Luke 15:24

νεκρὸς ἦν καὶ�. The metaphor of ‘death’ to express the condition of impenitent sin is universal in the Bible. “Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead,” Revelation 3:1. “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,” Ephesians 5:14. “You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins,” Ephesians 2:1. “Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead,” Romans 6:13.

ἦν�. This poor youth had been in the exact Roman sense perditus—a ‘lost,’ an ‘abandoned’ character.