The Abolition of Death
Death is quite simple. It’s separation. Really, that’s all it is. In the physical sense, death is the separation of your soul from your body; while in the spiritual sense, death is the separation of you (your soul) from God. That’s all that death is: simple. Though the consequences of death are not.
In The Beginning God
Long before any corporeal or abstract creation, the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) eternally existed as perfect, and in Their perfection there existed infinite happiness and life expressed in Their own persons and community. Never broken, never-ending, never less than perfect are their attributes with no need for anyone or anything. This is our ultimate model of living.
Yet even with no actual needs They created the material universe with all of its celestial bodies and abstract concepts; bringing time, gravity, and the like to motion for Their own glory. In the final act of creation, living beings are made and at their zenith- mankind. Created in the image of God and designed to glorify Him, humans were made fully, eternally alive. There was no such thing as death because there was no such thing as separation from God. Death is not a consequence of nature, but a consequence of sin.
When Adam and Eve bit the fruit of the garden they created sin, which consequently created spiritual death, which consequently created physical death. The problem in our dying isn’t health ailments and old age, it’s a heart firmly attached to eternity but severed to God.
In My Time Of Dying
Adam and Eve’s sin was preceded by longing.
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” — Genesis 3:6
Satan’s conversation with Eve was intended to cause doubt not only in the word of the Lord God but also to claim that God and His provision to them were not satisfactory. Perfect joy, perfect life, perfect image-bearers. But death lustfully danced in their eyes as Satan promised that the fruit would allegedly take them from image-bearers of God to His peerage.
The fruit delighted their eyes, they coveted it for knowledge. Even then, humanity’s desires were betraying. Adam and Eve saw something shiny and ate it as curious toddler’s find themselves in harms way due to parentally defiant greed. This is the human condition in its truest form- separation from God due to Adam and Eve’s desires and perpetually finding ourselves desiring the same. We invented death.
Abolition
All men physically die because they are sinners, but sinless Jesus chose to physically die as a substitution for all mankind’s sins. Three days later He rose again, laying down and taking up His life by His own power, killing death.
“and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” — 2 Timothy 1:10
The senses of life and death found in 2 Timothy 1:10 refer themselves in both present and future tense. This means that Jesus wiped out present and future death (separation) by bringing us through the gospel present and future life. No more do we die forever as Jesus paid for our separation by His blood, mediating between us and The Father. But this future life doesn’t need a refill, as it is incorruptible.
Jesus gives us life that is so perfect, so complete, that we have not the power or the authority to taint it even an iota. Noted professor of the Bible and commentator Johann Peter Lange in his commentary on 2nd Timothy says that
Life, on the other hand, is that true, spiritual life, which is perfectly identical with the highest happiness, is enjoyed, indeed, this side the grave, is not destroyed by death, and is perfected beyond.¹
Jesus has replaced our permanent separation from God with permanent togetherness that is to be enjoyed. That is how the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is by reveling in Christ to the point of satisfaction that protects us from the small moments of death we bring upon ourselves in sin.
- Lange, J. P., Schaff, P., & van Oosterzee, J. J. (2008). A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: 1 & 2 Timothy. (E. A. Washburn & E. Harwood, Trans.) (p. 86). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
