"Twice dead", is this threads outline, but there are also two deaths exampled in Scripture as well. To make notice of them would allow us to see the differences between them and I believe would make a clearer picture overall:
* When we are born we are born into death via Adam, before we were born we had a death sentence.. Yet as we allow the gift of Jesus' death to open up our door to the Father, this could be called a first death in view of our life in Christ, then to follow is our mortal bodies death, still facing the outcome of death as it's end.. The act of our passing As Scriptures indicate is that we will all die in that way and that from that face God's Judgement thereafter. And of course this is when we are transformed into our Heavenly bodies, and reward, If we are found in Him and the Book of life.. So in this practical situation of events we see two deaths as well.
* A second, in addition to the point outlined here already,would be a second death within the context of our life in Christ on this side of our mortal life. Both of these deaths would,then, represent the passing thru from our original death sentence into the New Creation in the life lived in the Lamb of Gods spirit by way of the Cross and death of Christ..
One is the literal death of Our Lord Jesus Christ on a cross, that without we would not have access to the Father, and then the second death is that of a "revelation and surrender" attached by our experiential attachment to that of Christ's premise in way of our own History. A second death as it were in us, that recognizes and accepts, and renders conclusive as our own identity found in His history. The emergent combination of our new disposition in Christ, from the Spirits transforming placement of new pictures being placed in the old house as it were..
Christ had to die in order to bring the old creation, including mankind, to an end. Only then could He produce a New Creation. In the Universe there is such a principle: the old must go that the new may come. The old humanity and the old creation must pass away so that the new may be ushered in. How could this be accomplished? By the death of Christ {Hence, the first represented death within our new life}. And who is this Christ? He is the Head of all creation {Eph. 1:22}. All creation subsists in Christ {Col. 1:17}; He is the Head, He is the center, He is the representative of the whole creation. Christ's death on the Cross, therefore, means that the whole creation as represented in Christ was brought to an end. Through, by, and in the death of Christ we and the whole creation were terminated. The facts, as it were, of our history found in Christ's victory for us. The first death of inclusion in believing in Him.
But God's word says there is another step, that we believe and receive. To receive we must do two things: obey, and be given by God our own revelation of a second death...OUR OWN! The economy of God is that Christ must bring to death all creation. In God's economy, we were crucified {Romans 6:6; Gal. 2:20; 5:24} even before we were born! Perhaps you were born, like me, a mere 50 years plus ago... smile, but you were crucified two thousand years ago!
In man's reckoning such a thing could not be, but in God's economy it is so. The whole creation was brought to an end by the crucifixion of Christ. That is why Christ had to die. And in the practical application of such a conclusive premise of events in our lives now we need to attach that impossible thing to our resolve to it., from human reasonings eye-sight, to a steady calm reality of experiential obedience to it done confidently and without compromise in a person who now demonstrates naturally so, the demeanor of their Master.. This, then, is the second act of grace where God leads us, through Sanctification, to that revelation through our obedience and His transformation in us thru the Holy Spirit of our death fully-realized. A practical second death exists from that fact where we conclude our death to ourselves within our own soul.. To conclude our right to ourselves banished, never to return, a weight only to drag us down. From these deaths come life, and that more abundantly.
These examples were not the points of the thread but are points worthy of notice nonetheless.