Hank,

I agree with Bob. Nicely done. I feel as if I just had a review of Total Depravity!

Edgar.

Great reply Hank...man this guy really is stealing my thunder lately...I was thinking right along with your first sentence that this is not an either or situation. Also to understand "deadness" we need to remember that in Ephesians 2 it is a state that is really applied the all people, it is the state of the natural man who in 1 Corinthians 2:14 I think does not and can not recieve the things of God for they are foolishness to him.
So deadness yes it seperation from God, hence all of the talk about how in Christ we are reconciled to God, but it is also a state of inability or rather an adversity to the things of God. I would say it is (at least from a human standpoint) this adversity to the things of God (Rom 8:7) that causes the seperation.

Henry,

It's not either or, rather it is both. All of the passages cited in the post do in fact talk about death as an eternal separation from the glory of God (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9). But this article did not deal with death as it is found in Ephesians 2:1-7. Consider Paul's words,

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body [1] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But [2] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The Greek term for "dead" is the noun nekrous, which means one who has breathed his last, without life, inanimate like a corpse. But notice the verb that follows. It is periepathsate which is a second-person plural, active, indicative, aorist verb meaning "you all walked." It is an active verb. Thus the subject of the sentence is both dead, inanimate, and actively following the Satan and the world.

Then in Ephesians 2:5 that Paul says when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive. The verb is sunezwopoihsen which means to be made alive together. Until this happened, a person was following the course of the world and Satan. But once they were sunezwopoihesen-ed, they were joined with Christ, faith was given to them, they shared in the blessings of heaven through Christ. When we were dead, we followed Satan. When we were made alive, we believed God gave us faith to believe. God's grace made us alive to him. It isn't that we were separated from God as much as we would not turn to God because of our death. Only new life, regeneration, would turn us to God.

Also, consider John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day." Here we see Jesus saying that "No one can come." That is the Greek word dunatai, which means power or ability to do something. No one has the power or ability to come to God unless the Father drags (elkush) him. This statement is to explain why the Jews sought the miracles of Jesus, not Jesus himself. The same verb is used in John 3;3 where Christ says to Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot  (ou dunatai)see the kingdom of God." There is an inability to come to God. Paul refers to this inability as death, dead to the things of God and spiritual life. Until God acts, man is unable to come to him (cf. John 6:64-65; the reason why Judas Iscariot did not believe and accept Christ, but rather betrayed him, is because God did not grant him to come to Christ in faith, that faith was not given to him; this statement functions like John 6:44 in that it explains unbelief of the hearers of Jesus' preaching).

On a side note, 1 John 5:1 ESV says, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him." The verbs "believes" and "loves" are present tense participles. Literally they would say "the ones who are believing" and "the ones who are loving." The verb "has been born of God/him" are perfect tense verbs, denoting completed action. The action of being born again has already been done to those who are believing. Thus John seems to view regeneration occurring before faith. Russ got it wrong in with this text.