Who Are the Dead in Christ?
By John R. Gavazzoni

Who are the dead in Christ? Contrary to what the average Bible student presumes concerning what, for instance, St. Paul meant by, "the dead in Christ," the answer to the question is the dead in Christ includes all the dead. All the dead are dead in Christ. The dead in Christ are not limited to believers who have passed on from this life. All those who Paul described as "dead in trespasses and sins" and passed on dead in trespasses and sins, died, and continue to die in Christ.

To start off on the right foot, we need to understand that death is a condition involving an integral process. Where the KJV has God saying in Genesis, "for in the day you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die," the Hebrew text reads, "for in the day you eat thereof, dying, thou shalt die." Adam and Eve began to die as a consequence of their disobedience, and by Adam (specifically) "death passed upon all men." The process of that passed-on death continues, and will continue until "death is swallowed up in victory." Even when the physical body no longer has any consciousness, its vital organs have ceased their mutually benefitting communion, and it no longer is capable of livingly interacting with its environment, no longer capable of receiving from earth and sky their nourishment, the body still continues to die.

Decay or corruption, which is the body's death-process, continues even after the physical communion, which is physical life, has ceased. (Spiritually and physically, communion is life, and life is communion). Referencing Paul, "for as the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness." The body, dead, is dying that death. Being dead doesn't mean that you've quit dying, for as long as there is death, there will be dying, until death has been fully died. Death was fully died in our Lord's death. He took all of death, and died it. Does it seems strange for me to say, he died it?

Well strange as that may sound, one of Paul's references to the death of Christ reads this way in the NASB: "for the death He died, He died to sin once, but the life He lives, He lives unto God." That, in my opinion is the best translation, for there is no doubt about how to translate the second part of the verse, "but the life He lives...." Paul is describing opposites, and the opposite of "the life He lives," logically, is "the death He died."

As He died death, He now lives life. He fully died all death for all mankind, but continues to live life for all mankind. Certainly, death is not lived, nor is life died. Life is lived; death is died. We live life; we die death. is it not common for people to say, "he lived a good life," but also, of another, "he died a horrible death." In each case: "died....death," and "lived.....life." Death is a parasite that steals its power to continue dying from life. There has to be a remnant of life in a body in order for death to keep dying.

Having established that, let's proceed: scripture is clear, accurately translated, that all things were created in Christ, and in Him, all things consist, i.e., cohere/are held together. Adam and Eve were created in Christ, and they proceeded to die in Christ. That which has been created in Christ cannot get out of Christ, FOR there is NOTHING outside of Christ. Christ's death is the death of all mankind, the summation of all mankind's death. Pardon my repetition: He died our death. But life with, in, and to God unfolds out of "the life He lives" He lives gloriously.

If we can understand this, we get a new handle on,".....the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them...". And, "the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." [May I suggest that the skeptical reader consider our Lord's seemingly enigmatic statement, "for the first shall be last, and the last shall be first."] Paul informed us that "we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed...."

It is my understanding that while Paul was referring to death as sleep, not all death is of the sleep kind. Death, as sleep, refers to the state of death protracted, awaiting awakening to life. But, in the case of "we who remain," the translation from death to life is virtually concurrent "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." Those Paul wrote of as, "we who are alive and remain," will not avoid death, the translation will be so sudden in their case that they will "not see death" as they pass through it to life.

That will upset our eschatology, i.e., that what Paul was describing is your unsaved neighbor, who as presently dead in trespasses and sins=even now in the sleep of death on this side of life along with those asleep on the other side, receiving his glorified body a mini-second before you, who are alive and remain joins him. From the Greek text of 1 Thes. 4:15, we learn that we, who remain unto the presence of the Lord, shall not advance before those who are asleep. Those who are asleep (in a state of protracted death awaiting being awakened) are not just believers who have passed on. To be asleep, whatever one's spiritual condition may have been before passing on, that one is asleep in Christ.

Of course, there is a difference between the believer having died with/in Christ, vs those who have not yet experienced the new life of His resurrection, for "being conformed to His death, " is only found in the experience of "know(ing) Him in the power of His resurrection." The benefits of His death are found within the experience of His life. The death of my old man is experienced within my knowing the power of His resurrection.

The already-accomplished death of Jesus, inclusive of all humanity....we all died with/in Him... continues as a working dynamic, i.e., putting to death our old man presently, experientially, by His life at work in us. There is a putting-to-death element within the working of His life. All the elements of our Lord's human experience from incarnation to glorification, including His death, are part what His life is to and for us.

In Christ, the whole of the old creation has died. In Him, the whole of the old creation, transformed in union with His death and resurrection, has been made gloriously new. Now within creation, He is making all things new. He, in us, is making that objective reality to be our present existential experience. But, be sure, our unsaved/unregenerated brethren in the world are dead in Him, until their "due time" to presently and existentially experience life out of death by His resurrection. They, with us, were crucified with/in Christ. The totality of all human experience is in Him. As I've written elsewhere, Christ is the containment field of all things, and nothing, as Rusty Haynes has written "is beyond the scope of Jesus."

While Jesus' death was the death of all mankind, likewise, all mankind's death is the death Jesus died. It cannot be otherwise, for if He died our death, our death is His death. God sent His Son into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh, that is, He bore the death from our sin to its end point. Death could no longer be passed on past Him/past His death, for in Him death was swallowed up in the victory of His resurrection.

There is only one death of such magnitude, of such accomplishment. All other death is found to be complicit in the death passed upon all men. His, and His, alone, is the death of "the wondrous cross," and the "mighty cross," extolled in Christian hymnody. Death's strength is no match against that "wondrous cross," that "mighty cross." Our Lord has destroyed him who has the power of death. He has vanquished death utterly. Because of His death, "there shall be no more death..........for the former things are passed away."