"the power of an endless life"
(Heb. 7: 16)
In this chapter we will continue our look at how the believer is the one who is the truly mighty, powerful, and strong. We will focus upon what the Hebrews writer called "the power (dunamis) of an endless life."
In checking the commentaries I could not find many who explained in detail what is involved in "the power of an endless life." Again we have another Genitive. Does the text mean "the power which is endless life"? Or, "the power that comes from an endless life"? Or, "the power unto endless life"? The scriptures speak of "the power of death" (Heb. 2: 14), of the grave, of mortality, of decay and corruption. But, if death be a power then so too is life. The text above speaks of the power of life, yea of immortality and eternal life. There is power in life and immense power in "endless life," being the energy or "life force" of indissoluble life. In contrast to "the power of an endless and indestructible life" there is "the impotence of mortal life."
Power (dunamis) refers especially to intrinsic power or inherent ability, the power or ability to carry out some function, the potential for functioning in some way. Thus, "the power of an endless life" involves inherent powers that belong to immortals. We can well join together the idea of "power of an endless life" with "powers of the age to come." (Heb. 6: 5) The power of immortality involves having "powers" and abilities that one would expect immortals to have. It involves being free of the limits of mortality.
Immortality
"Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life." (Rom. 2: 6-7)
Believers are they who "by patient (enduring) continuance in well doing" seek "for glory and honor," and they seek it not from men or from the world and its elite, but seek rather for that recognition and approval that comes from God alone. The seeker after God is he who shall be given "immortality" and "eternal life." They will certainly find God who seek him with the whole heart, and this because of the promise of Christ who said, "seek and you shall find." (Matt. 7: 7-8) Of the believer it may be said: "He asked life of you, and you gave it him, even length of days for ever and ever." (Psa. 21: 4)
Men who live without hope and promise of immortality attempt to find other ways of obtaining some semblance of it. Wrote the Psalmist:
"They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceases for ever:) That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption. For he sees that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abides not: he is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah." (Psa. 49: 6-15)
Notice how the people who are the subject of this text are they who "trust in their wealth" and who brag about their riches, power, yea, of their elite elevated status in the world. They know that they will one day die, just as the poor fool, even though they try to put death and mortality out of their minds as a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance that the thought produces, purposely deceiving themselves into "thinking that their houses" and their "dwelling places" will "continue forever," lasting "to all generations," and such thinking manifests itself in careless and dangerous living.
They know that they cannot take their wealth with them to the afterlife (if they believe in any). They know that they will also soon be forgotten. Generations will pass and few, if any, will know of the power and greatness of the rich man. This troubles the high minded rich elite. They don't want to be forgotten. They want their names at least to be immortal even if they themselves never will be. This is why they name lands, buildings, streets, monuments, etc. after themselves. It is a way for them to have a kind of immortality, or to become "immortalized." They build "memorials" to their memories, to their greatness. They think that in this way they will live forever, at least in history.
Not all "immortalizing" is of such a nature, however. Think of all the people mentioned in the bible and the stories about them. By their being in the Bible they have been immortalized. So we read of Abel:
"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaks." (Heb. 11: 4)
The bloody sacrifice of the lamb by Abel is remembered to this day because of its inclusion in the holy scriptures. Though dead he speaks! A kind of life after death, a kind of immortality.
Notice how the Psalmist says that "the upright," those who are righteous in Christ, will "have dominion over them in the morning," meaning in the morning of the age to come, in the morning of the resurrection, in the morning of the new day. