Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
***
Christ Is God
Chapter 43 – The Nature of Death
Before proceeding further in this explanation of God’s journey, we must pause to make sure we understand what death means…from God’s point of view.
The first mention of death in the Bible comes as a warning from God to Adam:
Genesis 2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
Genesis 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
No more explanation this was given, at least that we know of. It became apparent from the day Adam and Eve disobeyed God, life changed dramatically for the couple. And change affected all their descendants as well.
So much for the spiritual nature of death. As for its physical nature, the spirits of Adam and Eve would eventually leave their bodies…and their bodies would decompose. And so it would be for every human who descended from them. Except, of course, for Jesus, whose body barely had time to begin decomposing before He was raised from the dead.
In various ways, the Old Testament let us know that physical death didn’t mean cessation of existence. On the contrary, death meant transition from one form of existence to another. And this is true whether the death is spiritual or physical.
The spirits of physically dead human beings descended to a place call Sheol in Hebrew (Hades in Greek). There, human beings “slept” until the time God chose to raise the dead. Jesus’ resurrection was the first fruits of a harvest; the Second Coming would be the full harvest of the human race. (For more on this, see my book The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven.)
(It should go without saying that transition in this sense has nothing to do with transgenderism…which is madness. Humans playing God.)
Here again is something I wrote in Chapter 37 – “The Inheritance of Christ.”
But can God die?
If the Bible teaches us anything about life, it teaches us that death is not the cessation of existence. If death means no longer existing, then, no, God cannot die. But if death is like a seed becoming a plant, a tadpole becoming a frog, or a caterpillar becoming butterfly. It’s called metamorphosis.
Let’s focus a little more on the concept of a seed. Recall that Jesus said:
John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12:25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
Jesus Himself was the seed – the seed of God.
Acts 3:25 “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’
Gal 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
- God died to His role as God that He might become the angel of the LORD (YHWH).
- He died to His role as the angel of the LORD (YHWH) that He might become Jesus in the flesh.
- He died to His role as Jesus in the flesh that He might become Christ in heaven.
- He died to His role as Christ in heaven that He might become God once again – invisible and transcendent. (It was a round-trip for God.)
When God asks us to die to self so we can live for Him, He’s only asking us to do what He’s done for us.
***
A Bible Reader's Website 