As the older man spoke with me I could hear the relief in his voice, the exultation, the lifted spirits as he recalled the turn from danger to deliverance. I hear once more the relief in his voice, the exultation, the lifted spirits as he recalls the turn from danger to deliverance. Up to this point the apostle had been speaking of the universal human condition before God. Yet the truth about the human condition before God had been a frightful diagnosis. He is speaking, rather, of the condition of every man, every woman before God.
Anglophone politicians are dead in Quebec.
A pitcher without a curve-ball is dead in the major leagues. We are only speaking metaphorically. But when the apostle insists that outside the One who is Resurrection and Life we are dead before God he is speaking literally. Now the characteristic of anything dead is that it is unresponsive. A corpse is invariably unresponsive.