WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
We die because of sin. Death is the end of life, not the entrance to either paradise or torment.
The first man and woman chose to please themselves instead of pleasing God.
The law that God gave them was simple - `of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat thereof you will surely die` (Genesis 2:17).
But Adam, at Eve`s prompting, disobeyed and so they both died.
They did not die on that day, so we can believe that Adam and his wife were forgiven. But sins have their after-effects, even when they have been forgiven, and so it was with Adam and Eve.
They lived a long time (Gen 5:5) but at last they died.
Adam had at least three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth.
They inherited their parents` nature, so some time they would die too. Abel had faith and tried to live in the way that God wanted him to live, but Cain the eldest did not.
He envied his brother Abel and killed him (Gen 4).
Seth was a better man, more like his brother Abel, but in course of time he died also (Gen 5:7).
That is how it has been ever since: some people are wicked, others try to be good, but everyone `misses the mark`, which is to obey perfectly the instructions God gave us.
In other words, we all sin. As a result, everyone dies in the end. It started with Adam and Eve, but we all make the same mistakes, and we all die.
The Apostle Paul in the New Testament summed it up - `by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned` (Romans 5:12)
Many people believe that we do not really die. They see that the body dies, of course, but they think that the real personality lives on after death.
They think that people who serve God go to be with Him in heaven but the others are punished.
Some ideas about this are extreme and very crude, but almost all religions cling to the belief in some form.
The Bible is almost alone in teaching that death simply means the end of life.
Genesis 2:7 tells us about the creation of Adam - `the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being`.
We can think of it as a simple equation, like this: – dust plus God`s `breath` (or spirit, it`s the same word in Hebrew) = a living being. Death is the opposite: – a living being minus God`s breath = dust again.
The men who wrote the other books of the Old Testament understood this. Here are three examples:
Job 34:14 - `if He should take back His spirit to Himself and gather to Himself His breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to dust`.
Psalm 6:5 - `in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave, who shall give You thanks ?
Psalm 49:14 - `like sheep they go to the grave; death shall be their shepherd. Straight to the grave they descend and their form shall waste away. But God will ransom my life from the power of the grave, for He will receive me`.
Here are three more examples to show that the New Testament says the same thing:
John 3:13 - `No-one has ascended to heaven but he that descended from heaven – the Son of man`
John 3:16 - `God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life`. The choice is between living for ever, and perishing.
Acts 2:34 - `David did not ascend into the heavens`. Not even David, `the man after God`s own heart`.
I can send you many more examples of the Bible`s teaching about death, but I want to end on a happy note.
The man who wrote Psalm 49 was very confident that God would rescue him from the grave: he knew that some day God would raise him from death to new life.
`He will receive me`, he said. He was sure of being an exception to the sad rule that men and women just die and decay like animals.
Likewise, Daniel said `Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise: some to everlasting life` (Dan 12:2)
We can all share in this wonderful hope.
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What The Bible Says
