Okay, so we’re spiritually dead before we get saved. We’re not actually dead dead. When I got saved I was physically alive, The guy that witnessed to me was alive. I was actually mad when he witnessed to me because I was brought up in church, but I never surrendered my life to Jesus How can you confess with your mouth if you’re physically dead? What’s your point again?
It was to make clear that there are two existence realms that need to be taken into consideration when discussing salvation: 1) the spiritual realm, and 2) the physical realm. The Bible uses the same names for many things that exist within both realms, such as life, death, birth, heart, mind, hearing, seeing, understanding, wisdom, discernment, etc. Both realms are real, both need to be understood individually, and in conjunction with each other.
The receiving of new spiritual heart must precede one's spiritual conversion for it to be a true conversion. God informs us that it is He alone who gives that new heart along with a new spirit (spiritual life) upon salvation. Therefore, until someone is born again and receives that new heart and spirit, they remain spiritually dead. Man's intellectual wisdom and choices in the physical realm do not manifest into the receiving of a new spiritual heart, but the receiving of a new spiritual heart does manifest unto him as new spiritual wisdom in the physical realm. So, should someone believe they have given to themselves spiritual life by their intellect, choices or actions, by that belief, they demonstrate that they haven't received it.
I was (in a prior post), trying to use an analogy to convey that just as a physically dead person is oblivious to comprehend the wisdom of the physical realm, so too is the spiritually dead oblivious to comprehend the wisdom of the spiritual realm. Everyone, until becoming born again, is spiritually dead. Notice in the below verses we can see that we all start being dead spiritually, yet while being dead spiritually (and oblivious), God gives spiritual life, making us born again through nothing but His will and intervention which He gives to those chosen to receive it, and brings them from the one spiritual state (dead) to the other spiritual state (alive): spiritually speaking, we were stone cold dead, yet He makes us alive: from death instantaneously and directly unto spiritual life with no contribution to it possible from/by us.
Hope this makes sense - didn't do too good a job explaining it.
[Eph 2:1 KJV]
1 And
you [hath he quickened],
who were dead in trespasses and sins;
[Col 2:13 KJV]
13 And
you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;