dust you are and to dust you will return

The moment of death for man is described in the Bible as a return. The physical body returns to the ground from which it was taken (Gen.3:19; Eccl.12:7), and the spirit returns to God, Who gave it. And so is man, when he dies, back to “Go”. Before conception, he was not and he is no more, after dying (Job 7:21). I was born in 1961 and when I come to die, I return to the condition in which I was in 1959. At the creation of man, dust was taken from the ground and spirit was was blown into him and so “man became a living soul” (Gen.2:7). Please note: man here does not have a soul, but he is a living soul: he is a combination of dust and spirit. At death, the creation process is reversed: the dust returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God Who gave it. Then, man is dead – not just his body, because “dust you are and to dust you will return” Hence: “… the dead know nothing” (Eccl.9:5). Death is not another form of life, but the opposite and lack thereof. The idea of an immortal soul comes from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible. The Bible teaches: “the soul that is sinning–it does die” (Eze.18:4). The Bible never addresses the question, Where is man going when he dies? That is a nonsensical question. The question is: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14; Eze.37:3). The answer is, Yes, certainly, because “The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. (1Sam.2:6). The biblical hope for the dead is not a ‘hereafter’, but resurrection! And then not, as is so often said: the resurrection of the body. No, in Scripture it is “the resurrection of the dead”. Every religion denies death by declaring that only the body dies. But that’s a myth. It was the adversary in the garden, who already fooled man that he would not die, if he would eat of the forbidden fruit. And this is still the characteristic lie of “the old serpent”. Both, the idea of an immortal soul in the hereafter, as well as the idea of reincarnation, are based on it. Death is the ceiling of human capability. Beyond this limit, man can do nothing more. But the human ceiling is GOD’S floor. Where man ends, He begins. The Divine response to death is: resurrection and vivification (=making alive beyond the reach of death)! When the Firstfruits, Jesus Christ, once for all times, rose in the garden of Arimathea, it was the guarantee that, someday, death will be nullified (1 Cor.15:26; 2Tim.1:10). God will prove to be “the living God” by “making everybody immortal” (1Tim.6:13).

Delen: