Tag Archives: death

Shock and Awe(ful)

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Theologically, it’s been a day that began and ended shockingly. The first was over modern-day Christians arguing in a blog that the Bible does indeed condone slavery. And on that basis, atrocities committed by professing believers can be excused as “products of their time” since today we know slavery is wrong but Paul thought it was okay, because he hadn’t “progressed” to our modern sensibilities. It was even argued that Paul might have condoned the hatred and murder of “heretics” since that’s just how things were done by “Christians” in the middle ages. The number of levels at which these ideas are so very wrong must exceed the number of pages in the US tax code; I don’t think I need to spell it out here as I did there. How anyone can read the NT and think that such blatant violations of passages like 1 Cor. 13 can be excused by culture is beyond me.

But then there’s the shock of reading just a while ago an inconceivable (pardon the pun) attempt by a popular blogger to justify abortion. Given other jaw-dropping teachings from there that I’ve discussed in earlier posts, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But I think this one went to a whole new level.

The thrust of the argument seems to be (one never knows, given the history of that blogger’s propensity for ambiguity) that since nobody considers donated organs or tumor cells to be human beings, then we can leap from there to the conclusion that abortion isn’t the taking of human life!

So let’s break this down.

First a few verses are cited, then the obligatory Calvinist theologian, to establish that the soul is created by God— no argument there from any Christian. But then comes the non-sequitur: that since God creates the soul but the body is formed through ordinary reproductive processes, then somehow the soul is nowhere to be found in the zygote (in spite of Psalm 139:13). And finally, from this lofty peak is the flight to “abortion isn’t the taking of human life, anymore than removing a tumor is the taking of a human life”.

And this is being taught by a Baptist pastor in 2012.

I realize he’s quoting somebody by the name of Moses (!), but I have to hope that he simply grossly misunderstood the guy. Just looking at the last sentence of the quote, I think this is likely: “I am fairly certain the soul remains with the whole instead of being scattered every place that we leave our cells.” How in heaven’s name does that sentence become “the soul has no attachment whatsoever to the cells until the baby is born”? Though he characteristically doesn’t actually spell out this conclusion (implications, heavy though they may be, can always be denied later), it is where the reader is being led; an excuse is being crafted to give up the unpopular position of defending the unborn. And I am appalled. (But who cares?)

I believe that the human soul is “interfaced” to the body via the brain; a person can lose a lot of their body and still be clearly a human being with a soul. But the “elephant in the living room” here is that the blogger never even tries to answer the question, If the soul is not in every cell, then when exactly is it attached to the body? If not at conception, then when? After birth? There is a push now to start allowing infanticide; if it becomes culturally acceptable, will bloggers like this start arguing in favor of it as something more enlightened and informed? The whole thing does nothing but open up an entire bait shop full of cans of worms. It conveniently allows an arbitrary and changeable cut-off point that will suit whatever society deems appropriate.

These two “shocks” together paint a most horrible scenario. So maybe soon society or “science” makes it clear that one must be a backward fundy to believe babies have souls; since we can hide behind “product of his time”, it’s all good with God! And we make so many new friends because they won’t be embarrassed by our backward, redneck beliefs! Rainbows and lollipops all around.

This is seriously evil excrement being passed (pun intended) as Christian theology. The foxes are truly running the whole poultry farm. May Jesus return today and put a stop to the ravaging of His Bride.

A Life Well-Lived

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As you undoubtedly know, people around the world are mourning the loss of Apple visionary Steve Jobs. He will be remembered as an example of forward thinking, expanding horizons, affecting millions of lives in a positive way, and as the quintessential success story and inspiration for many technophiles. Like most other famous people, he will be noted for his wide influence and cultural impact, and faults will be downplayed or forgotten. He improved the lives of many people.

Now of course nobody’s perfect. His detractors are many and vocal over such things as portrayed in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, the price of Apple products, and the lack of open-source software, as well as possible “Big Brother” capabilities like disabling phone cameras in certain venues. Big success often is the result of a big ego and treating people poorly, as concisely portrayed in today’s Dilbert cartoon:

Dilbert.com

But we need to remember that not even the most self-sufficient and hard-working person lives in a vacuum; people all affect each other. Jobs, like everyone else, depended on existing technology and favorable circumstances: cars, phones, roads, clothing, food, education, a free country to grow up in, his birth mother not aborting him, advertising, and millions of paying and loyal customers— and even the suppliers of his early psychedelic drugs.

