DEATH GIVES LIFE

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

 

John 5:24

“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.”

 

Statistics say that at some time in our lives the majority of us swallow a spider in our sleep. I’m not sure how such information can be verified, but if its true I’m going to try sleeping with my mouth shut. While eating spiders in my sleep is not my preferred food, it’s a fact of nature that killing and eating plants and animals sustains life. You might say that death gives life. Herbivores, like cows, eat grass to survive but in the process kill the blades of grass they eat. Carnivores such as wolves stalk and kill cows so that they can obtain nourishment for their lives to continue. I would say, by choice, 99.9% of everything I eat is dead as well. I don’t like things moving on my dinner plate and therefore prefer to eat dead plants and animals as a way of life. I know I have to eat to continue to exist as you do as well. God has set up this system of recycling to provide for the continuance of life on the earth. The complexities of the environment are amazing. There are millions and billions of creatures and plants feeding on each other with one common element, the pursuit of extending their life. God has ordained that death must occur for life to continue.

 

In the spiritual realm the same holds true. We are told in the Old Testament that God set up a spiritual system of atonement for sins. Jewish priests offered sacrifices of animals for the sins of people. Blood had to be spilled in order for sins to be paid for.

 

Blood atonement in the Old Testament took place through the killing of sacrificial animals. Jewish temples and synagogues were filled with the noises of the lives of animals being lost to pay for sins. Whether it was goats, sheep, cattle or birds, the life blood of each animal was drained from them to pay for the sins of the people of God. Life was lost, but spiritual life was extended as sins were forgiven. God’s system worked well within the nation of Israel, but there was a limitation to its effectiveness. God’s holiness was so perfect and any sin so tainted that the sacrifice of animals for the payment of sins was only partial or temporary. Priests had to continually offer sacrifices each day as people returned to offer up animals for sacrifice to pay for their sins. Even though there was great care taken to offer unblemished creatures before the Lord, the debt of sin always needed to be paid again and again.

 

God was not an inefficient planner to have set up such a system. He specifically designed this religious practice to prepare the way for the perfect sacrifice that would permanently pay for sins, not only of the Jewish people, but also for all people who would ever live. His system of sacrifice within the Jewish nation laid the foundation for an understanding of what it took to pay for sin. God desired that His chosen people understand that there was a cost to forgiveness of sins. He worked within this system for hundreds of years to finally bring about the sacrifice that would permanently pay for all sins, the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross.

 

Just as we must obtain our physical life by partaking of death, we can only obtain spiritual life by partaking of the death of our Savior. The death of Jesus was absolutely necessary in order for sins to be paid for appropriately. In the Jewish system of sacrifice, the most prized and spotless animals were chosen for payment for sins. In Christ, we have sinless perfection being offered for payment. While the sacrifice of the best of animals paid partially for sins, Christ’s sacrifice paid completely and permanently for all sins through all of time. Verses in the second book of Timothy say it well.

 

2 Timothy 1:8 11

“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

 

Once we accept Christ as our Savior we have eternal life, but our need for sustenance does not end there. Even though as believers we have eternal life provided by the death and resurrection of our Savior, we must continue to nourish ourselves on His word. In Matthew 4:4 we hear Jesus’ response to the question of proper physical and spiritual nourishment. He says, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Jesus was rebuking the temptation of Satan by saying that man needs nourishment for the flesh, but to truly live completely one must feed on God’s Word. When a person accepts Christ as their Savior, they are given a new birth, but as babes in Christ, they then must begin to feed on the Word of God to continue to grow and mature properly. The death of Christ grants us eternal life if we accept Him as our Lord and God’s Word sustains and nourishes that new life once it has begun.

 

Have you chosen life over death? If you have, have you continued to feed on God’s Word? I pray you will seek God, seek His life giving Word and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to your soul.

 

 Romans 5:17

“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”