“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ (8:51-52)
The confusion here is somewhat understandable. There are two meanings of death or die in the Bible. Both are referenced in these verses.
Appearing first in the Bible is spiritual death, the death of the soul. We see this referenced in Genesis 2:17, “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.” (Genesis 2:17, emphasis added)
We can conclude that this refers to spiritual death because Adam didn’t fall over dead at the moment or on the day he ate. Genesis 5:5 says he lived a long 930 years. Of course, we don’t know how long Adam and Eve lived outside of the garden, but we can surmise it was a lengthy period since they bore children there. The main point is that Adam’s soul died immediately.
The second type of death in the Bible is physical death. We already mentioned that in relation to Adam. But we can see the phrase “see death” used by both man and God in reference to physical death in Luke 2: “And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” (Luke 2:26)
In the John passage, Jesus is using “see death” in the spiritual sense. The Pharisees, like Simeon, are thinking of physical death.
In the case of Adam, and in the case of us, spiritual death leads to physical death. Unfortunately, most people in the world don’t make this connection and focus solely on physical death because, as they say, “The only two things guaranteed in life are taxes and death.”
Paul explained to Timothy how spiritual death can be reversed in 2 Timothy 1:10, “and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). “Through the gospel” explains why we should be adamant in sharing the gospel. While the gospel doesn’t reverse the curse of physical death, it can bring eternal spiritual life.
Two important things we can see in these verses are 1) the importance of understanding how a person is using a word/phrase, and 2) our need to recognize that the gospel is our gateway to eternal life.
Father, help me to have a greater burden to help people see their need for the gospel. Amen.
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