The Invention of Spiritual Death as Separation from God

The idea that Scripture speaks of a “spiritual death” that refers to “separation from God” has become a virtual axiom in popular Christian theology. Whether one consults a catechism, a children’s Bible, or a systematic theology, the refrain is consistent: death is not the cessation of life, but the rupture of relationship. This notion undergirds countless sermons, doctrinal formulations, and evangelistic tracts. It is typically supported by select texts—chief among them Genesis 2:17—and is often entangled with the anthropological assumption that man consists of an immortal soul housed within a mortal body.

Yet this model is not without its problems. Upon closer examination, the traditional definition of death as “separation” rather than “cessation” is nowhere found in the biblical text itself, but in centuries of post-biblical interpretation, much of it shaped by Hellenistic categories rather than Hebrew ones.

The Scriptures do not describe Adam as “spiritually dead” in the Garden, nor do they portray a severed relationship in the immediate aftermath of the Fall. Quite the opposite: God seeks Adam out, speaks with him, clothes him, and makes provision for his future. There is no rupture of fellowship in the way the traditional doctrine requires—no suggestion of ontological separation or incapacitation. What we do find is judicial consequence: the couple is barred from the Tree of Life, and Adam is told, “to dust you shall return.” The sentence is not relational estrangement, but eventual death.

This article offers a critique of the traditional view of spiritual death. We will argue that in Scripture, death is not metaphorical, spiritualised, or relational in nature. It is judicial and literal: the consequence of sin is not metaphysical separation, but mortality culminating in destruction.

Important related questions—such as separation from God or human constitution—will be addressed elsewhere.

Our concern in what follows is more focused: to recover a biblical doctrine of death that honours the gravity of sin, the sufficiency of Christ’s death, and the simplicity of the gospel promise—whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

The Origins of the Doctrine

In much of modern Christian theology, the term spiritual death has come to occupy a central explanatory role in doctrines of sin, salvation, and human nature. Definitions vary, but two dominant streams may be identified.

The first is Calvinistic, which treats spiritual death as a kind of ontological deadness or incapacity. On this view, fallen man is not only estranged from God but is utterly incapable of responding to divine truth without prevenient grace, that is, an additional work of grace that enables the person to accept divine truth. Here, death is understood in the strongest possible sense—not merely separation but total inability to act, will, or even desire what is good. R.C. Sproul writes, for instance, that “[man’s] problem is not that he is merely spiritually sick; he is spiritually dead. He has no desire for Christ and cannot come to Christ unless he is born again first”¹, a statement that directly contradicts Scripture on the ordo salutis.

The second, broader view is commonly found in non-Calvinist evangelical traditions. Here, spiritual death is not so much inability as it is alienation—a severed relationship with the Creator. Wayne Grudem, representative of this approach, states: “Spiritual death involves separation from God and a loss of fellowship with him.”² While this softer version avoids the deterministic framework of Reformed theology, it still equates death with relational rupture, not the cessation of life.

Despite their differences, both views share a fundamental assumption: that the “death” spoken of in Genesis 2:17, and echoed in other passages, refers to a state of inner disconnection, rather than judicial execution. And both rely, to varying degrees, on post-biblical philosophical anthropology to support this reading.

The Absence of the Phrase “Spiritual Death” in Scripture

It is striking that nowhere in Scripture is the phrase spiritual death ever used. While the Bible speaks often of death, life, alienation, enmity, darkness, blindness, and ignorance, it does not equate these moral or relational conditions with “death” per se. Nor does it describe fallen humanity as spiritually dead in a literal, ontological sense.

Rather, Scripture tends to describe unbelievers as those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18), alienated (Eph 4:18), or without understanding (Rom 3:11), but also as those who can fear God (Acts 10:2), respond to conscience (Rom 2:14–15), and believe when presented with truth (John 20:31). The metaphor of “death in sin” (Eph 2:1) must therefore be handled with care, lest it be inflated into a metaphysical doctrine of total inability or immortal separation.

