| DEATH, DYING
and SIN, and RESURRECTION
Section
Three
Dying
and Sin
The elements necessary for
Man to be a living soul are his flesh, from the soil, and his
spirit, from God. All his biases and decisions are the result of interactions
between these two elements. Each pulls against the other; neither is free
from the other.
Gal.5:17
For the flesh is lusting against the spirit, yet the spirit against the
flesh.
Now these are opposing
one another,
lest you should be
doing whatever you may want.
Scripture adds that those who
seek to please the flesh are focussed towards self-gratification, satisfying
their fleshly desires, doing the things that please the flesh, controlled
by the dictates of the flesh.
Rom.8:5a
For those who are in accord with flesh
are disposed to that which
is of the flesh,…
Gal.5:19-21
Now apparent are the works of the flesh,
which are adultery, prostitution,
uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry,
enchantment, enmities, strife,
jealousies, furies, factions, dissensions,
sects, envies, murders,
drunkennesses, revelries, and the like of these,…
Such a life is not pleasing
to God and deserves only the fury of His indignation. The flesh is, therefore,
according to Scripture, utterly unable to be in harmony with God.
Rom.8:7,8
because the disposition of the flesh is enmity to God,
for it is not subject
to the law of God, for neither is it able.
Now those who are in flesh
are not able to please God.
The conclusion of Scripture
on the tendencies which man's flesh gives rise to is
Rom.8:6a
For the disposition of the flesh is death, …
On the other hand, Scripture
declares man's spirit leads him to commendable aspirations, to the
practising of virtues. The context tells us that this is not holy
spirit from God, but the spirit of man. We know that there are
non-believers who have such virtues (Rom.2:14-16). Some measure of these
values is in all men! Man's flesh tends toward death; man's
spirit
tends toward life.
Rom.8:5b
…yet those who are in accord with spirit to that which is of
the spirit.
Gal.5:22,23
Now the fruit of the spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control:
against such things there
is no law.
Rom.8:6b
…yet the disposition of the spirit is life and peace,
What
Is Death? What Is Its Scope?
Satan, the Adversary, was
instrumental in the fact that mankind now has, inherent in its make-up,
an affinity to sin, so to speak. He had inveigled Adam and Eve into
the disobedience that brought upon them the penalty of death. He lied when
he said that they would not become dying as God had declared they
would. This first lie that the first humans heard and believed, continues
in the doctrine of the 'immortal soul' that is the mainstay of all religions.
They believe and teach that death is immediately followed by life - one
that is better or worse, depending on their adherence to the tenets of
their faiths. Even though most Christians cling on tenaciously to this
'fundamental teaching' of an immortal soul, it is, emphatically, not a
doctrine of Scripture.
When Scripture says
death, it means death - the cessation of life! (cf.1Cor.15:12-19)!
Death is NOT life in another form or in another dimension. When a man is
dead, he is just that - DEAD. He is NOT conscious of anything anymore!
He is non-existent, except for a few days while his body decomposes into
soil. And, unless there is a resurrection, he is perished! He cannot
be alive again! And, so that there is no doubt or misunderstanding, this
is the repeated declaration of Scripture!
Gen.3:19
In the sweat of your face shall you eat your bread,
till your return to the
ground,
for from it are you
taken, for soil you are, and to soil are you returning.
Psa.104:30 ….
You gather away their spirit;
they breathe their last And return to their soil.
Eccl.12:7 And
the
soil returns to the earth just as it was,
And the spirit, it returns
to the One, Elohim, Who gave it.
Eccl.8:8 No
man has authority over the spirit to detain the spirit,
And no one has authority
over
the day of death;...
2Tim.4:6,7 For
I am already a libation, and the period of my dissolution is imminent.
I have contended the ideal
contest. I have finished my career. I have kept the faith.
Death is, therefore, a cessation
of being alive; a point of dissolution and a return to original
constituents! At death:
the body
returns to soil (from which it came);
the spirit returns
to God (from Whom it came);
the soul, which is
dependent on the presence of spirit flowing in the body,
goes to ‘the unseen’ or
‘the imperceptible’ (from whence it came).
