THE SECOND DEATH

Spiritual Banishment Like Unto the First

IN the Revelation written by John, the second death is referred to several times, and always as the dread fate of the ungodly or wilfully wicked. Physical death is associated with sorrow; and the anguish of bereavement is often so deep that only the assurances of immortality and the certainty of a resurrection can effectively palliate or relieve. The mere mention or thought of a second death is horrifying. What is this frightful eventuality? And is it to be the lot of the many or the few?

We have seen that a means of redemption is provided even for those who are cast into hell; and that every soul shall be resurrected in due time, whether he be righteous, or foul with sin. The second death, therefore, whatever its nature or extent, is a feature of the final judgment, at which each shall stand in his resurrected body of flesh and bones to receive the sentence of honor or of shame.

We are without scriptural warrant for assuming that the second death is another separation of body and spirit, or that the spirit shall undergo dissolution and cease to be. The spirit of man is eternal; and the resurrected body shall be everlasting. The soul knows not annihilation, neither loss of personality in an impossible Nirvana. You will be yourself and I myself throughout eternity, with quickened senses, amplified powers of perception and vastly increased capacity for happiness or suffering. Neither heaven nor hell can be gaged by the yard-stick of human conception.

In what then does the second death consist? John wrote of an event following the resurrection of the wicked and the pronouncement of judgment: "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." (Rev. 20:14.) The "lake of fire" as elsewhere explained by the Revelator is the abode of Satan and those over whom he has gained power. The second death therefore is final consignment to the dominion of Satan, and, of necessity, banishment from the presence of God and Christ.

The condition of death that Adam brought immediately upon himself through disobedience was essentially a spiritual change, whereby he was shut out from the presence of God; and this befell him in the very day of his transgression, as he had been warned it would. Bodily death, though an unescapable result, was nevertheless secondary, and was deferred until Adam had reached the age of 930 years.

As eternal life consists in knowing God and His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3; D&C 132:24), so eternal condemnation or spiritual death is essentially banishment from the Divine presence, with corresponding forfeiture of glory and power appertaining to exaltation. The word of latter-day revelation, relating to Adam's spiritual death, and to the final or as we call it, the second death, which is reserved for the ungodly, runs as follows: "Wherefore I the Lord God caused that he should be cast out from the Garden of Eden, from my presence, because of his transgression, wherein he became spiritually dead, which is the first death, even that same death, which is the last death, which is spiritual, which shall be pronounced upon the wicked when I shall say, Depart, ye cursed." (D&C 29:41.)

The Lamanite prophet, Samuel, had a clear understanding of the matter, as thus expressed: "But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord. Yea, and it bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth, the same is not hewn and cast into the fire; but whosoever repenteth not, is hewn down and cast into the fire, and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness." (Book of Mormon, Helaman 14:17-18.)

We are assured that all who win place and part in the first resurrection—distinctively the resurrection of the just—shall be exempt from the second death, and shall find their way open to exaltation in the presence of God.

There is a place or condition of punishment even deeper than hell. This is prepared for those who have sinned most grievously, who have received the testimony of Christ and afterward wilfully and with consciousness of what they were doing, have surrendered themselves to the power and service of Satan. "They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born. . . . These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels, and the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power." (D&C 76:32-37.)