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Tag: death

  • ‘adam

    ‘adam

    Genesis 2:7a  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground…

     

    Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them…

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    4 These are the generations
    of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
    in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens….

    — 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

    Yĕhovah ‘elohiym formed ‘adam of the dust of the ground [‘adamah]…

    We need to understand something here from the original Hebrew:

    Yĕhovah ‘elohiym [THE LORD GOD] IS plural (as we discussed yesterday).

    Note also the similarity of the word for ‘man (or mankind) to the word for the ground: ‘adamah. “You are dust and to dust you will return.” (Sound familiar? Yet we speak only of the bones and flesh and not the breathed-in soul.)

    Adam = man = mankind and is a masculine noun (like ‘elohiym); yet the great mystery of the complexity of man, made in the image of the One Triune God, is also a great mystery.

     Genesis 2:15a Yĕhovah ‘elohiym took ‘adam into the garden of ‘Eden…

    The LORD GOD took mankind into Eden – Man, the male and Woman, which the LORD GOD created out of man, the female. HE made them. (More of that in the remainder of Genesis 2.)

    Jesus Christ, the Word of God, ONE with the God the Father and God the Holy Spirit spoke to the great mystery of man and woman and marriage referring to Genesis 2:18, which in the KJV translates:

    And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

    Jesus said (of these scriptures and specifically from Genesis 2:

    Teaching About Divorce 

    6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

    As ‘from dust to dust’ rings in your souls the familiar truth of the burial of the body, so too ought these words of Christ Jesus burn in the hearts and souls of a man and a woman joined in marriage by our Christian vows before God.

    A man and a woman, joined to each other as one and joined as one one with God: a great and wonderful mystery!

    What is your witness for Christ Jesus in this, o ‘adam of dust and man of spirit?

    Dearly beloved Christian husband; dearly beloved Christian wife:

    What is the witness of the triune oneness of your Christian Marriage?

     

    {a personal prayer}

    Dearly beloved, my Blessing of the Lord our Savior:

    May the overflowing sacrificial love of Christ Jesus renew your vows of witness to the eternal love and joyous hope we found in His blessings of the joining of our lives with Him now and forever more. amen.

  • The Whole Truth

    The Whole Truth

    John 14: 6 Jesus said to him,

    “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

    There’s always something someone does not tell you when you meet them. You buy a house or rent an apartment and they don’t mention that the toilet doesn’t flush right. An acquaintance tells you about their great job, but they fail to mention how they were fired from a previous job. You meet someone who claims to love their kids and discover later how their children have little respect for their own parent. In fact, we encounter hidden truths every day as we discover more and more of the hearts and lives of our loved ones. We are all sinners (and hypocritical to some degree).

    At one time our courts would ask: ‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?’ ‘I do,’ was the expected response. Now the ‘I do’ response has no more expectation of truth than the promise of marriage, by rule without God by courts contemptible to the Law and also to truth. *But that controversial topic is for another discussion. Any two may be married by law and easily divorced by their own will without consent or knowledge of the other. *The lawyers are manipulators of justice and challengers to righteousness, as was so often the case in conversations with our Lord, Christ Jesus.

    Jesus Christ made a claim: “I am the only way to the Father.” What does that mean? What does it mean to Christians? What does it mean to faithful Jews, faithful Muslims, faithful Hindus, Buddhists and the like?

    Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to God.

    Have you ever truly considered the judgment seat of Christ? Considering that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and eternal life, how do you think these others will do? And how will you fare before the Throne of God’s judgment?

    Guilty? or Innocent?

    What is HIS verdict?

    O, foolish follower – O, rebellious believer – O, obstinate perishing vessel of flesh:

    You have no hope without Christ Jesus. This is the truth.

    God’s Righteous Judgment

    2 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience,not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

    6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.

    God’s Judgment and the Law

    12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when,according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

     

    Yes, the Jews have the Law by which to be judged. A few Jews are most righteous (though many are as selfish and ungodly as many of our christian sisters and brothers).

    Matthew 5:17-20

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Christ Came to Fulfill the Law

    17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

    May God have mercy on those many Jews, many Muslims and many christians who do in practice and by the fruit of their faith have such righteousness as exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.

    In fact, why do I pray for these lost ones, even christians?

    Life is not life in our body, as so many feed by the pleasures and comforts of the flesh. Life is life in the spirit. You are the spirit within you, not just the brain and the blood, the neurons and the organs. It is the heart, in the sense of the soul (not the heart of muscle and corpuscle) of with the Bible speaks. It is your heart which is judged and your soul with will suffer.