Again, Death is the cessation
of Life. Death is the antithesis of Life. When a person is dead,
he is DEAD! He is not, and CANNOT be, ALIVE somewhere else! This,
again, is what Scripture teaches!
Even in the case of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, He did not go to heaven to be with His
Father the moment He died! From Scripture we see that:
His spirit He committed
to The Father,
Lk.23:46
And shouting with a loud voice, Jesus said,
“Father, into Thy hands
am I committing My spirit.”
Now, saying this, He expires.
His body was laid to
rest in the tomb,
John 19:41,42
Now there was in the place where He was crucified, a garden,
and in the garden a new
tomb inn which no one has been placed as yet.
There, then, because of
the preparation of the Jews,
seeing that the tomb was
near, they place Jesus.
His soul went to the
unseen - though it was not to be left there as other souls were and
are until an appointed time, later. The unseen, the imperceptible, are
figures for oblivion.
Act.2:27
For Thou wilt not be forsaking My soul in the unseen,…
And, when He had been resurrected
on the third day, He had NOT been to the Father during the intervening
time as is made quite clear to Mary Magdalene when she acknowledged Him
on the morning after His resurrection, three days after His crucifixion.
John 20:17
... Jesus is saying to her,
"Do not touch Me, for not
as yet have I ascended to My Father.
Now go to My brethren, and
say to them that I said,
`Lo! I am ascending
to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'"
Yes! Scripture asserts that
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, DIED and was buried, and REMAINED dead and
confined to the tomb UNTIL the third day! He was NOT in heaven nor
in any place other than in the tomb where He had been laid after
being taken down from the cross!
In death, a person is totally
oblivious to his surroundings! He cannot think; he cannot know; his
senses do not operate; he cannot act, nor can he react to any stimulus.
This understanding goes contrary to the pagan concepts that have infiltrated,
infused, and dominated orthodox theology. Scripture declares that:
Ps.146:4
His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return to his ground;
In that day
his reflections perish.
Ps.6:5 RSV
For in death there is no remembrance of thee;
in Sheol (Heb, the grave)
who can give thee praise?
Ps.88:10-12
Would You perform marvelous works for the dead?
Or do Rephaim arise and
acclaim You?
Is Your benignity recounted
in
the tomb,
Your faithfulness in
destruction?
Are Your marvelous works
known in darkness,
And Your righteousness in
the land of oblivion?
Ps.30:9
What gain is there in my blood poured out,
In my descending to the
grave?
Does soil acclaim
You? Does it tell Your faithfulness?
Ps.115:17,18
The dead cannot praise Yah,
Nor all those descending
into
stillness.
But we, we the
living, shall bless Yah, Henceforth and unto the eon. Praise Yah!
Isa.38:18,19
For the unseen is not acclaiming You, nor is death praising
You,
and those descending into
a crypt are not looking forward to Your truth.
The living! The living
one!
He is acclaiming You as I today.
The father to his sons shall
make known Your truth.
Job.14:19-21 Water
reduces stones to powder;
The flattening rain overflows
the soil of the earth;
So do You cause the expectation
of a mortal to perish.
You overpower him permanently,
and he goes away;
His face alters, and You
send him afar.
His sons may attain glory,
yet he does not know it;
Or they may be discredited,
yet he does not understand it of them.
Eccl.9:5,6 For
the living know that they shall die,
But the dead know nothing
whatsoever;
There is no further reward
for them; Indeed remembrance of them is forgotten.
Both their love and their
hate as well as their jealousy have perished already,
And there is no further
portion for them for the eon in all that is done under the sun.
Eccl.9:10 All
that your hand finds to do, do with your vigor,
For there is no doing
or devising or knowledge or wisdom
In the unseen where you
are going.
Death is the culmination of
the 'to die shall you be dying' penalty on Adam that every human
being has been appointed to experience. In death, except for being in the
mind of God, each person ceases to exist. People may suffer until
the moment they die - but they do not suffer when they are dead
- neither can they experience bliss in it. Jesus suffered until the moment
He gave up His spirit. He was oblivious of all that went on around Him
from that moment. Scripture dictates for our belief that He was
not
in heaven with the Father while He was dead!
