Life in Christ

Why do we die?

Death reigns

The idiom: ‘The black camel, death, kneels once at each door and each mortal must mount to return nevermore’ is to tell us that death is inevitable. The whole earth is pock-marked by graves. We cannot escape it. The world data recorded 55.51m people died in 2017-18¹. That is shocking, it’s like the whole population of United Kingdom.

Now the question comes to mind. Why do people have to die? How is it that death reigns in the world? Whether you are old or young, poor or rich, death will knock at your door one day in your life.

Life – a gift from God

I am not going to talk about death today. Rather I will share about life that is a gift from God.

The passage I am sharing today is to follow the teachings of Apostle Paul who explains that the deed of one man can affect many. That’s the primary principle. In my previous blog I shared that Christ has justified all those who come to Him in faith. Christ has reversed man’s lostness.

The inevitable question is how can the action of one man affects so many. Why does Apostle Paul say that every man is sinful, every man is lost, every man is doomed, damned and condemned to judgement? Then Jesus comes along, does this thing on the cross; died and rose again and all men can now be justified.

The answer lies in Roman 5 verses 12 to 21⁴ where Paul gives a comparison of Adam and Christ.

Adam was the first man created by God, he was the head of creations, he was a real man, he was not the product of evolution, he was not a mythical character or symbolic character in a story book, he was a real person, the first man. He was appointed as the representative of the human race. He was created and was given the role of caretaker of the whole of creation.

Adam succumbed to sin and disobeyed the instruction of his maker.

Through his disobedience, sin as an entity, entered the world. Through his sin, the whole world became subjected to fall and became exposed to death. When Adam sinned, he fell into corruption and guilt. He was indicted to die.

Apostle Paul sums it all in verse 19, hence, because of the action of one man, Adam, sin affected the whole human race, with the same token, Christ did in one act and affected many. Through Jesus Christ, all man can be reconciled to God just as through Adam all men were alienated from God.

Adam is analogous to Christ only in the sense that one man could affect so many with their actions. Everything else about the analogy is an opposite. In Adam we have sin and condemnation and death. 

In Christ we have obedience, righteousness and life.

When Adam sinned, the sin principle, the corrupt decaying principle of sin entered the human stream. Just like Adam passed on to his posterity his physical features, he passed on the corrupting principle of sin. Sin entered the human stream. And in his loins was the seed that would bring forth every human life. When he was polluted, it guaranteed that everybody born out of his loins would be polluted.

Death does not come because we commit sins, but because we bear in us the sin principle. Constitutionally we sin because of Adam sin and with it its penalty, death. That is why death is in the world, we are born to die. We have inherited a principle, a disposition, a state of existence. We call it in theology, total depravity.

Just to recap, we are not sinners because we have sinned.

We are sinners because we have inherited the corrupt nature. How do we know that? Well what happens when a little baby die? Have he or she committed any act of sin or rejected God? No, but the baby died. Why did the baby die? Because constitutionally the baby had inherited the sin of the First Adam and inherited the sin principle and with it and its penalty, which is death. That is why death is in the world, we are born to die.

To follow:

In my next blog I would like to share the three kinds of death that Paul is referring to in this passage: spiritual death, physical death and eternal death and the wonderful grace that brings reconciliation with God and redeem our place of sonship with God.

happy reading...

I attach this chart for summary:

Timeline

4000 BC	1446 BC	30 – 33 BC
God creates Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:24-302) Disobedience of one man - Adam	Ten Commandments given at Mt Sinai (Exodus 20:1-173) Law to make amends with man’s obedience	Jesus crucified and Resurrected (John 194) Perfect Obedience of one Man God - Christ
Death in Adam – Life in Christ (Romans 5:12-215)
Ø Death Ø Condemnation to all Ø  Sin reigned unto death		Ø Reign in life Ø Gift of righteousness Ø  Grace reigned through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord

King David with a humbling heart, prayed:

Psalm 51:

¹Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

² Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

⁴ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightiest be justified when thou speak, and be clear when thou judge.

⁵ Behold, I was sharp in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁶ Behold, thou desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸ Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

⁹ Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

¹² Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Bibliography:

1.       https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death

2.      Genesis 1:24-30 English Standard Version (ESV)

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 

²⁵ And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man^[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

 ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

3.      Exodus 20 English Standard Version (ESV)

The Ten Commandments

And God spoke all these words, saying,

² “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

³ “You shall have no other gods before^[a] me.

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 

⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 

⁶ but showing steadfast love to thousands^[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

⁷ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

⁹ Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 

¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

 ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

¹² “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³ “You shall not murder.^[c]

¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵ “You shall not steal.

¹⁶ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

¹⁷ “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”

4.      John 19 English Standard Version (ESV)

Jesus Delivered to Be Crucified

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

 ² And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 

³ They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 

⁴ Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” 

⁵ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 

⁶ When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” 

⁷ The Jews^[a] answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 

⁸ When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 

⁹ He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 

¹⁰ So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 

¹¹ Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

¹² From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 

¹³ So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic^[b] Gabbatha. 

¹⁴ Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.^[c] He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” 

¹⁵ They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

 ¹⁶ So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

The Crucifixion

So they took Jesus, ¹⁷ and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 

¹⁸ There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 

¹⁹ Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 

²⁰ Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 

²¹ So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’”

 ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

²³ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic.^[d] But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 

²⁴ so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfil the Scripture which says,“They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So, the soldiers did these things,

 ²⁵ but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 

²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 

²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

The Death of Jesus

²⁸ After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.” 

²⁹ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.

 ³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus' Side Is Pierced

³¹ Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 

³² So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 

³³ But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 

³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 

³⁵ He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 

³⁶ For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 

³⁷ And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

Jesus Is Buried

³⁸ After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So, he came and took away his body. 

³⁹ Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus^[e] by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds^[f] in weight. 

⁴⁰ So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 

⁴¹ Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 

⁴² So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

5.      Romans 5:12-21 English Standard Version (ESV)

Death in Adam, Life in Christ

¹² Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men^[a] because all sinned— 

¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 

¹⁴ Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 

¹⁶ And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 

¹⁷ For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass^[b] led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness^[c] leads to justification and life for all men. 

¹⁹ For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 

²⁰ Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 

²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.