Death Does Not Mean Separation In The Bible – Part 1

Death does not mean the separation of two things. It does not mean this in the Bible or anywhere else. The claim that it does mean separation in the Bible is a cliche in Christian theological circles, but one built on neither the biblical text nor, for that matter, the normal and literal meaning of words.

That is not to say that there is never a relationship between separation and death. Even on Earth, regarding physical death, if someone on life support was separated from the machinery that kept their body alive while they healed, they would die. But even then, the death is not just another name for the separation that occurs. Both entities are equally separated, but only one of them dies because in situations like that, separation causes death. It is not the death itself.

The Bible has examples like that, as well as other instances of death that are assumed to be about separation that just aren’t.

Here at Rethinking Hell, many articles and other resources have been produced that address what death is in the Bible, as well as those that address certain passages which are claimed to show that the Bible defines death as separation. Therefore, much of the relevant information and analysis here is not new.

The purpose of this article will be to gather them all together into one spot to address this one fundamental claim about what death means in the Bible, giving references for further study where appropriate. The topics at hand are as follows:

• Why this matters.
• Physical death and the difference between cause and definition.
• A glaring inconsistency that exists within this model of death meaning separation, as typically applied to discussions of hell.
• When death is used metaphorically in scripture, it is not in a way that helps the traditional view.
• Common prooftexts for the doctrine of death meaning separation are built upon assumption.
• Prolepsis: A common figure of speech that fits many prooftexts well.
• The three passages that could even be argued to actually demonstrate that death means separation do not teach that beyond a surface-level reading.

Why This Matters

In normal, everyday conversation, we all understand that death, as literally understood, is not consistent with the traditional view of hell.

Pinpointing an exact definition of death can be tricky because, by definition, death is just the end or opposite of life. That raises the question of what life is defined as, and that is tricky. Nevertheless, practically by mere instinct, we know that a conscious, sentient, and feeling entity is necessarily alive. ¹ Insofar as gray areas exist, they exist on the opposite side of the discussion, such as instances of temporary unconsciousness like a coma, or whether creatures without self-awareness or even any lower level of sentience (like plants) should really be considered alive. Those are irrelevant to this discussion, because to have any conscious experience forever, in heaven or hell, is to be alive forever.

In other words, we may not be able to give a perfect definition of life (and therefore death), but we know it when we see it.

This is why you hear pastors saying things like “everybody lives forever somewhere.” This is why traditionalists – i.e. those who believe in eternal conscious hell – will often speak clearly in various situations and say that everyone in hell lives forever, no one dies, everyone has an immortal soul, etc. Eternal conscious hell requires this to be true. Some biblical arguments for eternal conscious hell, such as those using Luke 20:36 to prove the immortality of wicked angels in hell, even rely on the damned creature never dying. ² As to why Luke 20:36 does not teach the immortality and eternal torment of demons, see Chris Date, “Conditional Immortality and Angels, Part 2—The Immortality of Angels and Men (Luke 20:36)“. Also, for an affirmative argument for the (literal) death of wicked angels, see Cody Cook, “Conditional Immortality and Angels, Part 1—The Mortality of Angels and Men (Psalm 82)“.

Of course, this poses a dilemma because the Bible also frequently says that the wicked suffer death, and that eternal life is the lot for the saved alone (e.g. Romans 6:23).

Because of this glaring problem, it must be the case that the Bible consistently uses the language of life and death in a metaphorical manner when describing heaven and hell. The idea that death is a metaphor for separation between two things is the dominant form of this.

For an expansive (but still not nearly exhaustive) look at traditionalists saying the wicked live forever, never die, etc., from across history and Christian traditions, see The Rethinking Hell Podcast: “Episode 58: Persuasive or Evasive? Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Shifts in Traditionalist Dialectics, with Ronnie Demler.” ³ The notes to Ronnie Demler’s presentation that this podcast records are found on the podcast page and are a good resource if you don’t have an hour to spend listening to the whole episode: https://rethinkinghell.com/audio/meta/notes/demler_handout.pdf.

For a deep dive look at death in the Bible, see “Introduction to Evangelical Conditionalism: Death and Life in the Bible”: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Physical Death and the Difference Between Cause And Definition

Separation sometimes causes death. That is not the same as separation defining death.

The death of the body is a great example of this. The death of the body is also often pointed to as evidence that death does not negate consciousness, based on the belief (which will be granted for our purposes here) that the soul remains conscious after death and in the intermediate state. This is a good place for us to start.