We all tend to measure success by fame and fortune, but how does God measure it? Jesus said, “What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or sacrifice your soul?” (Luke 9:25). Certainly the good people do will be rewarded, as well as the bad being punished. But what God wants most of all is us, to be reconciled (Rom. 5:6-11, 2 Cor. 5:18-21, Eph. 2:11-18, Col. 1:22). And if we are reconciled, we should live like it matters, trying to please God and not ignoring Him. Do we step on God the way the successful often step on people to climb the ladder? Do we use him just to get what we want? And how we treat others is how we treat God, as Jesus said in Mat. 25:31-46; how we judge others is how we will be judged (Mat. 7:2, Luke 6:38).

The valuable and well-lived life is best summarized in the famous Sermon on the Mount in Mat. 5, and is elaborated on in the Letters. It is the principled and honorable life that God values, the kind of people we are that matters. The “nice” person who “buries talents in the ground” (ref. Mat. 25:14-30) is not acting on principle or honor any more than the mean or aggressive person. The balance to aim for is to do everything to the best of our ability without sacrificing character or honor. And we must be as merciful to others as we expect God to be to us. Everything will be settled on Judgment Day.

There seems to be a wave of barbarism sweeping the globe these days. People have no tolerance at all for those not like them, yet demand unquestioned acceptance from them. They demand forgiveness but will not grant it; they demand perfection from others and excuses for themselves; they demand the financial support of others but refuse to give it to others; they demand that others be careful not to upset their own sensitivities but are quick to trample on theirs. Ironically, it is largely these kinds of people who were quick to parade Steve Jobs’ faults, while they themselves have done absolutely nothing for others.

God alone will judge the heart and motives, but we all need to walk that narrow road between excesses in either ambition and ego or laziness and fear. The world loves its own (John 15:19) and praises material and social success while despising the moral (e.g., “nice guys finish last” per the cartoon above). But “the last shall be first” in eternity (Mat. 19:30), where it really matters. What God will ask us is how we treated Him and other people, and whether we did all we could with what we were given. The truly successful person will achieve more than they were expected to and without it being at someone else’s expense. Be yourself, but be your best self as a child of God. Judgment Day will be a day of surprises.

When Enemies Fall

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The world is talking about one thing right now: the death of Osama Bin Laden. Putting aside the inevitable questions (how he was able to have been “hiding” in a mansion instead of a cave, why he was buried at sea [was he a sailor? so nobody could verify identity by exhuming the body later?] and why so fast, how we can even know whether it’s really him or just a stunt to boost someone’s tanking approval rating for the next election cycle, another excuse for Islamic rioting and western collective guilt, etc.), this is a good opportunity to discuss how Christians should react to the death of an enemy– and not a personal one, but one allegedly responsible for the deaths of thousands. We as nations have in the past cheered the deaths of the likes of Hitler and Stalin, was that wrong? What does the Bible say? There are two polarized reactions among Christians: do not gloat, or rejoice, and both cite scripture in support:

Yes, it is okay to rejoice when enemies fall or to pray for them to fall

  • 2 Chron. 19:2
  • Ps. 44:7
  • Ps. 92:11
  • Ps. 139:21
  • Micah 5:9
  • 2 Sam. 19:6
  • Mt. 23
  • Gal. 5:12
  • Phil. 3:2
  • 2 Tim. 4:14
  • 2 Peter 2

No, we must never be happy when enemies fall or ask God to punish them

  • Prov. 24:17-18
  • Ezekiel 18:23
  • Ezekiel 33:11
  • Mt. 5:43-48

I’ve mentioned before that love for enemies can border on treason against God, and that the post-modern Christian community can’t seem to identify wolves or even know for sure that they exist. But in the verses above, it seems to me that we’re overlooking some important factors in how the people of God in either Testament are to view God’s enemies. On a personal level there is consideration for ignorance and mercy for the truly repentant, but there does come a point when even God shuts the door and “gives them over” to evil. If we continue to placate and treat such people as friends (ironically, often better than our own Christian siblings if they aren’t as “nice” as we demand), are we not siding with God’s enemies? Are we not loving Satan more than God? So the question is whether we can know a person has reached that point, or even if it matters. Of course none of us is God, but is that an excuse to refuse to ever exercise discernment? Can we not continue to pray for someone while also condemning what they do? Can we not praise God for the death of His enemies and the administration of justice for their victims?

