When someone is spiritually dead, that means that even though they walk and talk and go about their business, they have no belief in God, do not recognize God, they cannot see His Glory through eyes of faith. The sin which controls them - their attitudes, their behavior, all that they are, makes them incapable of recognizing and submitting to God the Father and God the Son, and there is no relationship with God the Holy Spirit - the Giver of Life. (1 John 1:6)
Ezekiel 37 calls out those who have stopped believing in God - even those who were supposed to be God's people. They are dead spiritually - dead and dry. "They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’" But for His Glory, so that they will know that He is the LORD God who created them, He promises to restore them by giving them His Spirit to make them alive, so that they can worship Him and live fully.
Romans 8:5-9 echos a similar warning. "To set the mind on the flesh is death." [the flesh as described here refers to being cut off from God spiritually because of our sinful nature--the Adamic inheritance all humans have and which blocks us from seeing God's Glory because we cannot believe (Psalm 51:5)]. That is explained in the next sentence: "For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God." God tells us, warns in His words at Ephesians 2:1-3 about the nature of spiritual death and how it keeps us from God. But look at the promise echoed in the Romans 8 reading, as well as in verses 4-10 of Ephesians 2, and the harmony of these promises with the promise in Ezekiel 37.
Because of His own Glory, God wants to bring His people to life - to put His life into us - so that we can see Him and believe. While we exist in our bodies today, God spiritually restores us to live His life through us. To see God is to see His Glory and reflect it so that we become light for others. To believe God is to glorify Him - as Jesus is saying in the subject line above, and in the Gospel reading in John 11 at the opening link. His resurrection of Lazarus gives us a glimpse into what He will do in our lives now by creating new life in us; He rescues us from death! A saving faith comes from hearing and acting on the words of Christ. He calls us to come out of our spiritual graves, and to remove the bindings of sin through our obedience to Him. Then He calls us to glorify God in our lives and in our bodies. I invite you to read the scriptures herein and seek to understand the message God is giving to us all. To hear in our own ears, and see in our own hearts of faith Jesus say to us those startling words, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the Glory of God? ...I Am the Resurrection and the Life. Those who believe in me, though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Do you believe?
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