When the question arises as to how a person can be dead but still conscious (as a soul/spirit in the intermediate state), it is usually claimed that death is the separation of body and soul/spirit. James 2:26 sometimes gets cited to demonstrate this. However, James 2:26 actually goes against this idea:

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. ⁴ Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995,2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

As is usually the case with arguments made in favor or eternal conscious hell, the argument that this passage shows that death means separation may look reasonable at first glance. Or at least it does when you already assume that death means separation.

However, the implication of this verse is not that the separation itself is the death. Rather, the implication is that the separation causes the death. This may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it makes all the difference in the world.  If the separation itself was the death, then both spirit and body would be considered dead. After all, both are equally separated. However, the text only speaks of the body being dead.

It goes back to the life support example above. If a person is cut off from life support, they die as a result, but the life support machines are not considered dead.

Matthew 10:28 helps underscore this point further:

And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Aside from this passage’s usefulness to annihilationism in general, this passage specifies that at the first death, i.e. the death that men can cause, only the body dies. Whatever the soul is, it does not die like the body at physical death. ⁵ Technically it only says the soul doesn’t die when a person is murdered, but no one argues that death from disease or accident does kill the soul in ways that being murdered cannot. ⁶ It is possible for questions of spirit vs. soul to arise. However, in this case, it is a non-issue. I know of exactly 0 interpreters who believe that at physical death, the spirit and body die but the soul does not.

The soul/spirit survives the first death. But if death were separation, then that would mean that soul and spirit would be dead too. Instead, we see that separation is an event that then causes another distinct event, the death of *one of* the parties of the separation.

What then is death like? Just look at a corpse. You cannot look to a conscious soul/spirit in the intermediate state to say that death includes consciousness because those conscious entities are not dead in the first place. But a corpse is dead, and you cannot torment a corpse.

What about the second death (e.g. Revelation 2:11)? Some argue that the second death is man being separated from God. While this actually causes a big problem in many traditionalist models of hell (see below), I would note that even if it is what second death means, is God dead? Because if death means separation, then God is dead because he is separated from the wicked.

On the contrary, God lives for ever and ever. Insofar as the wicked are cut off from God, those who are cut off from him die (in every sense) as a result. And what is that death like? Just look back to Matthew 10:28. What man does to the body alone, God does to body and soul (cf. James 5:20). And how much torment can a dead body suffer?

For more on this, see: “Whatever Death Means, It Supports Conditionalism“.

The Glaring Problem of The Not-So Second Death

For me, I would say that the biggest weakness of defining death as separation is that it is an unnatural, ad-hoc reading of the text that is fundamentally based on assumptions, with at most a few passages that – if you already have this view in mind – seem to corroborate it on the surface.

You and I both know that in the normal, literal sense of it, eternal conscious hell means that everybody lives forever somewhere.

That said, there is another major problem with this view, laid out in one of Rethinking Hell’s very first articles: “Traditionalism and the (Not So) Second Death” by Chris Date.

When it is asserted that the Bible defines death as meaning the separation of two things, part of this almost always includes the claim that unsaved human beings are already “dead” in that they are already separated from God. Passages like Ephesians 2:1 and Colossians 2:13 are presented to demonstrate this (more on these below).

It is also asserted that the second death of Revelation (e.g. Revelation 2:14) refers to man being separated from God. ⁷ e.g. “Death Is A Separation of Two Things,” The Interactive Bible. December 11, 2009.,www.bible.ca/d-death=separation.htm (accessed January 26, 2026). This is in contrast to physical death, which many would refer to as the first death, being separation of body and soul. ⁸ Ibid.

So far this sounds perfectly coherent. Two kinds of death. Two kinds of separation.

But as Chris Date points out, if the second death refers to the wicked being separated from God, then it is not a second death. The wicked were already “dead” in the same sense of the word because they were already separated from God before they even suffered the first death (i.e. death of the body). Damnation would not be a second death.

This is not a problem for annihilationists. Whatever one makes of the soul, the first death is death of the body alone. The bodies of both saved and damned are then resurrected, so they are no longer dead. For the wicked, the second death on judgment day is both the literal second death of the body, as well as being a second death by being different from the first death in that now, both body and soul are killed/destroyed (cf. Matthew 10:28).

But this is a problem if you want to say that the unsaved are already dead (consciously separated from God), never come back to “life” (because they remain perpetually separated from God), and then are supposed to suffer the second death (by becoming…dead in the same way they already were).

