Читать книгу Truth for Born-Again - Perse D. Imm - Страница 5

In existentialism of philosophy, death is the only real subject in all human matters. Whatever men may do, it is just peripheral, temporary, relative and conditional. Nothing except death will last till the end. Death turns everything else in human knowledge into nothing eventually. And realistically speaking, the concept of death itself should turn to be nothing after the moment of death, together with the existentialism or the philosophy itself. There could not be anything like ‘the purpose of life’ meaningful enough everlastingly. Once men do not or cannot give any purpose of life to animals, man’s life cannot carry anything like that either.

The death in existentialism could be equal to the death of Jesus in conception and in theology. Both are at the top of all that a man could think of in significance. Nothing can be compared with them in gravity. The event of the Cross, which means the death and resurrection of Jesus, is the culmination of all stories, happenings, and events in human history as far as God's purposeful involvement into human history is concerned.

Jesus put down his life very reluctantly, yet voluntarily, or obediently. He could submit his own will under God’s will because he had the wisdom of knowing Him and His will. He understood the reason, the necessity and the results of his death according to His will. He had to enter the cave of death himself in order to conquer it for the eternal benefit of men. It was the long desire of the Creator since the fall of Adam and Eve.

Both the death in existentialism and the death of Jesus could not be the same if the death of Jesus had not been claimed for the sin of the world as the once-for-all substitution. He died the common death of all men in order to deliver them from death. Jesus' death replaced man's common death so that there should be no death in human destiny any more.

Death in existentialism is just like the Black Hole in the universe, which devours up every star into peach black. Existentialism itself is to be devoured by death at the end. There should be no hope in existentialism. But, there is hope when that death in existentialism is transferred into the death of Jesus. His death includes all deaths of all individuals. All human beings are to be devoured peach black into the death of Jesus, the Cross. The aftermath, the rest is never silence, but it’s “Resurrection!”

Existentialism should end with death, but Jesus shouldn't. He had overcome the death. He went into the cave of death and, never being devoured by it, but conquered it. His victory over death-his resurrection-was the very thing that men desperately needed, yet had never expected. It was God’s new creation of new life out of death; a man with eternal life out of the dust, the natural man with dead spirit.

When Jesus explained his disciples about his own death and resurrection, none of his disciples could understand what he was talking about at all. The concept of resurrection after death was something that couldn’t be fit for the capacity of thinking within their brains, which was just typical for all human beings in general. More than anything else, it is undoubtedly clear that Satan the Serpent himself didn’t know the possibility of resurrection, either. If he had ever imagined that Jesus might rise from the dead, he wouldn’t have manipulated to kill him. He might have developed any other way without getting rid of Jesus out of human world that could ruin the work of God eventually.

Just as Jesus had identified himself as all human beings in his physical death on the Cross, his resurrection was also not just for himself but also for all human beings that he stood for in death. As all men once died within Jesus, they also rose from death in Jesus by his resurrection.

It is really fantastic news that man lives forever by the death of one righteous man Jesus. The truthfulness of its simplicity is the very source of heavenly joy in the mind of the childlike believers. God never called adults. He liked to call them, “Children!”

God the Creator, the Father, who once said, "You are dust!" now guaranteed men the eternal life by saying, "You shall never die!" no matter what, through the mouth of Jesus.

Jesus died for all human beings whoever lived in the world in the past including Adam, Noah, King David, prophet Isaiah, his physical mother Mary and Judas Iscariot, and whoever lives in the world currently, and also whoever will be born into this world in the future till the end of human history. There is no exceptions, no differentiations among men as far as God, who initiated the plan of man’s salvation, stays as the Creator of all human beings, not to speak of all other things in the whole universe. The difference should be by ‘who heard His voice of the message, or not?'

Jesus declared, "The time will come that the people who are in the grave shall hear His voice. Whosoever that hears His voice shall live."

God expects the hearers of His voice to call upon His name. He once said, "Whosoever should call upon His name shall be delivered." The content of the message of His voice is simple and clear all through the history. He may possibly have got bored of hearing man’s prayers. He may neglect man’s asking of all kinds of secular things, yet, He could never let the call of His name go without His full attention. The whole book of the Bible was written for the single purpose that He should respond to the call of His name with full force. He will respond to His name call even from the end of the universe.

The name of God the Creator that we can call, just as we do other persons, is 'Jesus'.

Jesus was given many names in the Old Testament. One of them was 'Immanuel', meaning 'God with us'. God the Creator, the Father of all the living, having been initiated by His perfect love, incarnated and came into the human world only to take the death of all men away from man’s destiny with His almighty power.

The problem of death is the most serious and gravest matter in human thoughts, but as for God, it is lighter than a piece of cake. It is never a problem anymore because He had already paid its full price through Jesus.

Men in the grave shall live, not by man’s expecting or any other kinds of man’s efforts, but only by His words. The whole universe had been created by the same words.

When He said, "Let there be light!” and there was light.

Whatever He said, it was done just as He had said. It is not a matter of what men think or do, or not do, good or bad, but only of what He said, His will, and its contents, its meaning.

