Humans are indeed different than the animals because they were made in the image of God. What makes us different is that the life God breathed life into us which is both spiritual and physical because he made us in His image. What is God's "Image"? Existence! He Was, Is, and always Will Be. He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. God was never created but always Existed.
Because we are in God's image, men and women always existed as well. Before people were born, they existed:
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:16)Why are the unborn so important? Because the undeveloped human being always existed! We don't understand how, but everyone was human potential with a soul which needed filling; our spirits lived before our bodies were ever formed! Believe it or not, God knew you not only before you were ever born, but before you were ever conceived! God formed us and knew us in the womb, and even before. God told that to Jeremiah and it applies to us as well:
Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love. (Ephes 1:4)
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jer 1:4-6).We all always existed. Our lives are pre-ordained. With His foreknowledge, God knows each decision His independent creatures will make. Each and every lifespan is written in His Book (Psalm 139:16 above). Not only our physical lifespan but our total existence in both phases of life!
God wills that we all live, and that none ever die. That is the gist of John 3:16 and the Purpose of Jesus Christ - God in the flesh. Just as life never ends, neither does perishing. Those who perish are still alive but torment is so awful that it is living death!
In phase #1 of life (Let's call pre-conception phase #0), soon after birth, all men begin to die. Mankind was not designed that way. Adam and Eve had immortality until they sinned. Paradise in the Garden was the same Paradise as in Heaven. Upon sinning - rejecting God's authority - they were cast out of Paradise, and there they would surely die. Immediately upon leaving the Garden they began the dying process. They could not detect it, but God does not lie: they immediately began to die for that was the punishment for eating of the forbidden tree.
Death did not commence with the eating but after judgment and punishment. Adam and Eve thought they would died immediately but did not. They thought God to be a liar, and that death was just a ruse to keep them from gaining knowledge of the world! Death turned out not to be a ruse. It is real! Scripture says: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor 15:22).
Adam and Eve were judged before they were expelled from Paradise, but we will be judged after our death. Because of God's grace Adam and Eve were made innocent by God's propitiation of His own blood - an innocent lamb belonging to Him. They were alive during life, then phase #1 ended; for Adam after 930 years, and they entered phase #2 - eternal life!
Phase #1 of our life is a little different. Unlike Adam, we were born in iniquity. Adam missed that because he was created not born. We were born with Adam's sin. Therefore, when anyone breaths the breath of life outside the womb the propensity to sin is born with them. Immediately after gestation, the world begins to kill infants if abortion doctors don't do it first! When life begins, death begins as well. The cells of babies are dying even as they are growing. Sometimes babies braincells begin to die rapidly at birth. Life is a disease caused by Adams's sin. Life is tribulation. We all will die, and begin the process immediately at birth. Life itself is all about dying. Unlike Adam before he ate, we know what death is and we all dread that instant in time when we will die ("the sting of death").
The knowledge gained from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is that we know death. The threat God gave was, "You shall surely die."
After eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve knew death and became afraid. They tried to cover their own sin, but could not adequatel1y do so with vegetation. God killed for the first time, and an innocent lamb died instead of them as God covered their sins! Although the shed blood made them innocent again, they suffered the consequences of their sin by slowly dying. Most of Adam's 930 years was dying. God was not a liar. After that time, Adam felt the sting of death, and then he entered phase #2. He still lives and always will because in his sorrow for sinning, God covered his sins!
Living is gradually dying. Death ceases that fast process. For those who trust God, in deference to Adam and Eve who at first did not, the dying process will cease at physical death, and life just begins. Paul said death for him is gain (Phil 1:20-23). What he meant by that is that he will quit dying with death! Those who die with Christ in them cease the death process. Phase #2 for them is eternally living with stoppage of the death process.
On the other hand, those who do not trust God for eternal life will not actually ever consummate death. Just as they did in life, they will continue the dying process. Life is hard enough but forever dying will be in torment and fire. The unpardoned sinner will always be dying but never actually allowed to die. Their phase #1 in life may have been pleasant without even the realization that they were dying as they sin. Phase #2 will be much different. They will always be aware of their sins in phase #1 and suffer for them forever. Phase #2 will have no enjoyment nor pleasure. In a Faustian manner, sinners trade off eternal prosperity for earthly gain. It's a huge gamble to say the least!
Look at this passage again: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Paul was talking about phase #2. Even before we are ever conceived (phase #0), we all have Adam in us. David said in Psalm 51 that he was "born in iniquity". We all are. Adam's attitude is in us, and life is nothing more than casting out into the world as the birth canal ejects the unborn. That newborn child has Adam in him or her. God's grace is that he calls us all to him. Some come; some don't.
The born-again experience which all Christians must be is when people get a new attitude. Rather than treating God as a liar, we trust God. We come to realize that only by God's death on the cross, can we be immortal - just as God intended for us back in phase #0! He knows who will and won't, even way back then, but it's still us who must choose life or death - whether to eat of the world's fruits or God's.
Being born again doesn't end phase #1. Like Adam, we must face the consequences of our sins. We can't blame Adam; Eve didn't. We are to blame because like theirs, sin is always a choice. Satan doesn't make us sin. He doesn't have that power. We condemn ourselves when we sin.
Phase #2 is when life exists without the dying process. Of course, the soul never even feels the sting. For it, it's more like sleeping for merely an instant. It lives on even when the body is dead. The soul never dies. Our forebears misunderstood death, and many still do. However, the souls of those who died in Christ will rejoin their perfected bodies at the rapture. That process of phase #2 is glorification: beginning to live without any dying process, and without sin!
Scripture doesn't say so, but at sometime after judgment day, the dead will surely obtain new bodies as well. Remember that Book of Life where God placed all names in the beginning? All those who failed to repent and trust God by humbling themselves will have their names blotted out. Worse than beasts who have no soul, the beasts that die in allegiance to the Beast, will be tormented forever. Their souls will be corrupt in a spiritual manner but sort of incorrupt in a physical. Somehow their flesh will always be dying with never-ending death. Torment will never destroy them completely but they will feel the pain of dying always. Rather than a momentary "sting" as with physical death, spiritual death is level-ten in pain and higher without end.
Adam and Eve failed to understand God's warning not to sin. They had no understanding of death. I have explained life and death. Anyone who reads this commentary knows the difference. Some will reject it. I'm just a Jeremiah issuing a warning. Reject eternal death at your peril. Indeed, you will surely die unless you repent and trust God.
No comments:
Post a Comment