Hey, Calvary Fremont –
Death isn’t a problem to be solved – it’s a threshold to be crossed. On Friday I published a blog where I wrote that there are those in the church I serve who had a family member who was days and even hours away from death. On Friday afternoon I heard of one death, followed by another on Saturday, and a third on Sunday. Even as the sun rises in the morning and follows an arc high into the sky, only to sink beneath the horizon in the evening, so death surely follows the blazing arc of life as it slowly ages and finally returns to dust.
Many see death as a problem to be solved. In a July 22, 2021, release, the University of Surrey (England) reports the following: “Ageing is increasingly being recognized as a set of diseases in modern medicine, and we can apply the tools of the digital world, such as AI (artificial intelligence), to help slow down or protect against ageing and age-related diseases. Our study demonstrates the revolutionary ability of AI to aid the identification of compounds with anti-ageing properties.” Some believe that not only can ageing be slowed down by targeted technologies, but eventually science will conquer death itself. Heady stuff.
And I know why people want to avoid death. If evolution is true, you are dust and to dust you shall return. And that’s not just your physical body – but all aspects of your being. Your mind will be gone for it’s but the collective electrical activity of your physical brain. And what you think of as your soul is but a phantom being, having no real existence – like a gaming avatar. Modern man would tell us that when you die, you cease to exist – you are erased and your life is swallowed up by the eternal nothingness. And who wouldn’t want to avoid that? No wonder there is a vision to eliminate death – for in eliminating death, you eliminate nothingness.
And if the Bible is true and there is life beyond death – either in heaven or hell – those who reject the God who offers them heaven have an excellent motivation in wanting to eliminate death. For in eliminating death, you eliminate hell – which is far worse than eternal nothingness. It is eternal somethingness – full of regret and bitterness.
God made man. Man makes machines. A machine is “an assembly of interconnected components arranged to transmit or modify force in order to perform useful work.” That’s the dictionary definition. God made man. Man makes machines. Man makes machines in the attempt to conquer death. Man trusts in machines and not in God. Yet that trust is misplaced and naïve. Death isn’t a problem to be solved – it’s a threshold to be crossed. Death is unavoidable. It’s not something to conquer, it’s not a problem to be solved – it’s something to prepare for.
The Bible says that the body is dead because of sin. Therefore, death is a theological problem. A theological problem does not have a medical solution. Death is a spiritual problem. A spiritual problem does not have a technological solution. There is no medicine or technology that can overcome man’s sin problem. Medicine and technology can repair the body, they can extend life, but they cannot conquer death. No matter how potent the medicine, how skilled the intervention, how advanced the technology – the body is dead because of sin. The answer to conquering death is not through removing disease and ageing, but through removing sin.
This is exactly what Jesus did through His death and resurrection. He defeated sin, and death, and hell, and the devil, and the grave. Ho rose triumphantly on the third day, and He offers His victory over sin and its foul companions to you and me. No medical intervention, no new procedure, no advanced technology will prevent your eventual death. Not even being a Christian will prevent you from dying. Jesus never promised us that we wouldn’t die – He promised that we would rise again! No medicine or technology can prevent death, nor can it assure resurrection – only Jesus can. Jesus triumphed over death because Jesus conquered sin. He lived a sinless, spotless life, and went to the cross bearing the weight of the guilt and shame of our sin. He offers His victory over sin to you. He offers resurrection to you. He offers eternal life to you. Reach out and take it and…
Be blessed, stay healthy, and follow Jesus – Pastor Tim
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