins. More in my next post.
Grace and Peace x? Only in Christ.
Really enjoyed the word today.
THANK YOU JESUS !