"From Death To Life"

“From Death to Life”

October 26, 2008

John 5:24-29

"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”

When God made Adam and Eve – they were perfect in every way. God doesn’t make anything flawed. They were perfect human specimens. Physically, I think they must have been awesome. Strong; perfect skin; perfect hair; perfect teeth. They would have been the envy of anyone in Hollywood.

I think they had abilities we can hardly imagine. I think they could communicate perfectly because of an extra sensory perception that we have lost. Their hearts were created to love. Their instinct was to obey God. Their spirits were finely tuned to be one with God. It was not natural for them to rebel or to hate. The natural inclination of their heart was to do God’s will. They would have been perfect little human robots – except God created them with one ability that was their doom. No – it wasn’t a flaw. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t bad – it was good. That ability was the power of free will. And it was a necessary gamble for God. For with the power of free will they could choose life – or they could choose death. They could choose obedience – or they could choose to rebel. They could choose love – or they could choose hate. They could choose to be free of sin – or they could choose to be free TO sin. You know what they choose.

But why? Why did God give them this great ability and power? It has doomed and enslaved countless people and has caused unfathomable suffering.

The answer is simple – without free will – there could be no love relationship. Forced love is not good –it’s evil. Love to be the exquisite thing God meant it to be; Love to be the tender, the beautiful thing God meant it to be – must be freely accepted and freely given. God created all kinds of creatures that were beautiful and amazing and different – but man was the only creation, other than the angels, that was created with a free will. You see, God wanted a friend. God wanted a being that He could not only love – but that could freely love Him in return. So it was necessary for God to create Adam and Eve with free will. Free to choose to love Him – or free to choose NOT to love Him.

And you know the story. When temptation came - they choose sin – not holiness. They choose rebellion – instead of obedience. They choose death rather than life. And a strange thing happened. Where once their spirits were pure and perfect and in tune with God; where once their natural instinct was to obey God – now it became twisted and depraved. They not only fell from their pure estate; not only did they loose their innocence; but their very inner nature was to do their own thing and go their own way.

We usually blame Eve for the fall, because she fell first and then got Adam to sin, too. But if Adam would have remained strong – it is possible that their off-spring (US) wouldn’t have that twisted sin nature. But Adam DID sin. And so the bible says:

“… sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” Romans 5:12

The Bible attributes the fall of man to Adam – not eve. Because the twisted, rebellious, nature would not have been passed on unless both had rebelled. So that depraved, selfish, rebellious nature is now genetically passed on to all of Adam’s off-spring. It’s called “the genetic mode of transmission of inherited depravity” in theology. And all of us are born with a tendency to sin and rebel and have a self-centered will. And that means we are all born in death because the result of rebellion (which is sin) is death. The Bible says,