When a man, called Lazarus whom Jesus had well known, died and laid in a tomb for four days, Jesus, who was filled with sympathy and couldn’t resist weeping, cried out loudly, “Lazarus, come out!” and the corpse of Lazarus got up and walked out of the tomb revived.

Lazarus was not revived by his efforts of any kinds or his hope. He came back to life only by the will of Jesus and his voice.

If any man in this world could hear the voice of God, saying, “XXX (the name of the person), have eternal life!” he should have the eternal life, wanting or not, only by the power of the word of God.

God called every single person as the recipient of the reward of the death of Jesus, which was the eternal life. God called every name of all human beings in the history including the future till the end of time.

By the blood of Jesus shed on the Cross for the sin of the world, theoretically speaking, all man’s names are already recorded in the book of eternal life. There is full rightfulness of that assertion unless the death and resurrection of Jesus was not real. It was the will of God that every man to be saved. He is calling everyone without any exceptions. The wrath of God will be upon the great Estranger and his followers who deny the message of the will of God the Father and will not come to join the feast God will hold in Heaven.

All men are saved, not by any of man’s efforts, good or bad, better or worse, best or worst, but only by what He said. All man-made contributions, merits and values must be thoroughly denied as far as a soul is to be saved by the hand of God. The man-made Tower of Babel, originated from man’s concern, must be demolished down to the point of ground zero for the souls to live peacefully in the God-made city of New Jerusalem.

Man needs wisdom, the wisdom of knowing His will, which is nothing but the Gospel, God's spelling for man. The will of God that men think is just the will of men elevated. It is hidden from man’s eyes. Being new, it comes as a serious challenge at first. It cannot be understood and accepted until the Tower of Babel, which symbolizes any man-made religious merits, must be totally abandoned in the mind.

Man’s knowledge about the will of God must be updated.

The commandment of God has been changed through ages. The commandment of God for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was ‘not to eat the fruits of knowledge of good and evil’. And the result of its violation should be death in their spirits. That commandment of God was given only to Adam and Eve. It cannot be applied to any men outside of the Garden of Eden. The commandment of God ‘not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil’ had been abolished in its effectiveness by their being driven out of the garden. They were forbidden to come back into the garden. The garden itself had been abolished now. Even though they could have come back into the garden, the commandment of God could not be applied to them. They might have eaten the forbidden fruits again and again, but they couldn’t have died anymore because they had been dead already. Having the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were forbidden to eat the fruit of life. There must have been the necessary step to be prepared by God for men to give up that satanic knowledge and live forever.

Jesus had been made into a piece of bread to be eaten by any man hungry for life according as he said. He was the food for man’s spiritual life, the eternal life.

There were not any specific commandments given since the fall of Adam until the time of Moses. It is imaginable that the human society of Adam’s descendants must have been pious and competitive in worshiping God at least during Adam’s lifetime, over 900 years. Adam must have educated all his descendants with the crucial knowledge of what had happened in the Garden of Eden.

The Law of Moses was given only to the Jews. They were to keep the Law until the time of Jesus.

By Jesus coming, the new last age had been started. The Law of Moses had been closed up by the fulfillment of its purpose by the death of Messiah. The purpose of the Law had been completed and, subsequently, its effectiveness had been abolished just like the commandment that had been given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The commandment of God in this new age, the age of His grace, is expressed in different terminology all through the Bible since the Old Testament times.

King David suggested kissing His son (Jesus) to escape the calamity. The subject of His new commandment in this last age is Jesus. Whosoever believes Jesus has the eternal life. That means; God gives the eternal life to whomsoever believes Jesus. The eternal life is invaluable, priceless and free. It’s the gift of God the Father to His children. Men get the eternal life for nothing, and they must get it for nothing. If men ever try to add any iota to it, it will turn into an eternal carcass. The only condition for a man to live forever is to believe Jesus. Period. Nothing else, nothing more.

The death in the existentialism of man’s philosophy had been substantially and historically recognized in the Bible; the universal death of all man’s spirits through the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which is the first death. The difference is that the meaning of death in human philosophy is not spiritual but physical, same as with beasts.

Spiritually speaking, men do not die, and cannot die, because they are born dead already, and they will die again in the future by attending the universal event of the second death after the Judgment Day. Human life between the first and the second death is just the process of ‘dust to dust’; a dust returning to the ground.

The dust, a natural man in this world, is also the material God should use in order to create a new man out of, just as He did Adam in the first creation.

The problem of death is never physical, but spiritual. And it had been overcome completely by the victorious resurrection of Jesus. He died and rose from death physically to solve the problem of spiritual death of all men. The victory of Jesus should be shared by all human beings that he had actually died for according to the solemn will of God. There's no death, nor fear, nor ominous destiny of eternal destruction within Jesus, or within God. Men must surrender totally only to be embraced by the everlasting arms of the legitimate Father.

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As by one man (Adam), sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned: (Rom. 5:12)

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor. 15:21-22)

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)