Is The Second Death Not A Figurative Death?

Indeed, the concept of “death” is sometimes used in the Bible in a figurative sense. Thus the father in the well-known parable of the prodigal son says to the elder son, “this brother of yours was dead and has come to life” (Luke 15:32). Of course, the prodigal son was not literally dead, but to the father he was as dead. And Jesus says to a man who wants to follow Him under reservation: “let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22). People who do not know God are called “dead” here by Jesus. They are not conscious of God and actually have no life. Paul speaks in a similar connection of being “dead while living” (1 Timothy 5:6).

But is the fact that a word is used figuratively a reason for us always, in advance, to call the literal meaning into question? Were the animals in Noah’s ark perhaps not literal animals, because the Bible also sometimes speaks figuratively about animals? Was the water of the Red Sea or the Jordan, through which Israel passed, perhaps not literal water, because the Bible also often speaks of water in a figurative sense? Was the wilderness in which the Israelites wandered actually a literal wilderness, because the Bible also sometimes uses the concept “wilderness” figuratively? Everyone understands that such an approach would mean the end of normal communication. We are to take the Bible literally, unless the context itself indicates otherwise. As in the example above: the prodigal son had not been literally dead, and therefore the father means his statement figuratively. This belongs to the ABC of reading comprehension.

With the first question we already saw that “the second death” needs no explanation, but is precisely the explanation. “That is the second death,” we read twice. Nothing needs to be interpreted there, for it is the interpretation.

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