The Second Death
Posted on 08 January 2010
Scripture speaks of three salvations, the salvation of the spirit, the soul, and the body. The spirit is your inner man which communicates directly with God. Most of us cannot relate to or hear our spirits very well. We’re usually too busy listening to our body’s pains and soul’s cravings. Your soul consists of your mind (thinking), your will (choosing), and your emotions (wanting). Your spirit and your soul now dwell in your body, your physical self.
The Christian life itself is the struggle to save your soul. This is the salvation that Paul teaches us to work out in fear and trembling. But, isn’t salvation free and by grace? Why do I have to work for it? Yes, it is true that salvation is free, but that “free” salvation speaks of our spiritual salvation. Jesus died for all men and just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive. His sacrifice will not and cannot fail. Your spirit has been saved. This salvation comes totally by grace and has nothing to do with what you do or don’t do. And, people need to become aware of their spiritual salvation so that is why God ordained preachers.
But preachers often muddle the truth. Some teach that you can sin, fall from grace, and lose your spiritual salvation. Others teach that you can never lose your salvation and that God’s Law no longer exists, or, if it does, that it is irrelevant to your ultimate salvation. Thus you can do whatever you want. And there exist a million different religious doctrines between these extremes.
The truth is that the Bible mainly concerns itself with the second salvation, the salvation of the soul, rather than spiritual salvation. Spiritual salvation can never be lost, but you can lose your soul. The salvation that we work out with fear and trembling is the salvation of our soul, our mind, will and emotions. We work out our soul’s salvation by bringing into conformance with the image of Christ. This is our struggle, and this is the purpose here in this world.
Now what are you going to do about it? Are you going to remain in the prison of unbelief, or are you going to walk out of your prison doors into the glorious liberty of the sons of God by learning what it means to walk in God’s ways? You are “saved.” Christ did die for you to reconcile you with God. How will you answer this universal fact? Peter says that our answer to God which arises from a clear conscience with respect to him, a clear conscience which results from Christ’s atoning sacrifice for our sins, consists of a “baptism” which now “saves us.” This salvation is not the salvation of our spirits which Christ unilaterally effected. This baptism is not the immersion in or sprinkling with water that we do when we first believe in Jesus. This is the baptism of fire, the washing of the water of the Word, which we submit to after we believe.
God created man in his own image, but he could not make us with all of his goodness for then we would have been but programmed machines. Therefore he placed us in an incubator called earth where we learn to discern between good and evil and to choose the good. All who refuse to learn or who deliberately choose evil shall go the outer darkness, the Lake of Fire, where they will learn to love the light. This is called the “second death” because it deals with our second salvation, the salvation of our souls.
Only those who love the light shall be allowed to enter New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. All others shall have their part in the Lake of Fire, which is the Second Death. And there they shall stay until they repent of their sins and learn to choose good.
The rest of the series is here: The Order of Melchizedek
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