But what about the national level? Are we to be like King David who mourned the death of his enemies and thus shamed his own army? Read 1 Sam. 19:5-7–

Then Joab went into the house to the king and said, “Today you have humiliated all your men, who have just saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters and the lives of your wives and concubines. You love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have made it clear today that the commanders and their men mean nothing to you. I see that you would be pleased if Absalom were alive today and all of us were dead. Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by the LORD that if you don’t go out, not a man will be left with you by nightfall. This will be worse for you than all the calamities that have come on you from your youth till now.”

OBL was not the kind of enemy we have as individuals; this is not a case of someone cutting us off in traffic or robbing us or cursing us. This is a case of the leader of those who took thousands of innocent lives out of hatred for Christians and westerners, and added many more in the ensuing wars which continue to this day. We as a nation have been hoodwinked into blaming ourselves for being victims, much the way Islam blames women for being raped. It’s a loathsome mentality that punishes victims and sends flowers and candy to criminals.

Now look at the scene in heaven when God has come to the end of raining down terrible judgment on the earth in the coming Tribulation. In Rev. 19:1-2 we read,

After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

The martyrs early in the Tribulation also asked for revenge (Rev. 6:10) and were not rebuked by God, but only told to be patient. So here we see that rejoicing over fallen enemies is not always wrong, and that love does not mean you never ask for justice.

I think this is the big sticking point: what limits are there on loving one’s enemies? The context in which Jesus said those words, the Sermon on the Mount, was that His followers must internalize the laws of God; that is, it isn’t enough to have only outward righteousness. The “enemies” in that context were neighbors and fellow citizens, not criminals or hostile kings. Yes, we are to reach out and show mercy and pray for them, but does this extend to aiding and abetting one sworn to exterminate us? Are we not to rejoice when such threats are taken away? Is there no difference at all between those who persecute us for our faith and those who would murder us, our children, and our country?

Many who decry the rejoicing of Christians over fallen enemies point to “black and white” thinking as a fault or lack of maturity, yet they themselves are thinking in terms of black and white as well when they equate thanking God for taking out an enemy with gloating as the wicked do, such as dragging a dead body through the streets, going on killing sprees to take vengeance into our own hands, throwing parties, etc. How can it be wrong to thank God for removing evil from our lives? Is that not a display of ingratitude?

I believe in loyalty and honor, and because of that I see the muzzling of Christians who rejoice when their real enemies fall as “You love those who hate you and hate those who love you.” Why are so many Christians so bent on dictating the reactions of other Christians? Why do they feel the need to continually micromanage? Why do they set themselves up as judges, and how can they not see the hypocrisy in doing so when the charge they bring against their brothers and sisters is “judging the hearts of others”? The job of the left hand is not to constrain the right; it is not the place of any of us to dictate our personal convictions on other believers. Let each of us “be fully convinced in our own mind” (Rom. 14:5); let those who cry “judge not” stop judging.

As with many other points of contention regarding the scriptures, there is support on both sides of this issue. But we must be careful that we don’t fall for the “plain reading” method and miss the big picture. If your personal conviction is that you must not feel happy when God’s enemies fall, then don’t be happy. If your personal conviction is that it is treason against God to show no gratitude for His taking the wicked out from in front of us, then show gratitude without shame. But please, try not to gloat over the “falling” of your “enemies”, your own spiritual siblings, who disagree with you. The greatest blunder in all of this would be that we turn on each other instead of our real enemies. State your case and let others state theirs, but don’t harbor ill will toward anyone who disagrees with you.

The Log In Our Eyes

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I was going to try and come up with something to say about the terrible anniversary yesterday reminded us of, and how we as Christians and Americans have a giant log in our eyes while we rage against others’ splinters: human rights violations in other countries, the traitorous regime running our country now, the immorality of culture around the world. Our “log” is abortion, and this is the anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that made it legal in this country.

But I can’t beat the article at American Thinker today. Read it and weep.