So we see that Death entails
the cessation of being, the point when oblivion begins. There is no blissful
heaven and neither is there to be a suffering in hell. It does look that
annihilation is the lot of all - whether believer or unbeliever! As mentioned
earlier, there is nothing we can do to come out of this predicament.
The
Wisdom of God
But, where we cannot, GOD
can! He sees no predicament - for this is all according to His well
designed operations, the solution to the 'problem' built into the implementation
of His set schedule. He does not leave the realisation of His glory to
the uncertain and inadequate death-debilitated efforts of man.
And there is ONE, and ONLY
one,
infallible solution to this situation. GOD'S righteousness! He
WILL do the right thing. Not even one of His creation will
be left feeling that he has been treated unjustly. God gives up His Beloved
Son for the well-being of every one of His creatures. And this Beloved
carried out His Father's design to effect the solution!
Where Adam disobeyed, preferring
Satan's insinuations and lie over God's declaration concerning the eating
of the fruit, Jesus Christ was completely obedient to His Father's will
- even to the point of sacrificing His life.
John 6:38
for I have descended from heaven, not that I should be doing My
will,
but the will of Him
Who sends Me.
Mt.26:39 ....
"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by from Me.
However, not as I will,
but as Thou!"
John 12:49 seeing
that I speak not from Myself,
but the Father Who sends
Me, He has given Me the precept,
what I may be saying
and what I should be speaking.
Because of this, it is the pleasure
of God, His Father, to grant Him supremacy over all creation (Eph.1:10).
God will successfully subject all under Christ's feet - not through force
but through the conversion of the minds of His creatures from obstinacy
(as sons of stubbornness) to obedience (as happy subjects in the kingdom
of the Son of His love). This creation-wide conversion is God's work to
reward His Son for His obedience; the glory for this achievement will be
God's!
Heb.12:2
... the Inaugurator and Perfecter of faith, Jesus, Who,
for the joy lying before
Him, endures a cross, despising the shame,
besides is seated at
the right hand of the throne of God.
Phil.2:9-11
Wherefore, also, God highly exalts Him,
and graces Him with the
name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus
every knee should
be bowing, celestial and terrestrial and subterranean,
and every tongue
should be acclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord,
for the glory of God, the
Father.
Rom.3:21-23
Yet now,.... a righteousness of God is manifest
(being attested by the law
and the prophets),
yet a righteousness of God
through
Jesus Christ's faith,
for all, and on
all who are believing, for there is no distinction,
for all sinned and
are wanting of the glory of God.
Gal.3:22 But
the scripture locks up all together under sin,
that the promise out of
Jesus
Christ's faith may be given to those who are believing.
John.6:44 No
one can come to Me
if ever the Father
Who sends Me should not be drawing him…..
John 6:65 And
He said, "Therefore have I declared to you that
no one can be coming
to Me if it should not be given him of the Father."
Phil.3:8,9 ...
that I should be gaining Christ,
and may be found in Him,
not having my righteousness, which is of law,
but that which is through
the
faith of Christ,
the righteousness which
is from God for faith:
Rom.11:32 For
God locks up all together in stubbornness,
that He should be merciful
to all.
Rom.5:19a
…thus also,
through the obedience of
the One, the many shall be constituted just.
This is the reason God sent
His Only Son Jesus Christ into the world. This is why Jesus came; this
is why He died; this is why He was raised from among the dead!
John 3:17
For God does not dispatch His Son into the world
that He should be judging
the world,
but that the world may
be saved through Him.
1John 4:14
And we…are testifying that the Father has dispatched the Son,
the Saviour of the world.
Act.2:23 This
One, given up in the specific counsel and foreknowledge of
God,
1Tim.1:15 Faithful
is the saying, and worthy of all welcome,
that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners,...
Phil.2:7,8 …nevertheless
empties Himself, taking the form of a slave,
coming to be in the likeness
of humanity, and, being found in fashion as a human,
He humbles Himself, becoming
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
1Cor.15:3,4
For I give over to you among the first what also I accepted,
that Christ died for
our sins…
1Tim.2:5,6 For
there is one God,
and one Mediator of
God and mankind, a Man, Christ Jesus,
Who is giving Himself a
correspondent Ransom for all
(the testimony in its own
eras),
Rom.5:8-10 yet
God is commending this love of His to us, seeing that,
while we are stillsinners,
Christ died for our sakes…
being enemies,
we were conciliated to God through the death of His Son,...
