Recently on another thread, I asked this question:

Is death inherently or intrinsically evil?

Why or why not?

For your consideration: All verses with "evil and death" and "Lord and death"

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-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

Team blog: ChristianSkepticism.org | Personal:...a Longmire rambles | facebook

A couple verses from Revelation gives us a hint:

Rev 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.


Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Death is equated with hell, they ultimately will be consigned to the lake of fire.

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

So - when God puts someone to death:

Genesis 38:7
But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death.

Isaiah 65:15
You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse,and the Lord GOD will put you to death,but his servants he will call by another name.

What is happening here?

How about the nation of Israel and the destruction of the Amalekites? Is God directing them to do evil in His name?

The result is evil, but evil is the proper reward. God isn't evil for commanding the result.

No. The wages of their sin was death.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
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In the thread No Physical Death prior to the Fall? I'm asking a similar question, namely, is physical death in the animal kingdom a result of the fall or was it part of God's good order. I haven't decided on this one yet.

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The Piper will lead us to reason...

Rick Larson
Hope Christian and Missionary Alliance Church
Apple Valley, MN.

Yes it is an intrinsic evil. For mainly the same reasons Paul gave on the other thread.

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^Brian Lanier^
Member: Redeemer Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Santa Maria, CA
Attending: First Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Sunnyvale, CA
http://www.lanier-perspective.blogspot.com

"To live is Christ to die is gain"

I don't this the Apostle Paul considered death intrinsically "evil".

Death is certainly a consequence of evil, but I have always considered it more "neutral" than inherently evil. For the elect, it is simply a transition point...

To die is gain because he could be with Christ...not because death isn't inherently evil.

The death of men is evil, a curse upon us for certain but I also believe as I said in an earlier thread that death was part of the creation order and Adam had dominion over even it pre-fall.

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Travis Speegle
Redeemer Presbyterian, PCA (Waco, Tx)
Pacific Cross Roads, PCA (Los Angeles, CA)


"When it comes to trustworthy theologians one can usually honor the rule of thumb that the deader the better."-Dr. John Hannah, DTS (of all places)

Death is God's just punishment for sin. How can that be evil? Death certianly is tragic and foreign to the created order, but it is still just. But I'm open to more discussion on these points.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

God sends death and hades to hell doesnt he?

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

I'd add that I meant *human* death.

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Regards,

J.J.
PCA
Suffix

{Just speaking about human death. Image bearer death. Not trying to get into animal death, etc.}


An evil can be used for justice.

And, an evil thing doesn't have to be an *immoral* thing. There's a difference.

For example, if a man has a sucking chest wound, and the only way to restore his breathing is to puncture his lung and insert a bic pen into it, that's a necessary evil, but it's not immoral.

Death is an enemy even if it is vanquished. Not all human death is proximately cause by something that is evil but death itself is a curse. Even Christians don't celebrate death but the fact that we have union with Christ and victory beyond the grave.

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Rich
Okinawa, Japan

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The justice in the punishment is not evil but righteous and good-- it is a return of evil for evil. That's what the wages of sin are.

We know that "The sting of death is sin." (1 Cor. 15:56) and that Christ conquered death. (v.54-55). He didn't come to conquer something neutral or good.

Disobedience is sin. Adam's sin introduced death. Sin--> death. God hates sin and God hated death enough to sacrifice his son to conquer it. I can't see how it would be considered anything but inherently evil.

True. But death is clearly set out as a just punishment by God himself. He executes his justice in perfect conformity to his holy nature. Death is that punishment.

What do you mean that something can be evil and not immoral? In the case above, the action to save the man's life wasn't evil but good, though painful for him. Are you using a broader more popular definition of evil?

But death is the execution of His wrath, which is perfectly just and good. By conquering death, Christ was taking the just wrath of God upon himself. Thus, reversing the effects of sin which is evil, and so removing the cause of death from us and giving us eternal life.

Sure, he removed the cause of death, and then he tossed death into the lake of fire, along with other ill-favored things, like hell and Satan and the beast.

I don't want to make too much of this. It seems straightforward.

On the other track, regarding your question to Paul about definition of evil, I skimmed my lexicons for Hebrew and Greek and saw that the respective words are used both for moral evil and for just plain calamity, natural illness, and the like. So it is fair (and Biblical) to say a neutral injury is evil and yet not immoral. It's not my point, but a point of information.

But not all death is thrown away. The reprobate endure death for eternity.

Good point. I'm just trying to clarify in what sense death is evil.

Patrick,

Hell is a just punishment. Hell is evil. An evil place for evil people.

I don't think I am using a broad or popular definition of evil. There are such things as natural evils, for instance. They are not immoral, though they are evil. In the Bible calamities, storms, invading armies, etc., are called "evils," yet it is God who sends them. God sending a drought is called an evil, and indeed he is said to "create" evil. The drought qua drought isn't "immoral," but it is evil. There are "devoted things" that were "purged as evil" yet we wouldn't call blocks of wood "immoral." People may have been "immoral" in how they used them (as idols, for instance), but carved wood isn't "immoral." Indeed, the crippled man suffered from an evil (though it was not his sin or his parents sin that made him that way), but being crippled isn't "immoral." Pain in childbirth is an evil, it's not "immoral." Etc., etc., etc.,

It's not a good that a man got his chest punctured. Saving his life was good, but getting a hole in his chest wasn't. An evil was done for the greater good. But an evil was still done.

I'd begin by defining evil as rebellion against a personal God. When humans due this it is called "moral evil." When nature does this it is called, naturally, "natural evil." Having to put holes in peoples chest is a natural evil. It's not an intended action in God's world. Thus it is, in a sense, a rebellion of God's desired order (or modus operandi).

Hopefully I've helped more than confused....

Is Hell itself evil or rather a just glorious divine wrath?