A Life Like His

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One would presume that a title like that would be for an article about the quality of our lives as Christians, and of course that’s the goal: to be like Jesus (Rom. 8:29). But today, as the churches plan to celebrate “Easter”, I’d like to focus on Jesus’ resurrection as it pertains to the physical and the metaphysical, since this most fundamental tenet of our faith is so poorly understood. I will present three important passages of scripture and comment after each.

2 Cor 4:10–11

In our bodies we carry the death of Jesus, yet we also thereby exhibit his life. We who are alive are always facing death because of Jesus, so that his life will be exhibited in our mortal flesh.

What kind of death did Jesus die? Physical, bodily, fleshly, mortal— not spiritual. This is very important yet largely ignored. Mortal flesh is that which is physical and able to die. Jesus had this as his sharing of our humanity (Heb. 2:14, 18, 4:15, Rom. 8:3 [Note: the Greek word is sarx, flesh]) for the purpose of redeeming us (Gal. 3:13—14, 4:5, Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 1:18). And since Jesus could not have “shared” in sin (Heb. 4:15), then “flesh” cannot be intrinsically (by nature) sinful. Syllogistically stated,

  • P1 – Jesus is sinless
  • P2 – Jesus shares in our flesh
  • C – Our flesh is sinless

But the objection will come, “Rom. 8:3 says ‘sinful flesh’” (Note: curious that the TNIV does not translate sarx as “sinful nature” here). And I would counter, “Then the Bible contradicts itself, because it says plainly that Jesus shared in our flesh and yet was sinless.” Now we can’t just gloss over the “likeness” part, which combined with “sinful flesh” means “the appearance or form of sinful flesh”, not that Jesus’ flesh was literally sinful. But the reason this is so quickly rejected by many is that they jump to the conclusion that it opens the door for the Gnostic teaching of Jesus not having come in the flesh at all (1 John 4:2–3).

The solution, I believe, is in interpreting the phrase as a whole and not merely the sum of its parts. “The likeness of sinful flesh” means that Jesus, though obviously in a mortal body or He could not have died at all, never succumbed to the temptations of the flesh (Mt. 4:3, Heb. 4:15, James 1:13). Is temptation sin? Of course not, or the mere fact that Jesus was tempted would have made Him a sinner. It is the giving in that is sin, and all of us have done that, yet our flesh has no different appearance than Jesus’. Even His post-resurrection body was not so obviously different from the mortal, or Mary and the others who saw Him would not have mistaken Him for a gardener or other ordinary people. But our mortal, dying flesh has needs and cravings, and it is the mark of a mature person to subdue and control those cravings.

That said, then we have to ask what kind of life we’re talking about here as well, since both are being compared in the same context. And it follows from the “death” being defined as physical, that the “life” must also be physical. The scriptures:

Rom. 6:4–7

And just as we were buried together with him through immersion into his death, so also, just as the Anointed was raised from among the dead through the glory of the Father, we will keep in step with him in a new life. For if we have become united with his kind of death, then we have also become united with his kind of resurrection. We know that our old person was crucified together with him, so that the body of Failure would be neutralized, and we would not continue to slave for Failure. The one who died has been released from Failure.

1 Cor. 15:3–4, 20–26, 35–57

One of the first things I conveyed to you is what I too had accepted: that the Anointed died for our failures according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he has been raised the third day according to the scriptures.

Yet the Anointed has in fact risen from the dead— the primary offering of them. For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a human. Just as we all die because of Adam, so also we will all be made alive because of the Anointed, yet each in their proper order: the Anointed as the primary offering, then those belonging to the Anointed upon his arrival, and after that the completion, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father and neutralizes all rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he places all opponents under his feet. The last opponent to be neutralized is Death.

But someone will protest, "How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have?" Dimwit! What you plant will not live unless it first dies. And the body you plant is not the body that will rise but only a plain kernel of wheat or whatever… And so it is with the resurrection of the dead. A dead body is planted in mortality but raised in immortality; it is planted in dishonor but raised in glory; it is planted in weakness but raised in power; it is sown as a soulish body but raised as a spiritual body. It follows, then, that if there is a soulish body there must also be a spiritual one, and so it is written: "The first human, Adam, became a living soul". The Last Adam is a living Spirit. But the soulish must come before the spiritual. The first person, from the earth, was soulish; the second Person came from heaven. All the soulish are like the soulish one, but all the heavenly are like the Heavenly One. And just as we bore the image of the soulish one, we will also bear the image of the Heavenly One.

