Physical death is separation from body, soul and spirit. Spiritual death is separation of the human spirit from God forever. God is Holy and Heaven is filled with His glory. In His presence, not even a particle of sin can stand, He would inadvertently fry it up with His fire! While He loves, His presence fries up Sin. No normal human can enter the gates of heaven singing merrily pushing past the angels. He or she would be heavily overshadowed with a blanket of Sin and immediately be shuttled out. Now, it is not unkind of God and the angels, it is just that no unclean thing can enter Heaven. No human is good enough to enter Heaven!
When the DNA sin-embedded nature, disobeyed God, the spirit of rebellion engulfed Adam and Eve. This gave an pathway for Satan to have access to them and all humans. Suddenly, spiritual darkness shrouded humans. This is why our first gravitational pull is towards sin. Sin means missing the mark (hamartia). We miss the mark most of the time!
Satan’s access to humans polluted the world permeating each soul like a drop of poison in a glass of clean water! Death became part of our lives due to the access of Satan over us, and the Fall of Man. Since Death comes by sin, Life has to come through atonement for the sin. Only One could do it, and He had to be pure. Yeshua, Jesus Christ left His glory in Heaven, the Son of God, God in essence, for one purpose only. To atone humans for their sin and death entrapment.
Yeshua Jesus Christ knew where He came from, who He was and why He came on Earth and where He would go after that..back to Heaven. He was always Heavenly minded which baffled all earthlings!
Now, the Bible tells us, “Sin came into the world through one man.” Adam sinned and introduced sin into the world.
“Death (came into the world) through sin.” Death is sin’s unchanging result. And lastly, that therefore “death spread to all men because all men sinned.” Not merely has death “spread to” all men, but literally “to all men the death did pass through” Death permeates the human spirit, soul and body of all people.
The only answer to this conundrum of eternal Death is God’s Life entering our life. Our hope is in His life, NOT OUR LIFE. In measuring up to the holiness of God to reach a standard elevation, we cannot even come close. The Bible states our best works are like filthy rags.
No animal nor angel can suffer the penalty of sin for us. No goat or bull sacrifice, no normal human sacrifice. (unthinkable!) Our triune nature has the embedded DNA of Sin, therefore Man must die a spiritual death for the penalty of sins. Only humanity can atone for humanity, yet Sin in our DNA cannot afford us to atone for our own sins. .
Human good works cannot attain salvation because we can never reach God’s expectations and we are way too limited. We cannot comprehend even a fraction of the ways or the Glory of God, and those who experienced bits of His glory are overshadowed, struck, and silenced in humility. So our human reforms are pathetic attempts to attain salvation, but of course, God does reward good work. But He wants MORE. He wants YOU, not your good works.
This is where Jesus steps in…He says, I am the Way to Eternal Life. John 3:16. Sin must be judged before there can be rescue out of death. Sin was judged on the Cross on Jesus Christ when He took all our sins and placed them on Himself. Now all we need to do is believe in the One who redeemed us, bought us back and rescued us from the carnage of hell.
Thus, Yeshua, Jesus Christ came to Earth and took human nature upon Himself in order that He might be judged instead of humanity. Untainted by sin, His holy human nature could therefore through death atone for sinful humanity. He died a substitute, suffered all penalty of sin, and offered His life a ransom for all people. Whoever believes on Him shall be judged no more (John 5.24).
The Karma belief system means people keep on dying and getting reincarnated. It is an endless cycle with no hope and no guarantees! They may be born in their next life as a pig or a fly, depending on how they lived or if they were lucky, and good, be born as a human, and if they were bad, may be born as a miserable sad person who had to work their way to be a good person . As we see, in this system, the cycles are never ending, there is no right and wrong. A person may rape, kill, and they will say that is his Karma ..he was destined to do it and it is not about personal choices. So one can see, there is no accountability for personal sin in Karma. If a woman raped and murdered is said to have received her Karma. There are no rights, wrongs, white or black. Only gray shadows with no definiteness. There is no repentance, no consciousness, no sorrow, no regret because they say, it is all Karma.
In Christ there is no Karma, no cycle of sin. Adam representing humanity, is judged to be the sin of all people both present and past because Adam is humanity’s head from whom all other humans have come into the world. Similarly the obedience of one Man, Christ, becomes the righteousness of many, both of the present and the past, inasmuch as Christ represents the head of a new Humankind entered into by a new birth. In Him, we receive the joy of life, and then Eternal Life. Life becomes miraculous and exciting when Jesus’s Life enters our life. May we choose this way!
To be continued
Rita F. Kurian
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