The widespread acceptance of “spiritual death” as a theological category has more to do with historical theology than biblical exegesis. It functions as a theological construct meant to preserve certain soteriological or anthropological systems—chiefly original sin, total depravity, and penal substitution—but it cannot be located in the text itself.

Hellenistic Influences on the Doctrine of the Soul and Death

Underlying both the Calvinist and broader evangelical definitions of spiritual death is a dualistic anthropology inherited not from Moses or the prophets, but from Plato. In classical Greek thought, man is essentially a soul imprisoned in a body. Death, therefore, is not the end of life, but the liberation of the soul from the flesh. Life and death, in this view, are not primarily biological realities but states of being determined by the soul’s proximity to the divine realm.

This framework found its way into early Christian theology through the influence of Greek philosophy on figures such as Origen, Augustine, and later Aquinas.

John Cooper, who defends a form of dualistic holism, nonetheless admits that “the biblical view of the person as an integrated psychosomatic unity stands in tension with the Platonic-Cartesian dualism that has shaped much of Christian thought.”³ Likewise, Joel Green and Stuart Palmer observe that “the notion of an immortal soul is a philosophical construct imposed on Scripture, not a teaching derived from it.”⁴

Once redefined death in terms of spiritual separation, it was natural for theologians to describe the state of fallen man as one of spiritual death: a still-living soul, yet disconnected from its proper source. But this definition, while perhaps useful within a certain system, is a departure from the plain sense of Scripture, in which death is consistently the loss of life, not a metaphor for relationship.

Indeed, as N.T. Wright notes:

“Most Western Christians have been brought up to believe that the aim of life is to go to heaven when you die, and that the soul is the real, immortal part of you which will live on after death. This, however, is not what the New Testament teaches. It is, rather, a form of Platonism with a Christian dressing.”⁵

The biblical hope is not that the soul survives death, but that the whole person will be raised to new life. Christ Himself is the “firstfruits” of that resurrection (1 Cor 15:20–23), having risen bodily from the grave. We are told that believers will receive glorified bodies like His (Phil 3:21; 1 John 3:2), that we will dwell bodily with God (Rev 21:3–4), and that the final state is not a disembodied heaven but the renewal of all creation—“new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13). Paul is emphatic: “we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor 5:2), and not to be “unclothed” forever.

To reduce death to a spiritual metaphor, and to imagine salvation as the return of a soul to an ethereal divine realm, is not only to distort the biblical doctrine of death—it is to empty the resurrection of its centrality and necessity. The New Testament is not concerned with how the soul gets to God, but with how God gives life to the dead, and how the body itself shall be raised in glory.

Genesis 2:17 Without Spiritual Death

If the doctrine of spiritual death rests primarily upon Genesis 2:17, then a careful examination of that verse is essential. The now traditional interpretation maintains that Adam and Eve, upon eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, died spiritually—that is, they became separated from God in a relational or ontological sense. Since they did not die physically on the day they ate, it is argued, they must have died in some other, non-physical way. But this interpretation arises more from system-preserving necessity than from exegesis. When approached on its own terms, Genesis 2:17 affirms neither the concept of spiritual death nor the idea of immediate relational rupture.

The Hebrew Idiom: “In the day you eat of it…”

Genesis 2:17 reads:

“In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” (בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמוּת)

Much has been made of the phrase “in the day” (בְּיוֹם, bᵉyôm), which, it is claimed, demands an immediate death. Since Adam and Eve do not physically die the same day they eat of the fruit, interpreters often feel compelled to look for a different kind of death—one that is invisible, internal, and spiritual. But this conclusion depends heavily on a wooden reading of the phrase “in the day”.

