We Shall Be Glorified by the Holy Ghost

Grace Bible Church

In Romans, Paul dealt with life and death, both spiritual and physical, and we learn that spiritual life and physical life are not always tied together. Spiritual death and physical death only APPEAR not to be tied together.In the Garden of Eden, God gave a commandment: if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day, you shall die.When Adam ate of the forbidden tree, instantly he was dead spiritually, even though that death was a silent thing. He lay spiritually dead in rebellion against God, and he was unable to hear and obey God's commandments, without the Holy Ghost first working a miracle in his mind and heart, a miracle of spiritual regeneration, spiritual new birth, in short, a spiritual raising from the dead.But Adam's physical death was also a stealthy thing, consisting of the onset of physical corruption due to sin. Little by little, corruption brought decay, disease, dissolution, detrimental aging, until finally Adam's physical corruption reached its pinnacle in death and the grave.This physical death proceeded apace, even in those souls where the Holy Ghost had since the fall worked faith to trust in God's promise of salvation for sinners!This meant that every person was dying physically, whether or not they remained spiritually dead, or were spiritually alive again through God's gracious work in them.In Romans, Paul makes it clear that the judgment for sin is death, and he doesn't distinguish between physical and spiritual death in the first five chapters.That's because the punishment for sin is all of one piece: death, both spiritual and physical, because the wages of sin is death.