Act.4:12 And
there is no salvation in any other one,
for neither is there any
other name, given under heaven among men,
in which we must be saved.
John 14:6 Jesus
is saying to him, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.
No one is coming to the
Father except through Me.
Heb.2:9 Yet
we are observing Jesus,
Who has been made some bit
inferior to messengers....,
so that in the grace of
God, He should be tasting death for the sake of everyone.
2Cor.5:14 For
the love of Christ is constraining us, judging this, that,
if One died for the sake
of all, consequently ALL died.
Col.1:21,22
And you,
being once estranged
and enemies in comprehension, by wicked acts,
yet now He reconciles
by His body of flesh, through His death,
to present you holy and
flawless and unimpeachable in His sight,
Col.1:20 and
through Him to reconcile all to Him
(making peace through the
blood of His cross),
through Him, whether those
on
the earth or those in the heavens.
Act.2:24 Whom
God raises, loosing the pangs of death,
forasmuch as it was not
possible
for Him to be held by it.
Col.1:18 And
He is the Head of the body, the ecclesia, Who is Sovereign,
Firstborn from among
the dead, that in all He may be becoming first,
Rom.6:8-10 Now
if we died together with Christ,
we believe that we shall
be living together with Him also,
having perceived that Christ,
being roused from among the dead, is no longer dying.
Death is lording it over
Him no longer,
for in that He died, He
died to Sin once for all time,
yet in that He is
living, He is living to God.
Rom.5:8-10 ….
being now justified in His blood,…..
being conciliated,
we shall be saved in His life.
1Cor.15:22 For
even as, in Adam, all are dying,
thus also, in Christ, shall all be vivified.
Whereas, in Adam, it was his
soulish
desires, activated by his senses, that controlled his decisions,
in the last Adam (1Cor.15:45) it was His spirit that was dominant.
Heb.4:15
…to sympathize with our weaknesses, …
one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.
It must be borne in mind that
Jesus was never a sinner! Before His incarnation, death was not inherent
in Him. When He became a human being, 'the Word became flesh' (Jn.1:14).
He took on, voluntarily, man's 'to die shall you be dying' penalty,
sharing in the experiences of his fellow humans (cf.Isa.53), yet
triumphing over human frailties through the strength of His spirit.
Heb.2:14,15
Since, then, the little children have participated in blood and flesh,
He also was very nigh by
partaking of the same, that,
through death, He
should be discarding him who has the might of death,
that is, the Adversary,
and should be clearing those whoever,
in fear of death,
were through their entire life liable to slavery.
1Pet.2:21,22
...seeing that Christ also suffered for your sakes, leaving you a copy,
that you should be following
up in the footprints of Him Who does no sin,
neither was guile found
in His mouth;
2Cor.5:21 NIV
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in
him we might become the righteousness of God.
Living as a human being among
humans, and knowing and understanding their frailties, He is the fit Representative
of humanity (1Tim.2:5,6). He knew no sin, but was made SIN for us!
Because of Christ's obedience,
it is the pleasure of God, His Father, to grant Him supremacy over all
creation (Eph.1:10). God will successfully subject all under Christ's feet
- not through force but through the conversion of the minds of His creatures
from obstinacy (as sons of stubbornness) to obedience (as happy subjects
who acclaim His glory). This creation-wide conversion is God's work to
reward His Son for His obedience; the glory for this achievement will be
God's!
Heb.12:2
... the Inaugurator and Perfecter of faith, Jesus, Who,
for the joy lying before
Him, endures a cross, despising the shame,
besides is seated at
the right hand of the throne of God.
Phil.2:9-11
Wherefore, also, God highly exalts Him,
and graces Him with the
name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus
every knee should
be bowing, celestial and terrestrial and subterranean,
and every tongue
should be acclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord,
for the glory of God, the
Father.
February 2002
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