Death Comes to All Men
Benjamin Franklin once opined that the only two certanties in life are death and taxes. But the question is begged, Why death? Why does death exist in the first place?
After all, scientists have concluded that there is no intrisinc physiological reason why men grow old and die. There is no physiological reason why a human being does not regenerate cells for ever.
In the mind of Athens, death tends to be regarded as just part of the natural cycle of life. It must always be written in lower case. Its sheer universality or ubiquitousness encourages the Unbelieving Mind to think of death that way―which is the point Franklin was making. But the understanding and interpretation of death captures and reflects one's understanding of life, of being, and of existence. Explore one's view of death and you will come face to face with one's world-view, or religion. Consequently, Athens has a theology of death which exhibits its understanding of life. Jerusalem also has a (very different) theology of death which reflects God's pre-interpreting revelation of absolute truth and, therefore, of life as it really is. Whatever your understanding of death is, it will tell you whether you are a citizen of Jerusalem or Athens.
In developing a Christian Mind we must think carefully the thoughts of God after Him with respect to Death. We must also cast off any remaining vestiges of Athenian miscontruction and misunderstanding of it.
Genesis is very clear. Death is a juridical punishment for sin (which, as we have noted earlier, is the “want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the Law of God.”) In Genesis 2:17 God says to Adam: “. . . 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 shall surely die.” Death, then, is the consequence of disobedience to God's commands and directions. When Eve was debating with the serpent, the issue of death was raised again. Eve correctly stated that God had said that if they ate from the one tree, they would die. The serpent, however, flatly denied that eating the tree would result in that juridical punishment: “You surely shall not die,” he said. (Genesis 3:4,5)
Here lies the first clash of arms between the beliefs of Athens and Jerusalem: for Athens, death is never juridical; for Jerusalem, death is always juridical; it is always connected with punishment.
As soon as Adam and Eve ate, the judicial sentence fell. Man entered into a state of Death. The first and immediate consequence was shame. The second was an urgent need to be covered and protected from an external threat. The third was that they hid from God and did not want to be in His presence. (Genesis 3:6―8). But the sentence was progressively worked out upon Adam and Eve throughout their lives, leading finally to their actual physical death when their bodies returned to the dust when they came.
The death of the body, the cessation of bodily function, is the final end to life upon earth―but after the Fall one's entire life existed and exists as under the sentence of Death, which is progressively worked out and which progressively falls through all one's days upon earth. We are born to die. We are born condemned and in the state of judicial punishment. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism so aptly expresses it:
“All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself and to the pains of hell forever.” (Question 19: “What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?”
The first thing to understand about Death, then, is that it is the judicial punishment of Adam and Eve by the Judge of the heavens and the earth for their sin. That punishment and its consequence was progressively exacted over their entire lifetimes upon earth. This makes clear that Death was not, and never has been, natural. The ubiquity of Death has been used within the corridors of Athens as an evidential argument for it being a natural part of life—part of the natural order, as is breathing oxygen, conception, birth, or the existence of the sun, as it were. But God declares that Death is not part of the natural order at all. The only reason Death came to Adam was as a punishment for his sin.
The second aspect is to understand that Adam's sin was not a private individual act. It was a public act, a federal act, in which all humanity was deemed by God to have so acted. The entire race, all of humanity, descending from Adam was caught up and captured in this one crucial act of disobedience. The juridical sentence for that one act of disobedience fell upon all mankind, for all were judged and accounted guilty in Adam.
So, again, the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.” (Question 16: “Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?”). You may ask, Where does the text say that? Where does the Bible assert that Adam's sin was a public act and the guilt of that sin fell upon all humanity descending from him? Well, it doesn't—at least not in Genesis. The reason, of course, is the self-evident existence of Death, its ubiquity, its comprehensive coverage of every creature upon the earth. Genesis does not state it because natural revelation, the universal experience of man—being born to die—made the point evidently clear. After all, name one human being who has not died, or who will not die. Franklin was right—at least with respect to death. Yet death was not part of the original created order. Death was the punishment for Adam's sin. Death, then, being not part of the original Creation which was declared by God to be good, but being the punishment for sin, since all men die, we conclude that all men have sinned.
