Question
What is your understanding about functional life and functional death, positional life and positional death along with 3 other life and death situations?
Response
The fact that there are different kinds of “life” and “death” spoken about by God in His word certainly should not be surprising to us, for we commonly speak of different kinds of “life” and “death” in our everyday lives. For example, we speak of having a ‘dead battery’ in our car; of being ‘dead tired’; of being ‘dead right’; of someone who is ‘dead’; of a ‘live wire’; of a ‘living idea’; of the ‘life of the party’; of someone who is ‘alive’; etc,, etc. And this is not something that only we do in English today, but it is common in all languages and with men at all times. In view of what the words “life” and “death” mean, there can naturally be a number of different kinds of “life” and “death” with the words being appropriately applied to a number of different things.
In the Bible God uses “life” and “death” to refer to at least five different kinds of “life” and “death,” with the following being a brief description and synopsis of them.
- The first is probably the most obvious of all, which is the issue of ‘physical life’ and ‘physical death.’ Or in other words “life” and “death” as it pertains to men either residing in their physical bodies, (which is ‘physical life’), or no longer residing in their physical bodies, (which is ‘physical death’). Of course ‘physical life’ and ‘physical death’ also applies to animals as well, and to other creatures; but naturally I am speaking of these different kinds of “life” and “death” especially as they pertain to man.
- The second is “life” and “death” as it pertains to men’s judicial relationship to God. Or in other words the issue of men either being ‘spiritually alive’ with God, being justified unto eternal life in His sight; or being ‘spiritually dead’ with God, being guilty sinners in His sight and under the condemnation of His Justice.
- The third is “life” and “death” as it pertains to men’s eternal state in connection with whether they become justified in God’s sight or not. For those who receive the gift of God’s grace and thereby become justified in God’s sight, they become justified unto “eternal life” and have “everlasting life.” For those who reject God’s grace and do not become justified in God’s sight, the condemnation of God’s Justice remains upon them, and when it is executed upon them they will receive damnation unto ‘everlasting death,’ which is what “the second death” is.
- The fourth kind is what I call ‘positional life’ and ‘positional death.’ It is “life” and “death” as it pertains to a man’s identification with either Adam or Christ, and the ramifications of that identification, in view of the “figure” role that God gave both to Adam and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Very simply put ‘in Adam’ men by nature are ‘positionally dead unto God’ and ‘positionally alive unto sin,’ which therefore means that they have no capacity to do anything but bring forth fruit unto death by the works that they do. But when a man is justified and sanctified through and “in Christ,” by God’s grace he is no longer identified with Adam but is identified with the Lord Jesus Christ, and as such he is made ‘positionally alive unto God’ and ‘positionally dead to sin,’ with the capacity to now ‘live unto God’ and so bring forth fruit that is acceptable to God.
- And this leads to the fifth kind of “life” and “death” which is what I call ‘functional life’ and ‘functional death.’ It is “life” and “death” as it pertains to something’s ability to properly function, either as it has been designed to function, or as it desires to function, or as it attempts to function, etc. Regarding who God has made us to be “in Christ” having justified and sanctified us, God has designed for us functionally live unto Him and to no longer function in this world as one who lives unto sin and follows the course of this world. And by walking aer the Spirit and not a er the flesh we are able to functionally put our ‘position in Christ’ into practice in our daily lives and so ‘functionally live unto God.’ In other words we ‘functionally live’ in accordance with the truth of our ‘positional life unto God’ being justified and sanctified by God.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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