Not All Death Metaphors Are Created Equal

Yes, death can be used metaphorically. And sometimes it is.

But the thing about metaphors and figures is that they usually have some connection to the thing that they symbolize. And when they don’t, there is usually some explanation given as to what they mean.

To say that death is a metaphor for separation – and make no mistake, this is a metaphorical interpretation – is to apply a metaphor with little connection to the underlying reality.

When people say “it’s raining cats and dogs,” the figure exists because cats and dogs are way larger than normal raindrops. When someone speaks of punching a person’s lights out, it is because, if you knock someone out, they are unconscious. The first thing they see when they regain consciousness is darkness until they open their eyes.

What connection does death, the rendering of a conscious physical body to a corpse, have with ongoing conscious life (albeit in misery)?

When We Do See Death Figuratively In Scripture

There are times when scripture uses death language in ways that pretty much everyone agrees are metaphorical. But in these instances, it usually isn’t about the wicked at all.

For example:

• Dying to sin (Romans 6:2).
• Dying to the law (Romans 7:4).
• Putting to death the deeds of the flesh (Romans 8:13).

Some metaphors are like that of Romans 8:13, where there is no special code language. You can’t literally kill a deed, but you metaphorically kill it by not doing it and therefore ending its continued existence – not merely by separating from it.

Regarding dying to sin and the law, if death is defined as separation, then that would mean when a believer dies to sin, then sin is also dead. The Law is also dead. That obviously isn’t the case.

Exactly how death is being used metaphorically here is not explained by scripture. But a likely explanation is that we are meant to think of how people are slaves to sin before coming to Christ (Romans 6:18), and are also slaves to the law (Romans 7:25). A dead slave is obviously no use to his former master.

Whatever the case, these metaphors are not used to describe the wicked, nor could they be applied to them.

Separation of Husband and Wife By Death

It is also sometimes argued that passages like 1 Corinthians 7:39 show that death means separation because a husband and wife are separated and their marriage is ended when one of them dies. ⁹ Ibid.

This one falls into the same problem as other examples above, where only one party in the relationship is dead despite both being separated. If death meant separation, then both would be dead.

This one is even worse, however. Here it isn’t even separation causing death being mistaken for death meaning separation. It is an example of literal, physical death causing separation. Death isn’t even metaphorical in this case!

Death As Separation Is Often Assumed And Read Into Texts

The claim that death means separation in the Bible is mostly just assumption. I do not say this just because of how few passages even could possibly appear to teach this (they will be addressed in Part 2). I say this because, quite often, the case is made for this interpretation based on passages that give no indication of this meaning whatsoever.

Probably the most common such passage is Ephesians 2:1, with Colossians 2:13 using largely the same terminology:

And you were dead in your offenses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).

And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings…(Colossians 2:13).

Now, let’s imagine for a moment that we were unaware of the idea that death means conscious separation from God when applied to hell or these passages. What in these passages would fill us in that this is what Paul meant? If we went to any free Bible website and looked at surrounding verses, what within the texts themselves would connect death with separation from God?

Nothing. There is literally nothing in the text that does that.

There is no mention of separation anywhere at all. The only supposed mention of separation from God is the fact that these passages speak of death. To then use these passages to tell us that death means separation from God is therefore circular reasoning.

The argument basically goes that these passages speak of people having been dead when they were not literally dead. Therefore, it is symbolic of spiritual death, i.e. conscious separation from God.

But when you start laying it out that way, it should be apparent why this argument is problematic. Even if we grant that the passage is not meant totally literally – and I do fully agree – the rest of the conclusion is smuggled in. It is basically a case of showing that a problem exists, and asserting that since a problem exists, your preferred solution must be the answer. It is the exegetical equivalent of pointing out that crime rates have gone up, so therefore we must ban white cars. The solution is arbitrary and does not follow from the problem itself.

Showing that it is not reasonable to take a passage literally is only half the battle. You have to show why your metaphorical interpretation is the correct one.

I will note that there is another (at least somewhat) common alternative, which is the view that being “dead” refers to the Reformed doctrine of total depravity. Ephesians and Colossians are saying that before regeneration, people are dead in the sense that they cannot repent or respond to God’s calling. They are metaphorically like corpses when it comes to being able to turn to God. God bringing them to life is his regenerating them and making them capable of faith.

