It Is Appointed Once to Die

It is appointed to a man once to die. Some people believe that is an absolute; in other words, Lazarus died once, but Jesus resurrected him, so He either has been translated, or he is still alive on this earth, somewhere. Certainly it is a fact that Jesus only died once, and later He ascended into Heaven. I think that it’s safe to say that has more to do with who He was than that He was appointed once to die.

Well, to be honest, I’m not sure that the rule is absolute. For one thing, Enoch and Elijah never died, so there are at least two exceptions. It seems to me that, if some men are allowed not to die at all, then it is not a stretch of the imagination that some men might die twice. Even if I did believe that the rule was absolute, I would have to presume that Lazarus was translated, rather than still breathing. I think a two-thousand year old man would attract some attention. If he is still alive, then I hope that he will read this and contact me, because I’d love to sit down with him and spend a few days (or weeks) getting him to tell me what he has seen.

Let us consider, though, Enoch. We are told in Genesis that Enoch walked with God, and then he was not, for God took him. In Hebrews, we are told that he was translated that he should not see death, because his faith pleased God. The Bible doesn’t tell us what Enoch did that he so pleased God, other than the simple statement that he walked with God. Considering how many other people in the Bible have walked with God, though, without being translated, Enoch’s walk with God must have been pretty extraordinary.

On the last day of Elijah’s life on earth, Elisha refused to be separated from him, even for a moment. Twice the sons of the prophets asked Elisha if he knew that his master was to be taken away from him that day, and Elisha responded, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” The Bible gives us a number of examples of the kind of things that Elijah did in his lifetime, but the fact that everyone in Israel with the gift of prophecy knew that it was his last day on earth tells us something about the kind of man he was.

Of course, Lazarus was not the only one in Scripture that was brought back from the dead. In 2 Kings 4, Elisha revived a boy that had died suddenly. In 2 Kings 13:21, a young man was revived by touching Elisha’s bones. In Luke 8, Jesus revived Jairus’ daughter after she died. There was a young man that Jesus brought back from the dead during his funeral procession…Interestingly enough, out of all of these, Lazarus is the only one mentioned by name (of course, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is the only parable that has a character with a name—I don’t think that is a coincidence, particularly since the tag line for the parable talks about one being raised from the dead).

The bottom line is, that in general, any given person will die only once. I guess it would be safe to say that it is only possible for a man to die once. God, however, does the impossible on a fairly regular basis, and to resurrect a person from the dead would then make it possible for them to die again. I personally think that I would rather not be resurrected than to have to die twice; I just don’t think I would want to go through that again.

The Afterlife (part 2)

I posted about the afterlife one day last week (here), but I didn't address the fact that some people don't believe that there is an after life, and some believe that there is an afterlife only for the chosen few.

Obviously I'm not going to change the minds of anyone who doesn't believe in life after death. The Bible says that man was created in God's image. I happen to like what Voltaire said about that, "If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor." People have a tendency to think that if we were created in God's image, then God must look like us. That makes sense, as far as it goes, but, then, what does God look like? Is He black, white, or Asian? Is He blonde, brunette, or redhead? The answer, of course, is, yes, He is; and, yet, He's not. It is a mistake to think that God has a physical being, John 4:24 tells us that He is a Spirit. How does a physical being take on the image of a spiritual being? In Genesis, chapter 2, it tells us that we are created as immortal souls. So, our spirit is like God's Spirit: immortal, never ending. But God told Adam and Eve that they could die. In the physical sense they could, just as we can. Jesus told Martha that anyone who believed in Him would never die; but He was talking about Lazarus, who was already in the grave. John 3:16 says that believers should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What about non-believers? Well, non-believers have the same immortal soul that believers have, the difference is whether spending eternity in Hell really counts as 'life.' Some people believe that if one dies outside of the will of God, then one would just go in the ground and that would be the end of it; their spirit is extinguished. Part of me wishes I could believe that, but, to be honest, if I did, I would have committed suicide a long time ago. There have been times in my life that I felt it would have been better for me if I had simply ceased to exist. I suspect that is why Job wished that he had never been born. His wife suggested death as an option, but he rebuked her. I suspect that he knew that his death would only make things worse for him.

There are a number of times that Jesus talked about life after death for non-believers: In Matthew 8, Matthew 13, Matthew 22, Matthew 24, Matthew 25, and Luke 16 He talked about punishment awaiting those that do not make it into Heaven. (Side note: The parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 I think is particularly interesting, first because, out of all the parables he told, Lazarus is the only person that He named. The rich man indicates that if he can't get anything for himself, he would at least like for his family members to be warned, that they not have to join him. He asked that Lazarus be raised from the dead for his brothers' sake. Abraham tells him that they should hear Moses and the prophets; the rich man protests that if one were raised from the dead... In the course of Jesus' ministry, Jesus was raised from the dead, but so was a man named Lazarus... It also strikes me that, as bad as the rich man had it, the one thing that could have made it worse would have been to have someone that he cared about join him in the pit.) The standard argument there, is that those are all parables, those are not things that actually happened. As far as I am concerned, that means that we should pay even more heed to them. Remember that parables are stories that Jesus used to try to make a point. He chose the situations, and the characters in His stories to illustrate spiritual things to the carnally minded. What is He trying to teach in these parables if not that the righteous have an eternal reward, and the wicked have an eternal punishment? Besides, Luke 13 is not a parable, and it makes it pretty clear that people who don't make it into Heaven aren't simply going to cease to exist. Matthew 18 (and Mark 9) is not a parable, and it talks about an 'everlasting fire;' if we simply ceased to exist, eventually that fire would run out of things to burn, wouldn't it?

Of course, one belief that persists is that Hell is really only temporary; that it will only exist until judgment, as suggested in 1 Peter. My question would be, how much torment are you prepared to endure, just on the proposition that it is only temporary; without even knowing how long 'temporary' might be (days, months, years, centuries, millennea)? Further, although Hell is temporary, in Revelations it says that Hell will be cast into the lake of fire. Sort of like, out of the frying pan...