Why Only Jesus Can Solve The Dilemma Of Death

I ended yesterday's post with these words about our troubled world: "Everything is in confusion. It was never to be this way. God did not want it this way, but what could He do about it?" We pick up our discussion, based upon a book written by Athanasius of Alexandria on the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

The law of death prevails upon the entire human race despite our best efforts. In earlier posts of this blog I outlined how some believe they will soon be able to reduce our individual human personhood to a computer program that can be stored and retrieved when repairs to one's body or mind are needed. Cf. blogs about The Singularity. At that point, they say, humans will become immortal. Death will be conquered—at least for those with access to such cloud-based computers.

We all share a desire to live. And we Christians know with certainty that you cannot reduce human life to a computer program, regardless of its complexity. But how then will death be conquered? Here is our dilemma. It is quite unthinkable that God should go back on His Word that we children of Adam and Eve must die because of disobedience, our sin. He cannot falsify Himself. On the other hand it is equally unworthy of God's goodness that we who are created in His image be brought to nothing both by our sinfulness and by the deceit of the devil and those rebel spirits that follow him.

Like so many of us, I distinctly recall thinking in my youth about this issue. What's the point of living if it all leads to death? Surely it would have been better for the Creator never to have created us than to be thrown away and die. Is God so helpless that he cannot do something about this horror? To leave us to corruption and death is unfitting and unworthy of a loving and all-powerful God.

To solve this dilemma some suggest that instead of relying upon computer programming and other forms of science, we need to repent, that is change our way of thinking and acting. By openly admitting our guilt and promising to change we should be able to reverse the situation, right? Wrong! It might sound good, but repentance doesn't change human nature. Granted, the witness of Scripture is that the Lord GOD has no pleasure in the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18:32). We may accept and rejoice in that truth, but it still changes nothing. To be honest not a single one of us even comes close to keeping God's commands to love Him and to love one another. No one is righteous, no not one (Rom. 2:10-18; Psa. 14:1-3).  And God cannot change His Word that pronounces death upon sinners. The dilemma remains.

This is why the Word of God had to do it for us. In the beginning He called forth all things out of nothing (in today's language: the Big Bang). Consequently He is the only one who can reverse the situation and maintain the heavenly Father's consistency. Jesus Christ, God's Son, is God's Word by which all was made and without whom nothing was both created and made (John 1:1-3). He was, is and ever will be above and outside creation. One must rightly describe Him as immaterial. He is not created. He is "God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds" (see Athanasian Creed:31). He is eternally one with His Father (John 10:30; 17:11, 21). As God's Word He fills all things. Everything exists by Him. In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

The Word Was Made Flesh

Since He alone can deal with our dilemma, the Word of God came down to our level to do just that. He who occupies and has created all dimensions of this creation confined Himself to the four of our existence. He became a man, borne of the Virgin Mary. He did it out of compassion for us. He was unwilling that death should remain our master. Out of sheer love He lived a life of complete and total obedience to His Father—for us. Out of sheer love He surrendered His body to death—for us. In this manner He robbed death of its power. Death disappeared as utterly as straw from fire (1 Cor 15:55-57). With His death the Lord Jesus became the Victor over death. We who have been born anew of God share in that victory (1 John 5:4).

The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way:

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. - Hebrews 2:9-10 ESV

By His suffering and death He completed the work He set out to accomplish. By the sacrifice of His own body He did two things:

• He put an end to the law of death that barred our way to the eternal presence of God

• He made a new beginning of life for us, giving us the certain hope of resurrection.

Paul puts it this way:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. - 1 Cor 15:20-22 ESV

We still die, but no longer as men and women condemned. Death for us is now a part of the process of putting away sin and death in order to rise again in the general resurrection that will be openly displayed at the time appointed (1 Tim. 6:13-16).

This, then, is the first reason of our Savior's becoming Man. There are other things, however. We will consider them in the next blog post.