Symmachus, in his 2nd-century AD Greek translation of the Old Testament, rendered Genesis 2:17 as “you will become mortal” (θνητὸς ἔσῃ), implying that Adam and Eve lost an original state of immortality through disobedience. Many modern scholars—such as Budde, Speiser, and Cassuto—similarly interpret the verse to mean that humanity was rendered mortal on that day. They often translate the warning as “you shall be doomed to die,” understanding the event as the origin of human mortality. Some support this reading by arguing that the prepositional phrase בְּיוֹם (“in the day”) should not be read strictly as a 24-hour period, but more broadly as “when” or “upon the act,” thereby allowing for a physical death that occurs after a delay.⁶

The other line of interpretation—as mentioned already—accepts the literal timing for “in the day”, but treats the death itself as metaphorical or symbolic. Lee (2019) has a list and discussion of modern scholars advocating this position.⁷

We believe the expression is best understood idiomatically in biblical Hebrew. That is, the phrase bᵉyôm need not imply that the stated consequence occurs on the exact day when the stated condition is violated. The idiom functions broadly to signify certainty of a judicially grounded consequence, rather than strict immediacy.

The Nature of the Threat: Judicial, Not Ontological

The language of Genesis 2:17—“you shall surely die”—translates the Hebrew infinitive absolute construction môt tamût, a form used for emphasis and certainty. It does not indicate a special kind of death but reinforces the certainty and seriousness of the threatened penalty. The same construction appears in passages like:

• Exodus 21:12 – “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death” (môt yûmāt).
• 1 Samuel 14:44 – “You shall surely die, Jonathan.”

Lee analyses other biblical occurrences of the idiom “you shall surely die” and demonstrates that these often occur in royal or divine legal decrees. The language is formulaic and judicial, not metaphorical. Bauer (2011) agrees.

In each case, the death referred to is not metaphysical or spiritual but literal and physical. There is no reason Genesis 2:17 should not follow the same pattern: death, in its ordinary sense, would then be the stated penalty for disobedience.

Indeed, God’s own interpretation of the death sentence comes after the Fall:

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19)

This is not separation—it is mortality. The curse is not that Adam will be cut off from God relationally, but that he will die bodily. Moreover, in Genesis 3:22–24, God expels the couple from Eden not to sever a relationship but to prevent access to the Tree of Life—lest they live forever. 

No Evidence of Severed Fellowship

Perhaps the most overlooked feature of the Genesis narrative is the absence of any language of relational rupture. After Adam and Eve sin, they do not hide from God because He is absent, but because they are ashamed (Gen 3:8–10). In fact, what has become the traditional view actually tends to obscure God’s love and compassion in this passage. Far from withdrawing in wrath, God seeks them out, speaks to them, clothes them, and even promises the defeat of the serpent through the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15).

There is no indication that they were now spiritually dead or that their communion with God had been severed. The narrative depicts ongoing interaction, not divine abandonment. Even Cain, who sins more grievously, receives a personal warning from God (Gen 4:6–7), speaks directly with Him (4:9–13), and is marked for protection (4:15).

To read “spiritual death” into Genesis 2–4 is to impose a later theological concept upon a text that shows no awareness of it. What the text does show is that sin results in exile, mortality, and estrangement from the source of life—not metaphysical death or spiritual incapacity.

Interesting Insight

I have already touched on the two key idioms in Genesis 2:17—in the day and you shall surely die. We observed that a straightforward reading favours the view that the verse refers to ordinary, physical death, and that in the day need not denote immediate execution upon transgression, but rather the certainty of the outcome. In this connection, theology professor Stephen Bauer offers some valuable insights worth considering.⁸ While he largely affirms our reading of these idioms, he points out that every other Old Testament instance of the phrase you shall surely die functions as a judicial pronouncement that is typically carried out on the day of transgression. Though we would disagree with Bauer’s view that the introduction of mortality fails to satisfy the judicial force of the expression, his comparison between God’s decree in Genesis 2–3 and Solomon’s edict in 1 Kings 2:37, 42 is particularly illuminating. He writes:

The parallel of this story to Genesis 2 and 3 is striking for both God and Solomon issue kingly commands. Both promise a penalty, framed using the same phrases “in the day” you do X, “you will certainly die.” Both conduct investigations prior to executing sentence, and, in both cases, sentence is announced and executed. The only difference is that for Adam and Eve, the sentence of death appears to be executed in a sacrifice, the skin of which was made into their new clothes (Gen. 3:21).

