The manner of these rites, and the style of the Scriptures in connection with them are based upon the fundamental fact of man’s spiritual condition as by nature dead, by reason of the apostasy and the curse,—“dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. ii, 1, 5); “being alienated from the life of God” (Ib. iv, 18), so that they are incapable of exercising any of the activities of true spiritual life unto God, and are, therefore, outcast as were the leper and the unclean, from the camp and society of the clean; being “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise.”—Ib. ii, 12. In short, the death which by sin, through one man, entered the world was the death of the soul. With reference to it, Jesus says,—“I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”—John xi, 25, 26. But inasmuch as a dead soul can not sustain life in the body, the latter too died with the soul, in the day of its death. For a little time, through the mercy of God, in order to salvation (2 Peter iii, 15), an expiring struggle is maintained; but it is with bodies ever stooping to the grave and irresistibly drawn downward into its yawning gulf. It is in view of these facts that Paul describes the old man, the carnal or inherited nature, as “the body of this death,” or “this dead body;” and its works as “dead works” (Heb. vi, 1; ix, 14) which he represents to be “all manner of concupiscence,” or evil desires, and consequent evil deeds. (Rom. vii, 8-24.) Hence, the seven days’ uncleanness, signifying the deadness of the soul, and the offensiveness of its works. Coincident in meaning was the defilement of things by the contagion of death. For man’s sake, the ground itself is cursed (Gen. iii, 17), and every product of the earth and every possession of man upon it is involved in the curse, and until delivered from it, is unsanctified to man’s use. Hence, the house, the bed, the furniture and utensils, were defiled by the presence of the dead and unfitted for the use of the clean, the living.