    You have no need of the further torment of your flesh eternally or the temporal joy of that which is passing.

    Jesus is life to you. Jesus is life to me. He IS the resurrection and the life.

    John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

     

    And a less familiar reminder to christians who have turned from the whole truth of Jesus Christ and those attracted to Him:

    5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.

    Judgment Before the Great White Throne

    11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

    Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

    15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

     

    The Revelation of the risen Christ Jesus to the Apostle John speaks of ALL SOULS.

    Christ uncovers the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

    As you stand naked in your sin before the Sinless One, what is your plea?

    Dear Lord, Have mercy on me, a sinner.

  • No More Tears

    No More Tears

    Each man (especially analytic types of men and women like me) will consider sin and judgment, punishment and grace, in the light of heaven and eternal life. Few will give much consideration to our own possibility of judgment followed by eternal punishment: after all, have we not each chosen our sin knowing the consequence of death?

    Death (the elephant in the room, as an older sister called it) is not much spoken of by sinners or even by the forgiven. Eternal life is mentioned by those covered by the grace of the Cross as a given, often not in light of the consequence of our present fruit of grace. So few christians consider that we may indeed be the fruitless branch the Gardner will prune to give more abundant life to the remaining branches in need of more fruit, namely, the fruit of the Spirit.

    My dear brothers and sisters, how we long for the place of eternal joy and the heaven where there shall be no more tears.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John illustrates a tender scene of those who have come out of the great tribulation.

    Revelation 7

    15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,

    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
    16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
    17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
    and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

     

    How can there be no more tears?

    When my beloved wife died, I endured many days of mourning with many tears. When your child dies young or before you, you will mourn your loss with many tears.  When your life-long friend or your relative of your own blood and flesh and ancestry dies and leaves you here on your own, you will mourn and miss the wonderful times with many tears.

    Yet the hope of the eulogy is that we will be reunited with our loved ones in heaven. How can that be?

    Only through the grace of Christ Jesus and His Cross of sacrifice for our sins.

    Those, and only those, who have place their souls in the hands of the Lord will already have made their place in eternity with us. What a joyous reunion with lost loved ones it will be!

    Many place their hope of heaven falsely in their own goodness or in the ultimate goodness of God that a loving God will not punish our sin with eternal torment and the second death.  We will not see these in heaven, nor even remember the days of their flesh and sin.

    Some, even relatives and near loved ones, expound unfounded hope that death of the flesh is death of the soul – the end. It is not. The Bible and the words of Christ Jesus are clear that the death of the flesh is only the death of the flesh.

    Do you really believe that you are not more than the flesh and bones and brain of your body? Is your meaning of death brain-dead or death of the heart (as if you can observe the very death of who you are as created by God for this temporal body)?

    Do you really think that you are not a soul? Do you not understand that you are not part of the earth anymore than you are part of your bones and blood and flesh?

    Who are you?

    You are a soul, created by God with a body.  Who are angels? Not spirits from bodies, but souls created only with a spirit and no body such as given to man. Yet the Bible is clear that when a man dies, our spirit does not die. The Bible is also clear that our spirit will receive a resurrected body – a risen body – to join once more with our spirit eternal in Christ.

    Without dwelling on the punishment of hell for those who refuse in this short life to come to Christ and follow Jesus in His new righteousness for us, I have often thought of Heaven and how my joy may finally return. It seems that Judgment demands the punishment of the souls of some, even many I love. If I miss these in some way already, how can I not miss these loved ones destined for Hell after I am taken up to Heaven by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?

    ALL will pass away: every body, every soul, even the earth will pass away into an end and a judgment and a new untainted sinless life with God OR destruction in punishment.  Yet some, in Christ, will have no more tears… no more suffering from the sin of this world.

    Revelation 21:

    Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

    And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

    And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

    He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

    How can there be ‘no more tears?”

    The answer would seem that we will no more remember them.

    We will not remember that sinful relative, that fun person who reveled in sin at the expense of heaven. We will not remember that friend who clung to Buddha or Muhammad or ancient idolatry of ancestry to reject the grace of Jesus Christ as Lord. As nice and good as these all seemed – as much as we loved these – there is only one way we, of the new heaven and the new earth will not miss them.

    We will remember them no more, forever.

    No more tears.

    Thanks to our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, God with us. We are with Him, forever.