What I am trying to tell you, brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and the mortal cannot inherit the immortal. Look, I'm telling you a secret: We will not all die but we will all be transformed!— in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For he will sound the trumpet, and the dead will be raised immortal and we will be transformed. This mortal must put on immortality, and the dying must put on life. Now when this happens, then the written word will be fulfilled: "Death was swallowed by victory! Death, where is your conquest? Death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is failure, and the power of failure is the Law. But give thanks to God, who gives us the victory by means of our Master Jesus the Anointed!

Our own resurrection or transformation will not be merely living eternally, but living eternally in an immortal body. And if it is our very mortality, our dying flesh, that has cravings, then the immortal body will not have those cravings, and thus we will be freed from “this body of death” (Rom. 7:24, 2 Cor. 4:10). But the wicked are never offered this immortal flesh, yet they too “live eternally” but in suffering. So spirits live forever, regardless of location, yet only the righteous do so in an immortal body. To say otherwise is to say that our merely spiritual (i.e. non-physical) resurrection is just like Jesus’, which would mean Jesus had to have died spiritually, which of course is a blasphemous idea. Rather, the analogy is from Him to us, such that our own resurrection must be physical as His was.

“Death” in the scriptures is often used as a figure of speech for “separation”, whether spiritual or physical, per such passages as Rom. 6:1–10, Rom. 7:9, and Col. 2:20. But this hardly means it must always be figurative, or we make nonsense out of many other scriptures. Context is everything, but we need to un-learn much of what has been drilled into us as the “proper” interpretation. And the same goes for “life”, as we have seen.

As we approach the celebration of Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead, let us be resolved to stop treating the ramifications of that event as trivial or vaguely-understood things. We are not to present ourselves as slaves to sin, nor to battle an imaginary inherited force as if we are Don Quixote. Instead, our real battle is with spiritual forces (Eph. 6:12) and to control “the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16), because it is only when we indulge that flesh, either in thought or action, that we sin. No one is fated to reject the offer of life Jesus paid for.

Of Chickens and Eggs

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An age-old question is, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” It gets used for a wide variety of situations, but today I’d like to apply it to a particular verse mentioned in the last post: Rom. 5:12—

through this even-as through one human the sin into the world entered and through the sin the death and thus into all humans the death passed-through on which all sinned

The phrase “on which” means “because of that…” or “due to that…”, but it was erroneously rendered “in whom” by Jerome in his Vulgate translation, which had a huge influence on the idea that we all sin “in Adam”. I’ve written before about the fact that being “in” someone in scripture cannot be literal, but will briefly summarize. If Heb. 7:10 means that Levi was literally, physically in the body of Abraham, two major problems arise: (1) so were ALL of Abraham’s descendants, such that none of them would need to tithe, and (2) nobody exists as a whole person until sperm meets egg, or we’d have to declare all the sperm of all time to be fully human— which also means that all the eggs of all women for all time are irrelevant (which people used to believe before anyone even suspected that women make a genetic contribution to their own babies)! So scripturally, logically, and biologically, we cannot have sinned “in Adam”.

But “because” is hardly an improvement by itself, as it gives the meaning that sin causes death (which I have argued in the past, until studying this carefully). The meaning is not merely “because” but “because of which”, and the distinction is critical; the former means sin causes death, while the latter means death causes sin. (Some use the meaning “seeing that”, which fits better with the beginning of the sentence: We observe that death entered through sin, and the sin we observe in all of us proves that death passed to us too. In other words, sin is the evidence that death passed to everyone, making death the cause of sin.)

Now before some may jump to the conclusion that this somehow proves a “sin nature”*, remember that “death” is never, anywhere in scripture, called “spiritual death”. Moreover, in the next sentence (Rom. 5:13-14) Paul contrasts sin and death (see also Rom. 8:2,10,13) rather than equating them, and states clearly that some die without having sinned “as did Adam” (and there is no fine print saying “this means the type of sin Adam committed”). And in the very next chapter Paul says that our own death is “like His” (Rom. 6:5), which no one would dare to say was spiritual (1 Peter 3:18).

