Bible Studies
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BY COMMENTING
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
Based on Gen. 3:19f
The Sunday School teacher was introducing his lesson on heaven by asking his boys if they wanted to go to heaven. One boy said, "Not me!" The teacher was shocked and asked, "You mean to tell me you don't want to go to heaven when you die?" "When I die? O, sure !" said the boy. "I thought you were getting up a group to go now!" Even the Christian with the clear revelation of God's eternal plan, and mansions being prepared for him by His Savior is not anxious to get to heaven. The primary reason for this is due to the fact that one must die to get there.
If we could go like Enoch and Elijah there would probably very few Christians left on the earth. If Christians could choose to ascend to that realm of bliss there would be a continuous rapture of the church as people were being caught up to be with the Lord. The Apostle Paul was caught up to the third heaven and into the very presence of God, but he says in II Cor. 12 that he could not describe it for us. He did not know whether he was in the body, or if it was just in spirit. He did write after that experience and say that to depart and be with the Lord is far better. Here is a man who actually went to heaven and returned. He knew of its glorious attraction, and yet even he struggled within himself as to whether he should depart or remain in this life to be of service. Paul was not afraid of death, but he knew death ended his life of service for Christ, and he did not want to give that up. Death would rob him of his chance to win others and build them up to be Christ like.
We see then that death itself has no attraction to the believer whether he is a little boy in Sunday School, or the world's greatest Apostle. If this is so for Christians who have a full and abundant revelation of the hope of heaven, how much more must the believers of the Old Testament have dreaded death? The greatest punishment Adam and Eve had to suffer was not pain in childbirth, or hard labor in the field, but the sentence of death upon them with no assurance with life after death. In verse 19 Adam is told that he came from the dust and that he will return to the dust. Although directed to Adam this judgment obviously includes Eve as well. I remember my mother quoting the saying that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but boys were made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. This is a cute way to make little girls proud and little boys mad, but the fact is, both sexes came from dust
and both will return to dust. According to the Bible the body is glorified dirt. It is glorified by God's creative power plus the breathing in of God's spirit.
Nothing is said in this judgment about the spirit of man. even Solomon in his most pessimistic book of Ecclesiastes says that the body returns to dust, but the spirit to God who gave it. Nothing is said to Adam except that he shall return to dust, and in chapter 5:5 we read, "Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died." God did not give Adam any revelation about what comes after death. God has not given us any revelation either as to what happened to Adam when his body died. We do not know if Adam was saved or lost. One of the reasons that God allowed Adam and others to live so long is likely due to the fact that He did not give them any revelation as to hope beyond death. Adam lived almost a thousand years. Today we live less than one tenth as long, but we have the hope of eternal life in Christ. I do not envy Adam and his long life, for all he had to look forward to was the grave and dust.
Now the reason for this is clear. God could not give Adam any hope of eternal life, for it is God's gift to man based on perfect obedience. Adam lost his chance to gain it. In 2:17 God said that if he ate of the forbidden tree he would die. Adam was not made to live forever. He was made mortal with the possibility of either dying because of disobedience, or of living forever because of obedience to God. Here in 3:22 we see that Adam never got a chance to eat of the tree of life and so live forever. He disobeyed and lost the hope of eternal life. He did not lose an eternal life he originally had, but a chance to gain it by obedience. Man was thus left in a dying state without access to the tree of life.
This means that no man before Jesus had eternal life. Jesus Christ, as the second Adam, won back what the first Adam lost. By his perfect obedience to God he won the right to have access to the tree of life, and he offers this right to all who follow Him and overcome. In Rev. 2:7 Jesus said, "To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." There is no way to gain eternal life except through Jesus Christ. In Him we have the hope of everlasting bliss. Adam had only the thought of returning to dust. Our bodies also face the death and decay that leads to dust. Shakespeare said, "Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust." We, however, have the hope of not only our spirits returning to God, but of the body being resurrected and becoming like the glorified body of our risen Lord.
What this means is that Adam and most of the people of the Old Testament did not have anything to compare with the hope of New Testament Christians. In your reading of the Old Testament you should not be surprised to come upon very pessimistic views of death. Job in 10:20-22 says, "Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go whence I shall not return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is as darkness." David, to whom God gave insight about immortality still had a pessimistic outlook on life after death. In Psa. 143:3-4 he writes, "For the enemy has pursued me; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled."
