To die a death that lives

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To die a death that lives

We are told by James “The body without the spirit is dead,” not the spirit is dead (without the body)

Jesus offers eternal life, with no disruptions or postponements. There is no purgatory and there certainly is no “going out of existence either by being snuffed out as the Jehovah witness teaches or a soul sleep as their cousins the 7th day Adventists believe.

We live on, when the body is discarded in death we continue to live, because man was made in the image of God, unlike animals.  Angels (who are called sons of God)  are spirits and the bible never says they die.

We read in Rev. 6:9-11 of those in heaven who have died. “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? ”Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

Remember it says “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death” (Rev. 12:11)

Rev 7:9-15 “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands” V. 13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “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 dwell among them.

These multitude in Rev.7 are the ones spoken of previously which proves one lives on.

Mt 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. “ If they the soul and the body were the same thing then wouldn’t the soul die when the body does? God distinguishes the two distinct natures in man. The material and non material. The body can be killed the soul cannot. neither is the soul the body or the body the soul they are different components of the same person. So if the body dies and the soul is not dead it continues in its life with the spirit.

Rachel when dying said her soul was departing Gen.35:18, not going to sleep or out of existence.

In 1 Kings 17:20-22 Elijah prayed for the widows son who died, three times he cried out and then it says the soul of the child came into him again and he revived.”

This means it had departed and returned. not that the soul died and came back to life, but the soul gave life back to the body that died and that he resurrected.

We see Jesus describe the same thing in Luke 8:54-55 “he, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, 'Child arise!' And her spirit returned, and she rose immediately.

2 Cor. 5:1-8. Paul sums it up in verse 8 saying, we are always confident knowing that while we are home in the body we are absent from the Lord. Thus showing the “we” is something that is housed by the body. He goes on to say to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The Lord is alive isn’t he, he's not having thousand’s or millions of dead souls. Remember Jesus said in Mark 12:27 “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.”

Jesus spoke in Lk.23:46 Father into your hands “I commit my spirit.” He is having his spirit received into the Fathers hands while his body is to be laid in the tomb. Just we are received into his hands when we die. Stephen states the very same in Acts 7:59 Stephen cried unto the Lord saying “receive my spirit.”

Paul teaches in 1 Cor.15:51 “behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Speaking of the body that is put in the earth. Matthew 13:11, 35; Rom.16:25; I Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:4-5 and 3:9 – these Scriptures give us a definition of a mystery as something that was unrevealed in the Old Testament and now revealed for the first time in the New Testament.

Whenever the Bible speaks of death in the sense of sleep it is always used of the physical body and not the soul, because the appearance of a sleeping body and a dead body look very much the same. this is made especially clear in the New Testament revelation
Dan 12:2 “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
 Here we see the resurrection of the body described.

So many want to interpret the New Testament by the Old. For example: Ps.146:4 the thoughts perish at death, however the preceding words put this in context, “His spirit departs he returns to earth in that day his thoughts (plans) perish at death.” What are the thoughts, those of his plans on earth, they are over.

Using the Psalms or Ecclesiastes should be kept in its context. Solomon wrote from a human perspective of man on earth. The theme of the book is said over and over. When a person dies he has no more portion under the sun as in vs. 10 of Eccl.9 (used 29 times). This is an idiom of life in this world, where ones functions on earth are no longer possible.

Eccl.8:8 “there is no man that has power over the Spirit to retain the spirit; in the day of death.” This describes the spirit departing from the body, that no one can hold it back and keep themselves alive (see Jms. 2:26)

In fact if we go back to the first man made in Gen.3:19 “Dust thou art and unto the dust shalt thou return. It was mans physical nature, his covering that was made from the dust not his spiritual nature. God breathed into man his life. Adam was warned the day he ate of the forbidden tree he would die. He didn’t die physically but spiritually, this is clearly seen by him being shamed and guilty resulting in a separation in his relationship.

Likewise Solomon writes a similar narration. Ecc.12: 6-7 describes in poetry the shattering of life, that the dust returns to earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Earlier, in verse 5, he writes a man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. our eternal home is not the grave, as people are claiming, then that means we are going to stay in the grave, the ground, forever, if our soul actually sleeps.

One will never read of a soul being resurrected from death. Rather, bodies are resurrected from physical death (Matthew 27:52) as the soul/spirit is put back in it.

When it says “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8) What is absent from the body? The soul; and that is what is present with the Lord in heaven. Just as Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3)

Heb 12:1 tells us we are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses. What kind of witnesses are these? Living ones.vs.23 “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,” (the word for witnesses means those who are able to testify).

Jesus taught that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living, not of the dead,” referring to the Sadducee’s who challenged Him on this matter because they did not believe in an afterlife.

It is these who return with the Lord when he come back to earth. “Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints” (Jude 1:14) The word is myriads and myriads meaning 10,000 (the highest of numbers in Greek) X 10,000. All the saints in history.

1 Thess 3:13 “that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" Jesus made it plain, that we all die (apart from the rapture/resurrection) what dies is the body because the spirit, the soul is separated.

Jesus offers a continual life after death:(eternal life)

John 3:15 “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 10:28 “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish”

John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Matt 25:46 “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

  2 destinations - eternal life with God and eternal life without God, punishment.

Have you ever been so thirsty you felt like you were going to collapse? That is how your soul feels without God (Ps.42:1 David). Only the Lord Jesus can quench this thirst and fill you.

John 4:14: “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

This is the meaning of to die a death that lives.

 

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