In what sense is the word "dead" used here?:
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses" (Col.2:13).
In the sense of being without hope, having a knowledge of what is good and what is evil, knowing that God's standard of righteousness that you aspire to is beyond your capacity to attain in and of yourself because you have spent a lifetime so far earnestly seeking to attain that standard and continually fall short.
Paul, in anguish of having been in search of this very same thing finally cries out with:
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
And when a person is quickened or made alive together with the Lord Jesus then what kind of life does he have then?
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Rom 8:12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Gal 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
1Co 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Do I need to do on?
I contend that the phrase "spiritually dead" engenders a belief that man was once "spiritually alive" and the majority of people (if not all) who employ this phrase also accept (consciously or unconsciously) that man fell from this "spiritually alive" state when Adam ate of the tree of knowledge.
The belief in the the "fall of man" is the seed that "spiritually dead" grows from.
It is one of the greatest deceptions that exist. It suggests that man
could have chosen righteousness, and the power to do so existed within his human potential. That's a lie. There is, and never will be anyone who is righteous in and of himself except he be enabled by the spirit of him who alone is righteous: God.
Geoff.