While Jesus walked the earth, He seldom spoke about physical death. When Jesus spoke about death, He almost always meant spiritual separation from God. In John 11:4, Jesus taught that Lazarus' sickness was "not unto death" even though He knew that Lazarus would physically die. In John 11:14, Jesus seemed to contradict Himself by stating the plain fact that He knew Lazarus was physically dead. But Jesus did not contradict Himself because by His statement, "This sickness is not unto death,..." Jesus meant that because Lazarus was one of His believers, then His Father would not judge his spirit and soul to be consigned to one of the three regions of spiritual death following his physical death. Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:13. God, the Father, would hold on to Lazarus' spirit and soul until Jesus restored him to physical life. In this regard, Jesus' teachings about Lazarus' death and restoration to life proved to be consistent with His teachings in John 11:26; John 6:50; and John 5:24. These verses show that Jesus' attitude about life and death explains why He spoke about the little girl's and Lazarus' deaths as being merely "asleep." John 11:11; Mark 5:39. Christ's teachings about death also explains why God considers His Church to be merely "asleep" preceding its Rapture. I Thessalonians 4:13. Jesus spoke of spiritual death as being God's only punishment for sin, never physical death. John 8:21-24. On those rare occasions when Jesus did speak about physical death, He seemed to consider it to be quite natural. John 11:14.
Jesus reported Lazarus' physical death as a mere fact with no teachings attached to it. Christ displayed this same attitude toward Adam and Eve in the garden when He commanded them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Christ told Adam that he would die if he disobeyed, God meant spiritual death only. Genesis 2:17. God proved that He meant spiritual death only when He cast Adam and Eve out of the garden on the same day that they sinned. Their souls and spirits died when they lost fellowship with God. They did not physically die until over 900 years later. In Genesis 3:19, God merely instructed Adam that after a life of toil, he would simply physically die and return to dust. Whether Adam and Eve sinned or not, God had always meant for them to live over 900 years and die a quite natural and painless death. Had they not sinned, then God would have recovered their sinless souls and spirits, created spiritual bodies for them, and allowed them to live with Him in heaven forever. Through the sacrifice of Christ, God has prepared a similar system for all humans saved by grace. For this reason, God often gives dying grace to His believers when their time comes to die.
Punishment only works when one is conscious of it. No consciousness whatsoever exists in physical death. Therefore, physical death can be no punishment for sin.
God creates only good systems. God created every human to be a spiritual and physical system comprised of some of His basic elements. God holds the right to dissolve any of His systems down to its basic elements and reuse those elements to recreate new systems. This fact means physical death symbolizes God's power to reduce a living system to its basic elements and reuse those elements to create new systems. Humans die and return to dust and the elements of that dust feeds plant life which constitutes new systems. Spiritual death was man's own fault. Man holds no power whatsoever to restore that good system. God had to intervene in man's history in order to restore the good system of spiritual life through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son. I Corinthians 15:1-4.
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