Later, however, the matter was made explicit in the Bible, yet in a manner which underscores the self-evidence of our relationship to Adam, that he represented us and the guilt of his sin is imputed to every human being (apart from the Lord Jesus Christ—but that's another story.) Paul argues this almost dismissively, almost in passing—underscoring the self-evident nature of the case. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . . Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's offense, who is a type of Him who was to come.” (Romans 5: 12,14)
The guilt of Adam's sin being put to every human being is demonstrated beyond doubt insofar as those human beings, who have never sinned pesonally, are yet subject to Death, sin's penalty. They die! They fall under the juridical sentence of sin. Paul refers to this, when he observes that “even those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's offense” are subject to the reign of Death. Miscarraiges, which Paul alludes to here, are a constant human reality, are the “living proof” that from conception onward, even before a person has done anything sinful by their own thoughts, words, and actions, we bear the guilt of Adam's sin, and its punishment—death. As the Holy Spirit speaking through David said, we are conceived in sin. (Psalm 51:5)
The Believing Mind, then, has a very different view of Death from that which prevails within Athens. In Jerusalem, Death is viewed with horror, as something terribly unnatural, as wrong—despite its universality and ubiquity. Death is a judgement. Its attendant horror and sense of wrongness is inextricably related to it being a judgement and punishment for evil. Our evil. My evil. Thus, in Jerusalem, Death is an enemy. It is my enemy because I have been at enmity with God. I have broken his Law. I reached forth in Adam and ate from the forbidden tree. I have followed it up with a lifetime of disobedience and sinful words, thoughts and deeds. Therefore, I am subject to Death. It is a punishment for sin.
But this great enemy has been and will be defeated because Christ, the Second Adam, has come forth into human history to make atonement for my sin—not only for Adam's sin imputed to me in the first place, but for all sins of which I am guilty by my own device. This is as certain as the reality of sin itself. Therefore, in Christ, the juridical nature of death remains, but is deflected to Christ. The concept of Death as horrible remains, buts its horror is concentrated upon Christ's death in my place on Calvary, where I have already juridically died in punishment for my sin. Therefore, since Christ rose from Death, my own (physical) death when it comes will have utterly lost its sting. As in Christ I died at Calvary, so in Christ I have risen and will rise. In Christ Death died.
Thus, Jerusalem knows that there are two kinds of death amongst humanity: the juridical and the non-juridical. When the citizens of Athens die, it is indeed Death—the juridical punishment of God upon the sinner because of his guilt. When the citizens of Jerusalem die, all juridical aspects have been removed, such that, in due time, physical death itself will be removed in the resurrection to come.
Within Athens there is an utter confusion of babbling voices over Death and its significance. In the first place, it must always be written in lower case. There are those who tell themselves that the dying loved one has gone to a “better place”. They want to ascribe some sort of immortality to the soul, which, having shuffled off its mortal coil, is set freed from this valley of toil and trouble. Other Atheniens fix onto some elements of the Christian Gospel and imagine that the dead has gone to be with a god. Still others imagine that the dead have become gods in their own right. Others tell themselves that there is nothing after death. There is only material reality. Death is the end. So they seek to recount in memory the person and deeds as a way of “keeping them alive” for the living. Others hope that the dead will come back again, in and endless cycle of existence. They will reappear in some other life form or as another human being.
However, amidst this babble of voices there are two doctrines common to all Athenian mythology concerning death: firstly, all Athenians insist that death is neither significant nor important; secondly, all Athens insists that whatever else it may be, death most certainly is not a sentence of judgement upon the sinner. Search all the annals of Athens. You will certainly not find anywhere the doctrine that death is a judgement of the Living God upon sin. You will struggle to find even a hint that death has anything to do with sin or wrongdoing or punishment of any kind at all. That is definitely inconceivable and unspeakable in the streets and drawing rooms of Athens. It is what Athens would call blasphemy.
These two “infallible” doctrines of Athens are, of course, related. In the Garden the serpent emphatically insisted that were Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit they would most certainly not die. The juridical punishment would not fall because there was nothing morally wrong with eating the fruit in the first place. There was a deeper morality, a higher ethic above and beyond God upon which Adam and Eve could rely and draw. God was “in fact” no more than a god, hissed the serpent.
When Death did fall the serpent had to modify the story. The serpent insisted that actually he was right all along. Although Death did come to Adam and his descendants, it was, and is not, a punishment for them doing anything wrong. The serpent's purported higher magic is still valid, he claimed It is just that death is unimportant and irrelevant. It is all part of life, part of being a god unto oneself.
All in Athens are under the thrall of the Devil. They are his seed and children (as we shall see, shortly in Genesis). When it comes to the meaning and significance of Death, they, like their father, follow the original lie utered to Adam and Eve. Death is not a punishment. Death is unimportant. It is simply natural. It is the way things ought to be.
In Athens, Death must always be written in lower case.
No comments:
Post a Comment