In Psa. 88:4-6 we read this pessimistic picture of death: "I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom thou dost remember no more, for they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep." There are dozens of such dark passages in the Old Testament, and only a few rays of light that flash through showing a glimpse of hope. The result of this is that people often read the Bible and make no distinction between the old and the new revelation. They do not see that God has spoken to man finally and fully in His Son. They fail to see that life and immortality were brought to light by Jesus in His resurrection from the dead. They read the Old Testament only, and they build all kinds of false and negative beliefs upon it. Those who teach annihilation and soul sleep find almost all of their evidence in the Old Testament, and they simply ignore that the New Testament has made the old view obsolete.
Poets are numerous who write of death as if there were no New Testament light. Thomas Haywood wrote,
O man, what art thou?
What more could I say
Then dust and clay,
Frail, mortal, fading, a mere puff, a blast,
That cannot last;
Enthroned today, tomorrow in an urn,
Formed from that earth to which I must return?
Adam Gordon sees also only the sentence upon Adam, and nothing of the Gospel of the second Adam when he writes:
A little season of love and laughter,
Of light and life, and pleasure and pain,
And a horror of outer darkness after,
And dust returneth to dust again.
Such poetry is obsolete for the Christian, for we live after the second Adam rectified what the first Adam ruined, but the fact is, such poetry does describe the view of those who descended from the first Adam only. This was the worse punishment men had to suffer because of the fall. It was not even just death itself, but death without hope of continued life. Every Christian should be aware of this for several reasons.
1. It magnifies the Gospel of Christ. If the Old Testament saints already had New Testament hope, then Jesus did not revolutionize our relationship to God, but only confirmed what already was. Seeing the contrast makes the new covenant in the blood of Christ something to be perpetually joyful about.
2. Many questions arise in people's minds as they read the Old Testament, and if you do not know that the Old Testament view has been made obsolete by Christ, you will only confuse people rather than help them.
3. Because Christians who do not recognize progressive revelation often take the Old Testament as equally relevant as the New Testament, and they develop perverted attitudes about death.
Many Christians have developed such a negative attitude about death that they are of little help to others in facing it. Studies have been done that show dying people are dying to talk about death, but no one will cooperate. Even the doctors do not want them to trouble themselves, and they fear to approach the subject. The result is that many dying people feel crushed by a wall of silence, and they die with many questions they longed to get answers to. If Christians over come the foolish dread of talking about death they can perform a ministry that is greatly valued. People want to know of God's mercy for all of their past sins. They want assurance that they do not have to face God with guilt and anxiety if they trust in Christ. We are talking about Christians needing this assurance because they often live with a view of death that is strongly influenced by Old Testament pessimism. It is a blessed ministry to let the New Testament light shine through and give them the message that will encourage them to face their final foe with assurance of victory.
One of the paradoxes of the Christians great hope of heaven is that it adds to life on earth. Dr. Jung, speaking as a scientist, said that patients do better and people have better health in general who believe in life beyond. Hope of heaven can help people recover from problems that otherwise might lead to death. Lack of hope kills, and it leads to suicide and giving up. Hope leads to positive attitudes that fight to survive. One might easily assume that the opposite might be true, and that people who have no hope of heaven would fight like mad to live, but man is so made that where there is no hope there is no will to live. The more hope of heaven one has, the more happiness he has on earth.
Another fact is that people who lose love ones in death want to talk about them. Everyone tends to ignore the dead person as if they ceased to exist, and this hurts the love ones. We should be able to talk freely of the dead if we believe they have gone to be with Christ, but instead we often join the conspiracy of silence and add to the problem. Adam faced a terrible punishment when he was sentenced to return to dust, but God forbid that we ignore the changes made by Christ, and continue to live on the level of that judgment "From dust to dust." God likely did save Adam and Eve, and we will see them heaven by God's grace, but it is also likely that they were not permitted the joy of this knowledge. We have the knowledge, and so we have the obligation to live in the joy of this knowledge, and communicate it to others.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR
Reader Count & Comments
Date
The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com. This is especially true with articles that
deal with personal healthcare and prophecy. We encourage the reader to make their own decision in consultation with God, His Word, and others as needed.
This article has been read 412 times < Previous | Next >
Read more articles by GLENN PEASE or search for other articles by topic below.
This article has been read 412 times < Previous | Next >
Search for articles on: (e.g. creation; holiness etc.)
Read more by clicking on a link:Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.