Now in Rom. 5:19 we need to examine another component of the passage: what “made” means. In English we can say “I will make you some breakfast” (meaning “make [for] you”, not literally to turn you into breakfast!), such that context and figure of speech determine whether the making is literal or not. The Strong’s note on “made” (#G2525) (see also LSJ) is “to place down permanently (i.e. figuratively), to designate, constitute, appoint, be, conduct, make, ordain, set”. So “make” is in the sense of naming to a position, not literally turning people into something different. This would match not only Paul’s use of legal terminology in Rom. 5:16-18 but also Jesus’ statement in John 3:18 about being condemned for lack of faith in Him. So if we apply this understanding to the verse, we get something like this: “Through the disobedience of the one person, many were designated “sinners”, and through the obedience of the one, many will be designated “just”. Note also the change of tense: many WERE called sinners, but many WILL BE called righteous.

It follows, then, that if we are not literally turned into righteous beings (Rom. 4:24, 1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 5:21, Phil. 3:9) by Christ, then we were not literally turned into sinners “by nature” because of Adam. When I consider all the scriptures, I have the understanding that this is all about a change of position or relationship, not nature. If this were not true (ref. Eph. 2:3), what would we do with verses such as Rom. 2:14? It is death that influences us to sin. But how does it do this? As I’ve said before, scripture says a lot about “this body of death” and battling the “flesh”, which has cravings of its own, along with the environment into which we’re all born: a world of other sentient beings, all in corrupt flesh, a corrupt earth, and the devil “who prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

And again, we have only to look for the cause of Adam’s sin to see that “nature” is not it, because then we’d have to say God created Adam with a “sin nature”. He was in an un-corrupted environment, yet chose to sin willingly, without even being directly tempted (Eve did NOT tempt him!). The only cause for his sin was his will or choice, which was not coerced to go one way or the other by God or “nature” or anything else. To make only Adam a free-will agent is the fallacy of special pleading, and still doesn’t answer the question of how anyone could sin without a “sin nature”. And if he could sin under such ideal conditions, what can we expect in this corrupt world?

This brings the number of articles I’ve written on this issue to at least four, but when I studied the Greek here I was compelled to do some “detailing”, and I don’t expect to need to write more on this point. Yet we have to remember that though we make all sorts of appeals and explanations for why people should want to accept Jesus as Savior, the gospel itself is still restricted to the fact of His resurrection from the dead and our faith in Him alone for our salvation. We may have strong personal convictions about how to explain the “why” of this, but we must not confuse “why” with “what”.

Jesus saves— not us— and it’s STILL all about faith alone.

* In case anyone is wondering, I’m not the only one who does not believe in “original sin” or a “sin nature“.

Death– Plus Interest?

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Time to take another close look at Genesis, the second and third chapters. I will highlight the verses I’m keying on:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die.” (2:15-17 )

  • “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (3:11b-12)
  • —-Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (3:13)
  • ——–So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, (3:14:a)
  • —-To the woman he said, (3:16a)
  • To the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ (3:17a)

Notice two important things here: the “mirrored” order of confrontation and results, and the “interest”.

God confronts the three in the order man, woman, serpent, but the responses are in reverse order: serpent, woman, man. And note especially the fact that while God said “Because you…” to both the man and the serpent, he said nothing like that to the woman.

But we must ask: Why the second layer of responses? Didn’t God say “you will die”, and didn’t it happen to both Adam and Eve? Then why the added items: the curses on the ground and the serpent? Was there “interest” on the original penalty?

When a second layer of results is added, we must look for a second cause. God did not charge “interest” on the death penalty, but instead was dealing with a second issue. But remember that the serpent was never part of the first warning. Only humans were told they would die. And since Eve was not cursed and God did not say “because you did this” to her, that leaves Adam with receiving a second penalty. Why?

We’ve been over that before, but it bears repeating: Adam alone rebelled against God to the point of blaming Him and Eve for his sin. He didn’t point at himself or the serpent, but at Eve and God. So he alone was driven out to work the ground that he alone was taken from. Adam alone blamed God, and Adam alone was the cause of the cursed ground and the entrance of sin into the world.

As the Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), then, Jesus came to pay for Adam’s unique penalty: hostility toward God. This is the difference between the sins of Adam and Eve; both ate the fruit, but only one turned against God. It is this turning against God that broke the relationship, and which required Jesus’ death to repair. Otherwise we can make no sense of why only Adam is blamed for sin (Rom. 5:12).

