Under the Old Covenant, death meant "not life" (obviously), but it also meant separation from the blessings of God, separation from the Promised land and separation from the people of God. For the Jew, this was a huge issue. For the Old Covenant people of God, all of the blessings for obedience were physical, therefore going into death meant separation from all of that. Death was the scary unknown and was the ultimate sign of covenantal disobedience.
But this is no longer the case.
Now that the Old Covenant has passed away, under the New Covenant, with death having been defeated, we no longer need fear death. Our life can transpire in a wide variety of ways. Long or short, healthy or sick, rich or poor. The important and defining factor is that of love. Did we strive to love God and love neighbor? In our love for God, we seek to put away those things that draw us away from Him and embrace and practice those things that move us toward him and make us more like Christ.
The fact of physical death should be, in the mind of the Christian, a non issue. We will physically die, but to do so is merely to pass from this short life into eternity with Christ. And we also have eternal life, in a sinless eternity, in a physical, perfected body, forever in the presence of our loving God. This is a win/win situation for us. We learn to live out a short, physical life, striving after a loving relationship with God, only to pass into eternity and a blessed future, with that same loving God. Death is irrelevant.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
The meaning of death
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