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I was out with family at a lunch the other day, and as we began discussing something Bible-related, somehow the subject of Jesus and never dying came up. I forget exactly how it came up, but someone commented on my belief that we aren’t supposed to die, and how it’s a new one. Nothing about it is new, as Jesus spoke on the subject quite plainly multiple times in scripture (John 6 and 8 to name a few). Paul spoke somewhat clearly on it as well, to the point that 2 Timothy 1:10-11 specifically states “the gospel of life and immortality of which I have been appointed an apostle, teacher, and preacher”. Paul clearly identifies his job as a teacher and forerunner of the gospel of life and immortality. In reality, this gospel message that Jesus and Paul preached is radical yet simple.
While chatting with my family at this restaurant, it really hit me just how radical Jesus was for his day. Think about it. In John 11, Jesus and Martha had a discussion about the “Last Day Resurrection”. An end-times resurrection isn’t actually a new belief from Christianity—it was a common belief of the Jews of Jesus’ day. So what made Jesus so radical? His reply.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’
Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?'” (John 11:23-26)
When Martha and Jesus discussed Lazarus’s death, she referenced a Last-Day resurrection, but Jesus didn’t go along with her comments. He said something so radical that the people of his day just didn’t understand. Jesus said that whoever believed in him wouldn’t even need a last-day resurrection because they would simply never die in the first place. Most of the Church today still doesn’t get it. Most of us are still in Martha’s shoes and waiting for and End Times resurrection, not realizing that Jesus died and rose again so that we who believe in him would never physically die.
Jesus was extreme for his time in many ways. He called himself a “son of God”, elevating himself to godhood status (the son of a horse is a horse, the son of a God is a god). He told his disciples to forgive endlessly (seventy-times-seven) and to offer to do extra work for Roman soldiers when forced to do a little. He told people he would tear down and rebuild the temple in three days, and that he would come back to life after he died. Jesus was a radical guy. But the most radical thing he said of all the many extreme things he said was that we could live forever without dying.
Two thousand years of church history later, we are just beginning to re-emerge on this concept that has been buried in plain sight in the scriptures for centuries. Scholar upon scholar has studied verses such as John 3:16 that literally states that “whoever believed in him would not die but live forever”, and somehow arrived at a different, more esoteric meaning to the verse instead of the one that is plainly stated. God is reforming the Church, and the result is that we have stumbled across “cutting-edge” beliefs such as immortality . . . beliefs that have been plainly stated in the scriptures for generations upon generations. Yet, for whatever reason, God is now removing the veil that has covered the eyes of His people for so many years, and we are beginning to grasp again the simple revelation of the gospel—that we can live and not die.
To read more on this and related subjects, pick up a copy of my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality,” available on both Kindle and in Print on Amazon.
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