death

Dying is the consequence of sin, straight up. Adam and Eve were never supposed to experience dying, but were supposed to live a blameless and holy earthly life in perfect communion with God, and somehow make a deathless transition to heaven. Or maybe God was intended to live with us on this earth in the way He will now live with us on the New Earth (Revelations 21:1). (Why God decided we should start on earth and how a transition to heaven would have looked are two entirely different issues that continue to perplex me.) In any event, dying (the process of decay) is the ugly consequences of sin and is man’s greatest self-inflicted curse. Through sinning we gave up a blissful immortality for a sin-filled mortality.

But what if death, a release from the slow process of dying, is one of God’s greatest examples of grace and mercy? I mean, consider the situation. After Adam and Eve ate the apple, God could have said, “Wow, that was an unfortunate move. Now you have to suffer an eternity of battling your sinful nature and an eternity of dying and decay, the consequences of your sin. Dude. That’s a total bummer.” God could have chosen to let them and us retain our initial intended immortality, but that immortality would have been one irreparably marred by sin and our separation from Him. How does that amount to anything other than an eternity of hell?

By allowing, and in fact demanding, that we experience death, I believe God is saying “I love you too much to let you stay in the sin you’ve brought upon yourself in this world, to let you suffer an eternity of dying. I will make it so you have to experience the physical death of your chosen sin-self so that you can enjoy an eternity as your perfected self, in My never-ending presence.” He releases us from what we made, an eternity of sin, in order to give us an eternity of Him. Part of the way He saves us from our sin is by making it so we have to suffer death. In reality He loves us too much not to let us experience the end of this broken life we have chosen. He loves us so much that not only would He let His own Son, would He let Himself, be put to death for our sake, He would let us, His beloved children, temporarily succumb to death. And this is not a defeat at the hands of death, but it is rather a release from our bonds of sin-imposed dying, because it is only through death that He can be with us again in the way He most deeply desires and in the glorious way we were created to be.