A Better Kind of Death

We all die. A cheerless way to start an article, isn’t it? As Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “… in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Christians attribute death in the world to our first parents, Adam and Eve. God told Adam that if he ate of the forbidden tree, he would surely die. He and Eve both ate, and death entered God’s perfect world.

Believers Die Early

That’s a strange concept. But Paul the Apostle writes the following to the Colossians in 3:1-3, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” And again in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

As I write, I am breathing and have a pulse, so how am I dead? Before we answer that question, let’s review our basic problem as humans in this world. Our inheritance from our first ancestors was sin. We all sin. But we aren’t sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. It’s not our behavior, but our nature that is the root of the problem.

The solution to this? Despite all of our efforts, we can’t fix ourselves. We always fall short of getting rid of our sin and bad actions. So God took it upon himself to do the job. He became a man in his son Jesus, who paid for our sin by dying, taking the punishment we deserved. We are forgiven by his blood. But God has more in mind than just forgiving us. And much more than simply “fixing” us. We’re too far gone for that. He wants to remake us!

New People

In the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel wrote in 36:26-27, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” In the New Testament, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” He is making us new people!

Sharing in Jesus Suffering

In Romans 6, Paul makes several statements related to this. Verse 4 “we were buried with him by baptism into death”, verse 6, we know that our old self was crucified with him…” Why? “So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” And so in verse 11, he says, “so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

The word “consider” comes from an accounting word in Greek, sometimes translated as “reckon”, or “count”. It means that it’s a done deal. When we believe in Jesus, we die to sin. However, we are given a choice in verse 13: we can offer ourselves to sin, or we can offer ourselves to God. In Romans 12:1 Paul tells us to offer ourselves as “living sacrifices”. We are enabled to do this when we accept the fact that we died to sin.

The Paradox

In Luke 9:24, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” If we lose our lives to him we will save it, and he promised us an abundant life. But if we cling to our own life, our ambitions, our desires, our interests, we will have nothing in the end.

Abide in Him

Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” This is the key to the death of our old nature, and living life anew. We need to put Jesus in front of everything in our lives; all of our choices, actions, plans. Paul said it well in Philippians 3:10-11, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.“

This is a better kind of death. A death to our sins and old desires, and a new life in Jesus. A very loose paraphrase of Ephesians 5:18-21: “don’t get drunk on wine or anything in this world that pulls us down, but be filled with the Spirit, abiding in Jesus, singing, loving, fellowshipping with each other, and being thankful”.