I do not adopt this view either, mainly because it is just as ad-hoc and based on assumption as the separation from God view. You have to come up with this idea as part of your systematic theology and then read that meaning back into the word “dead.”

However, this view is not a problem for annihilationists if true. This is because the metaphor is one that cannot be applied to the wicked in hell. Separation from God could theoretically be part of the punishment of hell. But nobody  believes that God punishes the wicked on judgment day by making them more spiritually dead in the sense of being depraved and hardened against him. This would then be an example of death used metaphorically, but not in a way that is relevant to the discussion.

For more on this, see: “A Common Reformed Interpretation of Ephesians 2:1 Negates A Common Argument Against Annihilationism“.

Now then, let us examine what I do believe is the best interpretation, one which allows death and life language to retain its normal, literal meaning when referring to heaven and hell.

Prolepsis: A Common Figure of Speech that Fits Many Prooftexts

Everyone is familiar with prolepsis, at least in concept.

This common figure of speech is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished.” ¹⁰ “Prolepsis,” Merriam-Webster, n.d., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prolepsis (accessed January 28, 2026). A common example in modern parlance, especially relevant to the death issue, is the trope of someone being led to their execution, and other inmates shouting out “dead man walking.” The person is not literally dead yet. However, they are doomed to die, and very soon.

This happened in the Bible as well, when God told Abimelech that he was a “dead man” in Genesis 20:3. Abimelech was alive, but was doomed to die soon. Of course, Abimelech heeded God’s warning and was spared from death, which makes this all the more relevant to Ephesians 2:1. The Ephesians were doomed to die – albeit at judgment day, in their case – but their fate was reversed when they changed course and repented. It is a strong parallel to the story of Abimelech.

Of course, there are various other examples that are not about hell or death. Theologians allude to prolepsis at times on various topics. Kenneth Gentry refers to passages that speak of wine being held within unpicked grapes in passages like Judges 9:13 and Isaiah 65:8. ¹¹ Kenneth Gentry, God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says about Alcohol (Oakdown, 2011), 42-43. Stanley D. Toussaint cites Luke 17:21 and its reference to the kingdom of God as being at hand. ¹² Stanley D. Toussaint, “Israel and the Church of a Traditional Dispensationalist,” Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism: A Comparison of Traditional and Progressive Views, ed. Herbert W. Bateman IV. (Kregel, 1999), 236. The presence of prolepsis is itself relatively non-controversial.

Circling back to Ephesians 2:1, we see a pretty clear example of prolepsis just a few verses later:

…and [God] raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (v. 6).

Just as the Ephesians whom Paul wrote to had not previously been in the literal grave when they were “dead” in v. 1, they likewise were still on Earth when Paul wrote to them v. 6. Paul was describing our future state, but using present tense language for emphasis. Prolepsis.

With this in mind, prooftexts like Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13, as well as Genesis 2:17 (see below), and others which speak of death in present tense now have an alternative that does not require using a novel, metaphorical meaning of death and life.

The same applies to passages speaking of life. The Bible explicitly places eternal life as a future gift (Luke 18:30, cf. Daniel 132:2, Matthew 25:46). What then do we make of passages that seem to contradict this and say that the righteous already have eternal life (e.g. John 5:24)? A simple solution is that the latter are proleptic. This solves the problem and relies simply on a figure of speech that is common today and in the Bible.

Of course, this also eliminates the reason to take life and death language, when applied to the afterlife, as meaning anything other than literal death and life. Or at least it eliminates any reason other than needing to defend the traditional view of eternal conscious hell.

For a deep dive into prolepsis in scripture and its relationship to hell, see “Prolepsis and Hell: A Matter of Life and Death”: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Concluding Thoughts On Part 1

At this point, it should be evident that this model of what death means has a lot of weaknesses. There are specific problems like the not-so second death dilemma. Where we do see a direct connection between death and separation, being the separation of body and spirit, it does the opposite of what it is supposed to do. It establishes that corpses are dead while conscious souls/spirits are not dead in the first place. And ultimately, the whole thing is so ad-hoc. There really is no affirmative reason to think that death just means separation in a way that defends the traditional view. It’s just the view that many of us think we’re supposed to believe.

In Part 2, we will wrap up by examining three passages that present tenuous connections between death and conscious separation. None of them are convincing, and none of them actually establish death language ever being used as symbolic of conscious separation from God or anything not tied to literal death. They really don’t strengthen the traditionalist case at all. However, they do warrant a further look, and we will do that next.

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