Thus, whilst I uphold God’s own interpretation of the death sentence in Genesis 3:19, I think this insight goes to complement it, clarifying why the death sentence is not carried out immediately, but applied universally over time (death spread to all people, because all sinned, Ro 5:12). In a single act, God:

• provided the protoevangelion, i.e., a prototype of the Gospel;
• showcased how he would deal with mankind;
• still enforced the death penalty;
• still ensured mankind’s procreation according to his original plan (be fruitful and multiply, Gn 1:28)

Paul’s Use of Death

While Genesis 2:17 has often been the cornerstone of the doctrine of spiritual death, Paul’s epistles—particularly Ephesians and Colossians—are frequently marshalled to reinforce the idea.

Dead in Sin (Eph 2:1)

The phrase “you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1) is taken as evidence that unregenerate man is spiritually dead, i.e., relationally alienated from God or metaphysically inert.

The latter is the case of Calvinism, which frequently argues that the metaphor of death implies inability—just as a corpse cannot respond to stimulus, the spiritually dead cannot respond to the gospel. But this is a category mistake. The metaphor is meant to contrast human fallenness with divine grace, not to construct a system of metaphysical incapacitation.

Even within Ephesians 2, the metaphor does not exclude moral responsibility or human response. Paul speaks of those who “once walked,” who “followed” the prince of the power of the air, and who were “by nature children of wrath.” This is not passive existence—it is culpable rebellion.

These traditional approaches risk importing foreign metaphysical assumptions into what is, in fact, a deeply Jewish manner of speech.⁹

The expression “you were dead” functions not as an ontological diagnosis, but as a moral and eschatological evaluation. Its rhetorical force is captured well in a midrash on Ecclesiastes 9:5, which refers to “the wicked, who even in their lifetime are called dead.” Those enslaved to sin are already aligned with death—they belong to its dominion and are destined for its judgment. This understanding is reflected in Jesus’ words: “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Mt 8:22; Lk 9:60)—a striking idiom that characterises the spiritually blind and morally lost as already belonging to the realm of the dead, though they still walk and breathe.

The transgressions and sins mentioned in verse 1 are the evidence of that death. In verse 2, Paul attributes this former way of life to two principal influences: the spirit of the age and the spiritual powers that govern it. The first refers to the patterns of thought and behaviour generated by the present evil age—a world in rebellion against God. The second is Satan, whom Paul describes as “the ruler of the kingdom of the air”—a reference rooted in Jewish cosmology, where the air (the lower heavens) was often viewed as the dwelling place of hostile spiritual beings. This concept of satanic influence is not unique to Paul; it also appears in Jewish apocalyptic texts such as The Ascension of Isaiah.

Thus, Paul’s use of “dead” in Ephesians 2:1 is best understood as a Jewish metaphor of eschatological alignment—the walking dead, as it were, who already belong to the dominion of death and judgment. Outside of Christ, we are all under the capital punishment pronounced by God in Genesis 2:17.

Colossians 2:13 and Romans 6:23

In Colossians 2:13, Paul echoes the same idea: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses… God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.” Again, death is tied to guilt and condemnation—not to metaphysical incapacity. And just like in Ephesians, God juxtaposes his free gift of life to the death we have all earned for ourselves.

The same pattern emerges in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here death is explicitly described as the deserved end of a life lived apart from righteousness. It is the penalty for sin, not its internal structure.