Soul Sleep

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1 Peter 3:18-20

“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.”

Notice it says he was made alive by the Spirit, not in the Spirit. The Spirit is the Person of the Trinity that raised Jesus from the dead.

Who are the spirits in prison? Most automatically assume them to be all the people who died in the Flood. Based on that, they must construct theories about why this would be important, and the implications it would have on the issue of salvation, i.e., the “second chance” problem. But could it mean another group of spirits?

Jude 1:6

“You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day.”

It’s plausible that the spirits Jesus preached to are these angels. There is nothing said about the content of this preaching, and nowhere else are dead humans described as being in prison or “chains”. At any rate, there is no basis for dogmatically stating exactly who these spirits are, but we have more weight for the angel theory than the human theory.

[Interesting side note: At This Link is an idea I hadn't considered before.

"Demons are disembodied evil spirits that roam the earth looking for someone to possess. They are the offspring of fallen angels that united with women to create the Nephilim before the flood whose bodies were destroyed by the great flood. The belief in reincarnation stems from experiences by those who are/were possessed by these evil spirits."

I had always thought that demons were the fallen angels, but in light of the quote from Jude, it could well be that the 'spirits in prison' are all the fallen angels, while demons are their offspring. Very interesting idea.]

But regardless of what might have been the situation of the dead before Jesus finished his work on the cross, the question of soul sleep must be dealt with on the basis of post-cross teachings. For this reason, even though the account of Lazarus and the rich man was likely more than a parable because of Lazarus being named, it will not be a factor in this discussion. Neither will any OT statements enter in, and we must be careful not to overlook the importance of genre and idioms.

It should be pointed out, however, that something did change at the cross. Before then, before Jesus presented his blood as the ultimate sacrifice on the altar in heaven (Hebrews 9:11-14), no one could enter into God’ presence because our sins still remained. So whether the righteous dead before the cross were conscious or not, they could not “go to heaven”.

2 Cor. 5:8

“Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

Surely Paul here is not saying he’d prefer to be asleep, or to look to some distant future after such sleep. The context puts, in one sentence no less, the immediate connection between “away from the body” and “at home with the Lord”. There is no hint at separation by time at all, so the burden of proof of such separation is on those who argue in favor of soul sleep. None of Paul’s statements about being with the Lord, in any of his writings, hint at any great gulf of time between leaving this earth and being conscious with the Lord. Some try to postulate that since we aren’t aware of the passage of time during normal sleep, that Paul is really saying it will appear as immediate. But again, the burden of proof is on the proponents of soul sleep to show that Paul had any such thing in mind, or he certainly would have said something about it.

1 Cor. 15:20-22

“But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. “

Jesus rose physically, in a new incorruptible body. Every human is “in Adam” but only the saved are “in Christ” and will get a new incorruptible body as well.. Later in the same chapter there is a discussion of the “resurrection body”, but the context is about the physical, not spirits or souls.

However, in verse 6 we see the phrase, “some have fallen asleep”. Context tells us it refers to physical death, but the use of the word “sleep” is meant to emphasize the fact that death of the body is not permanent. It says nothing about the consciousness of the spirit. This can be said to parallel the OT expression “resting with his fathers”. “Rest” referred not to unconsciousness but to cease from the labors of this life, the end of striving.

Supporters of soul sleep read the final resurrection into many passages of scripture, but that presumes soul sleep in the first place. It’s like the fallacy of the evolutionists, who must presume evolution before claiming the fossil record shows it. Since no gap of time is even hinted at in any teachings about the death of believers, the case for soul sleep is very weak indeed.

Religion of Peace?

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Muslim Response to Danish Cartoons was Predictable

Mohammed Himself Authorized the Assassinations of Those Who Satirized Him (See examples below)

“Muslims who attack or threaten death to those who mock Mohammed are following in the footsteps of Mohammed himself.” — Randall Terry, President, Society for Truth and Justice

According to Islamic law, satirizing Mohammed has been a capital offense. Here are historic examples:

It is a capital offense under Islamic law (punishable by up to death) to satirize or mock Mohammed.

