Do
you realize that every human being that has ever lived on the face of the earth
will live forever! No, I am not referring to a belief in the universal
salvation of all the sons and daughters of Adam from the beginning of time to
the end of time. The false teaching of everyone is going to be saved in the end
is a sinister pipedream to deceive many.
But
truly, God designed us to live forever, but to hear the world tell it, it all
ends at some creepy graveyard site. “You die like any animal, and that’s it, as
it was before you were born – having no awareness of existence.” So, the world
maintains.
But
we know that is untrue according to the Word, yes? Do I wish all would
experience salvation? You bet, but unbelief in Jesus Christ for salvation tells
another story (cf. Jn 8:24); our eternal destiny is a choice we have to make.
When Jesus mentioned, you will die in your sins in John 8:24, that, my friends, is the lake-of-fire-in-eternity talk due to unbelief!
If
you recognize the Word of God, Genesis to Malachi, Matthew to Revelation (the
LXVI), as the supreme and final authority on all matters of faith and practice,
and you take the grammatical/historical approach in interpreting the
Scriptures, then you know right well that there is a literal heaven and
a literal lake of fire out there somewhere based on the supreme and
final authority of God’s Word, not our opinion! This is not some literary
(apocalyptic language) jibber jabber but a literal reality in accordance with
the teaching of Scripture, no metaphors intended.
The very idea of a heaven and a lake of fire argues that all of humankind was intended to live forever because these two places literally exist for all eternity! The very nature and purpose of their reality further reveal that not all of humankind will be located in the same forever-habitat when it’s all said and done (cf. Dan 12:2; 1 Cor 15:20-22; 51-54; 1 Thes 4:14; Rev 20:12). In addition to that, it also could be debated that there will be a larger population of inhabitants spending an eternity in the lake of fire than in God’s abode in heaven (cf. Mt 7:13-14). If one spiritualizes the text, then all of this is meaningless, of course, and conforming to the narration and agenda of a dishonest interpreter.
Whenever
the Scriptures mentions death or separation, the context will reveal if the
writer is referring to physical death or separation (of the soul from the
body), spiritual death or separation (temporary separation of the soul from
God) and eternal death or separation, also known as the second death (permanent
or eternal separation of the soul from God). By the way, death may be perceived
as final from a natural man’s perspective (cf. 1 Cor 2:14, the things of the Spirit of God…are
foolishness to him), but death involves
a separation, suggesting an ongoing status, which makes sense with the biblical
understanding that human beings have an eternal conscious existence. Nowhere in
Scripture do we ever read of a cessation of conscious existence in these three
manifestations of death or separation in the Bible.
Every
unbeliever (the natural man having not the Holy Spirit of God through faith) is
temporarily experiencing spiritual death or separation from God due to
unbelief. Should an unbeliever die physically in that spiritual condition, he
or she will experience eternal death or separation. This is also known as the second
death (cf. Rev 20:14; 21:8).
Every believer born into this world will physically die because of sin (cf. Rom 5:12), barring the rapture, of course. Thus, we are sinners not because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. If the rapture does not happen in our lifetime, then we will physically die one day; our soul separates from our body. And we know what that means for the believer – present with the Lord (cf. 2 Cor 5:8)!
Before
salvation, we were under condemnation (cf. Jn 3:18). We were spiritually dead or
separated from God. This is why I mentioned the temporal nature of spiritual
death or separation from God while alive as an unbeliever. Once receiving Jesus
Christ through faith, we become spiritually alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit
who was given to us at the time of spiritual regeneration! No longer are we
under condemnation; no longer are we separated from God, temporarily in the now or
permanently in the future, due to unbelief! We are a new creation in Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:17).
Glory to God! All thanks go to Yahweh (Rom 5:8; 2 Cor 5:21)!
Now’s here is the thing; I cannot prove a word of what all I just said apart from Scripture. Nobody in their right mind is going to say that physical death is metaphorical, not to be taken literally. Physical death is so prominent around the globe that everybody gets a taste of it in one way or another throughout their lifetime; eventually, all die physically.
Curiously, when death hits home, so many believers seem to treat death as profoundly unique! Maybe it is unique to them, but it is not unique in the world! How we respond responsibly to death is important because the world is looking at our reactions to our encounter with a death of a loved one. Do we reflect an authentic faith by our demeanor?
We think we are prepared for it when
a loved one dies; then we act as if it takes us by surprise when the “grim
reaper” pays a visit knocking on someone’s door with a scythe (okay, I went off
track biblically for a moment)! It is quite a phenomenon to observe, the varied
reactions of the saints during the death of a loved one. Some, sadly to say, act as if there was no hope of life after death because they are so caught up in their own misery! Our behavior in times like these should be evangelistic as well!
One
of the most important things to remember about the physical death of a loved one is
that we do not sorrow as those who are without hope (1 Thes 4:13; 1 Cor 15:19; Gal 5:5;
1 Thes 5:16)! This is a going-up time, not a going-down time! There is a time to weep and a
time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance (cf. Eccl 3:4, but
never is there a time for a believer to think or act like the world that has no
hope (that was in our past life, Eph 2:12)! Because I live, you will live also, right (Jn 14:19)? The
most tragic deaths, in my opinion, are those sent out into eternity without
Christ. Our “lost” is temporary if our loved one was saved; the death of a lost
person is absolutely permanent, forever.
