Killing God - Part 23 Death

Death:

Dietrich Bonnhoeffer wrote of “cheap grace”. “Taking the ‘Name’ of God flippantly” is cheap grace. Modern preachers call cheap grace “fire insurance” but Christians must be careful that their “insurer” has the authority and finances to pay the price. The notion that five minutes of contrition and repeating a short prayer is efficacious may be insufficient. Sorrow must be sincere, the willingness to live righteously must be intended, and change must take place. God didn’t die so that one can live in sin but that the repentant person be freed from sin! ³⁹⁰ “If God be for us, who can be against us?”  ³⁹¹ The flip-side of that is, we’re either for God or against Him. Sin is against God. How can one be for God yet sin against Him? Because, the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak!” ³⁹²

Satan, even against Christians, uses our own flesh to minimize God’s authority by weakening the flesh. This is the same withering process by which about anything is destroyed. In Christianity, it is an irreversible process, and like the Second Law of Thermodynamics, weak flesh is spiritual entropy, referring back to if we fall away and seek redemption again, it would be as crucifying God all over again. God died once. He died physically, and His Spirit experienced death but God never entirely died. Spirit can never die but only experience death! The Father in Heaven watched himself die! Jesus – “Yahweh Delivers” – was seeking Yahweh to deliver!

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” ³⁹³

This is hard to understand! How can God be on the cross and in Heaven at the same time? He is Almighty and Ever-present. God Is (Exists) and cannot cease to exist! His flesh was killed but His Spirit had such a strong will that it would and could not die! If all the “aspects” of God had died on the cross, existence would have ceased. Nothing would BE anymore! “God so loved the world!” That is the people and his Creation. God would not kill because, “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. If the cosmos was to go, the heavens would go as well; both the seen and unseen. God literally died to save the world! Creators create. Satan destroys.

Satan’s motive is to kill God but even he knows the truth – it can’t be done. Hence, the devil desires to kill people. Ironically, neither can people be killed in their entirety – only their worldly flesh. But what about eternal death? Just as eternal life is eternally living, eternal death is eternally dying. Neither is a one-time event but for perpetuity. How can that be?

For the righteous, when God returns to gather His Church, He will come in incorruptible flesh – glorified. The living and dead who lived the Way, shall be raised and also given incorruptible flesh as well. “In the twinkling of an eye, they shall be changed.” ³⁹⁴ To live forever requires new flesh. As was stated, the Creator creates. Although He seems to destroy, God always re-creates; even a new Heaven and new earth will be re-created or even better - resurrected. ³⁹⁵

God’s way – “in the twinkling of the eye” is how God does things. Time is not a barrier for Him! When God Creates, He creates in a twinkling, and when he changes, he changes things instantly! Thus, righteous people will become equipped for eternity – having new flesh which cannot sin nor ever be destroyed.

On the other hand, immediately upon death, the unrighteous will be given corruptible flesh. Corruption is hatred. Those who die without dying for God, will be eternal haters. With a little poetic justice, neither will their flesh ever die but will be forever dying. This eternal dying is torment and is forever and ever. ³⁹⁶ This fear of eternal fire is the motivation for repentance. What is it that sinners are saved from?  It’s more than saved from sin but saved from Hell! Forever! Thus, a little faith brings on just a little change, and in a twinkling, fire insurance! But Heaven is much more than that! Great faith provides many crowns, and the greatest crown is that the meek shall inherit the earth! ³⁹⁷ (More on meekness later).

God desires that none should perish, implying that Satan desires that all must perish. He wants God dead but that can’t be realized. His target is us because God loves us so!

A man had righteous family members. His enemies tried to hurt the man but the man was impervious to pain. After a time, his enemy became shrewd – he could hurt the man by hurting his family.  Like righteous Job who was attacked by Satan to offend God, Christians are attacked for the same reason. As a shrewd deceiver, Satan attacks the faith of the believer, and as sin compounds itself, righteousness withers. Steadfast faith is standing firm trusting in the Lord.

Satan knows that he can’t kill a Christian’s soul. God’s hedge prevents that! ³⁹⁸ However, Satan can get it. Yes, people do trade their soul to the Devil for material gain and pleasure! Satan already destroyed the flesh of all men way back in the Garden. Before original sin, mankind was immortal, and like God warned, they would die! ³⁹⁹ Adam didn’t understand death then, and mankind still doesn’t. Most think of death as ceasing to exist but in the Kingdom of God, the definition of death is torment – punishment for rebellion. Since God never sinned, He cannot die. He died a physical death, not because of His sin, but ours! ⁴⁰⁰

                Death, then, is more than the sting of passing but living somewhere in the hereafter. A righteous person lives in Heaven, and the unrighteous are zombie-like – “living” in Hell but not quite ever dying. That’s what mankind was saved from, and the reason God was willing for His Flesh to die! Death is merely a transition from the physical world to the spiritual; from the demonic to the Divine. Death is “the  wide gate” which leads to destruction, and “the straight gate” which opens back into the Garden as the cherubim accepts the password – God’s “Name”. ⁴⁰¹ For some, death is just a sting but for most, they will feel the burn!

                In my hometown in 1891, there was a lynching of two brothers for killing the sheriff. Although they were innocent of those particular charges, their lives were not so innocent. As a consequence, a lynch mob led by Klan leaders (those brothers were white men by the way), abducted the brothers from jail and hung them by their necks until dead. The leader of the mob was a prestigious politician, according to the story. It was said, that on that evil man’s deathbed, he felt the burn from Hell. He asked that a sheet be hung between the fireplace and himself because the burn was so intense. This evil man tasted Hell before he died! Heaven is for real, and so is Hell. If Hell doesn’t exist, there is nothing from which to be saved. Satan diminishes God by making even Christians question the existence of either Heaven or Hell.

                In the movie Heaven Is for Real, ⁴⁰² the preacher’s chief antagonist, and a board member, said that Christianity uses Heaven and Hell as a means to convert. Indeed, Heaven and Hell are reasons to convert! The former is sanctuary from torment, and the latter torment itself. No one can be saved unless they believe in those two existences. Because anyone disbelieves doesn’t make it so!

³⁹⁰ Holy Bible; John 8:32

³⁹¹ ibid; Rom 8:31

³⁹² ibid; Mat 26:41

³⁹³ ibid; Mat 27:46; Mark 15:34; Psalm 22:1

³⁸⁴ ibid; 1 Cor 15:52

³⁹⁵ ibid; Isa 65:17; Rev 21:21 and elsewhere.

³⁹⁶ ibid; Rev 14:10-11

³⁹⁷ ibid; Psalm 37:11; Mat 5:5

³⁹⁸ ibid; Job 1:10

³⁹⁹ ibid; Gen 2:17

⁴⁰⁰ ibid; John 1:29

⁴⁰¹ ibid; Mat 7:14

⁴⁰² Heaven Is for Real; Randall Wallace director; Wallace and Christopher Parker writers; 2014.