Islamic law (the Shari’a) is the political aggregate of the Quran, the sayings of Mohammed (the hadith), and the deeds of Mohamed (the Sunna – not to be confused with Sunni Muslims)

In Mohammed’s lifetime, he ordered the assassination or the execution of individuals who satirized him. His actions are the foundation for why it is a criminal offense to satirize, speak ill of, or in any way publicly deny the authenticity of Mohammed’s mantle, mission, and message.

We can expect the following:

Muslims worldwide will demand that no cartoons or satirizing of Mohammed be allowed in any nation that enjoys freedom of speech and press.

Some newspapers will bow to these demands, others who cherish the freedom of speech and the press will resist such political and cultural incarceration.

We can expect and Islamic religious leader to issue a fatwa (judgment and condemnation) against the author(s) of such cartoons, calling for their death for the crime of blasphemy.

Threats of death or assassination attempts will be levied against those who authored the cartoons.

Threats, assassination attempts, or destruction of property for the newspapers who ran the cartoons will begin to happen.

Here are two historic examples of Mohammed orchestrating the assassination of someone who satirized him: (Please Note: the following accounts are recorded by one of the most respected Islamic historians in the world, Ibn Ishaq; his work dates from the 700s A.D. THESE ARE NOT THE WORDS OF A DETRACTOR, BUT RATHER OF A DEVOUT MUSLIM.)

Example 1) Ibn Ishaq recounts the killing of “the enemy of God” named Ka’b son of al-Ashraf. After Badr, Ka’b “began to inveigh against the apostle”" He wrote satirical verses of poetry that were insulting to Mohammed and Islamic women. Mohammed said, “Who will rid me of the son of Ashraf”" Muhammad son of Maslama said, ‘I will deal with them for you, O apostle of God, I will kill him.’ He said, ‘Do so if you can.’” Mohammed then gave the assassin permission to lie and deceive the target of his wrath. Amazingly, the killer recruited the victim’s foster brother, who had become a Muslim. Together, with the foster brother having the victim’s confidence, they led him on a midnight stroll pretending to visit and conduct business with him. On signal, they lunged on him. The assassin reported: “I thrust [my dagger] into the lower part of his body, then I bore down upon it until I reached his genitals, and the enemy of God fell to the ground… Our attack upon God’s enemy cast terror among the Jews, and there was no Jew in Medina who did not fear for his life” (See page 365 — 368, Ibn Ishaq)

Example 2) Tragically, we see that women are not exempt from this type treatment. When Abu ‘Afak was assassinated for publicly speaking against Mohammed’s killing of another man, Asma daughter of Marwan wrote verses of poetry against Mohammed for Abu ‘Afak’s murder. Ishaq records: “When the apostle heard what she had said he said, ‘who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter”‘ Umayr… who was with him heard him, and that very night he went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done and he (Mohammed) said, ‘You have helped God and his apostle, O Umayr!’ When he asked if he would have to bear any evil consequences the apostle said, ‘Two goats won’t butt their heads about her…’” (Ibn Ishaq, 675-676)

Source: The Life of Mohammed; Ibn Ishaq. Translated by A. Guillaume. Oxford University press, Pakistan, 1967.

Randall Terry, President, Society for Truth and Justice, comments:

“If we are going to understand the Islamic mind, we must study the life of Mohammed. “What would Mohammed do?” needs to be the grid through which we view Islamic culture, law, and acts of terrorism. If you want to understand the Middle East: study Mohammed.”

“Muslims who attack or threaten death to those who mock Mohammed are following in the footsteps of Mohammed himself.”

“The best thing that newspapers in America and around the world can do is to run the cartoon of Mohammed over and over and over; in this we will simultaneously show the true nature of freedom, and the true nature of Islam.”

ABOUT RANDALL

Randall Terry has spent the last year and a half studying Islam. His studies have included: beginning his Arabic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; college courses on Islamic history and sociology; spending seven weeks studying historic sites in Jerusalem, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Greece; doing research in Islamic primary sources for a lengthy project comparing Christ and Mohamed. Mr. Terry is the author of five published books; he is currently the President of the Society for Truth and Justice.

Mr. Terry has a B.A. (with a concentration in communications) from the State University of New York; a B.A. from Whitfield College School of Religion; and a three-year degree from Elim Bible Institute, majoring in Scriptural Studies.