Who wants to get used to death anyway!? I hate death! I hate it with every fiber of my being! Do we have a choice in avoiding it? Unfortunately, no, it comes with the living and dying on planet Earth! When you get a moment, check-in at the world death clock website to see how many people have died this year in various measurements: second, minute, hour, day, month, and year. The last I looked; the daily deaths around the globe were at 153,425. You want to stop this death-madness, but you can’t; the only way to slow it down is people getting saved!
With an abundance of death on planet earth, Heb 9:27 becomes the grand central station of the Bible, if these numbers have any accuracy! It makes you wonder just how many of those 153,000 daily deaths went to heaven? We already know, if we believe the Word, that hell takes in far more through unbelief (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Mt 7:13b) than heaven in belief (cf. Mt 7:13a-14)!
There
are two divergent paths for the sons and daughters of Adam to choose from: one
leading to an eternal life-life and the other leading to an eternal death (or separation)-life.
The durations are the same, but the qualities of the durations are not, and
remarkably so! If ever there was a contrast between two everlasting destinies, this
is it, my friend!
For every living unbeliever, he or she is temporarily separated spiritually from God (cf. Rom 6:23; Eph 2:1-2; 4:18) and is in a state of condemnation (Jn 3:18, 36). Should an unbeliever physically die (Rom 5:12; Heb 9:27) in that spiritual state of unbelief or condemnation, he or she will, after the great white throne judgment, experience eternal death (also called the second death) or eternal separation from God along with eternal torment in the lake of fire (Rev 20:11-15).
The most terrifying
phrase in all of Scripture is the wrath of God (cf. Mt 10:28). To be the object of His wrath
has horrendous consequences. Praise be to God
that no believer will ever experience the wrath of God (cf. Rom 5:9; 1 Thes 1:10; 5:9; please contrast: Jn 3:36; Rom 1:18; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; Rev 6:17;
19:15)!
This specific phrase, the
wrath of God, occurs in other places but only once in John’s
gospel account in Jn 3:36. Wrath (Grk., orge) is controlled violent
passion. Included in this phrase are the ideas of “punishment, retribution, vengeance,
anger, indignation, justified, warranted.” I love the fact that God so loved the world and the wrath of God that both absolute truths are residing in the
same chapter in the book of John. What is the implication of that?
Well, it is this; the Holy Spirit through John reveals that there is no conflict between love and wrath in the nature of God. Admittedly, this is a weak argument based simply on location. Theologically, however, there has never been and never will be any tension among any of His attributes. His attribute of eternal immutability argues for the consistency of the unity of all of Yahweh’s perfections or attributes. So, that truth exposes the heresy claiming that the God of the Old Testament is different than in the New Testament. It has something to do with a mistaken view of wrath (OT) versus love (NT).
But
Yahweh’s eternal attribute of unchangeableness or immutability (cf. Mal 3:6)
reveals that there can be no distinctions between the God of the OT and the God
of the NT. The only difference is found in the error of the spiritually blinded mind of the
natural or sensual man who does not have the Holy Spirit living within his or
her heart (1 Cor 2:14; Jude 1:19). Such spurious postulations have no fear of God!
I
truly invite my reader to vet the opinion of the natural or sensual man and the
supernatural or spiritual man (having the Holy Spirit within me) to see who is
in agreement with Scripture. There is a problem, however. Since the natural man
cannot receive or know the things of the Spirit of God because they are
spiritually discerned, such discernment requires that the Holy Spirit be living
within the heart!
So, if you are truly concerned, you will have to search the Scriptures, not listen to the false teachers to see if what I am telling you is
correct or not. To go apples for apples, you will have to use the
grammatical/historical approach to Scripture. The conclusion of the title of
this article is no (cf. 1 Cor 6:9-10; Rev 20:15; 21:8)! Every son and daughter of Adam will live forever, but not
everyone will enter into heaven (cf. Mt 7:21-22). Regrettably, many will spend an eternity in the fiery lake because of their personal failure to believe in Jesus Christ.
The
existence of heaven and the lake of fire rule out any notion about universal
salvation. A man or woman who goes out into eternity without Christ is willfully choosing the lake of fire over the glory and splendor of heaven (cf.
Mt 25:41). Yahweh does not choose for you to go there (cf. Jn 3:16); you volunteer to go and to perish for all eternity.
Where
is your eternal habitat going to be, really? Personally, I would not trust in
an experience that never changed my life. If the Holy Spirit does not
live within you, based on the authority of the Scriptures, I know precisely
where you are going to spend eternity (cf. Rom 8:9; Jn 14:6; 1 Jn 5:12)! It
ain’t rocket science, my dear reader; it ain’t rocket science at all. Unbelief
will get you killed for all eternity; belief in Jesus will set you free from that
mess! <><
For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Rom 10:13).