In all these texts, Paul’s use of “death” is literal, legal, moral, and relational—but never metaphysical in the sense proposed by dualist anthropology. He does not redefine death to mean separation, nor does he develop a theory of total inability. His language remains consistent: death is the consequence of sin, a verdict of capital punishment that stands over the sinner and will be executed unless overturned by grace. Sin is also evidence of this impending verdict.

Unbelievers are like those awaiting execution—still alive in body, yet already consigned to death.

Christ Took the Penalty, Not the Distance

Once we recover the biblical meaning of death—the cessation of life rather than separation from God—a remarkable clarity emerges in how we read the rest of Scripture. Texts long obscured by theological frameworks built upon Platonic assumptions can now be understood at face value.

Take John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” In the traditionalist reading, “perish” is often understood to mean “be eternally separated from God,” which is then further interpreted as endless conscious torment in hell. But the text does not say that. It contrasts perishing with eternal life. Understood plainly, it means this: the one who does not believe will die (permanently—after judgement—at the second death, Rev 21:8); the one who believes will live forever. Life is not metaphorical, and neither is death. The gospel is about escaping death, not hell.

This is consistent with the whole biblical story. Death is the first and primary enemy introduced in Genesis: “in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). It is not separation, but mortality, that is imposed. And it is death that Christ came to defeat. Paul declares that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26), and Revelation confirms that death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14). From beginning to end, death—not separation—is the problem the gospel solves.

This also radically clarifies the atonement. Paul writes, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), and so Christ paid that wage in full: He died. He did not descend into hell to suffer torment. He died the death we deserved. That was the price, and He paid it. Then, having died without sin of His own, He rose again in triumph over the grave. In this reading, the substitutionary logic of the gospel is both simple and profound: He died so that we might live.

But in the traditionalist schema, the punishment for sin is not death but eternal torment. This leads to elaborate philosophical constructs. William Lane Craig, for instance, argues that Christ’s temporary death somehow carries the existential equivalent of eternal suffering.¹⁰ Such workarounds highlight the tension within that system: Jesus’ actual death must be supplemented with metaphysical theories in order to reconcile the punishment with the penalty. But if death really is the penalty, then Jesus’ work requires no philosophical gymnastics. He paid the price. It is finished.

Conclusion: A Clearer, Simpler Gospel

When we let Scripture speak on its own terms, we find that the gospel is not diminished but illuminated. The story becomes simpler, more coherent, and more faithful to the actual language of Scripture.

Death—not separation—is the true consequence of sin; and eternal life—not reunion—is the true gift of God. The biblical narrative is not about restoring a broken connection, but about rescuing from the sentence of death. It is not a story of souls returning to God, but of mortals receiving immortality through resurrection.

Christ took the death we deserved. He bore our penalty not in metaphor, but in blood. And in rising, He now offers life everlasting—not endless separation, not conscious torment, but the reversal of death itself. This is the gospel: simple, profound, and sufficient. Let death mean death—and the life Christ gives will shine all the brighter.

Bibliography

1. R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Tyndale, 1986), p. 72. ↩︎
2. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994), p. 507. ↩︎
3. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting (Eerdmans, 2000), p. 11. ↩︎
4. Joel B. Green and Stuart L. Palmer, In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem (IVP Academic, 2005), p. 42. ↩︎
5. N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne, 2008), p. 28. ↩︎
6. Chris W. Lee, Death, Sin, and Exile: A Narrative and Theological Investigation of the Prohibition in Genesis 2:16–17 (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2019), p. 16. ↩︎
7. Ibid. p. 57-58 (footnote 90) ↩︎
8. Stephen Bauer, “‘Dying You Shall Die’: The Meaning of Genesis 2:17,” Ministry: International Journal for Pastors 83, no. 12 (December 2011): 6–9. ↩︎
9. Max Turner, “Ephesians,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 1229. ↩︎
10. William Lane Craig, “Penal Theory of the Atonement,” Reasonable Faith, August 17, 2009, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P650/penal-theory-of-the-atonement.  ↩︎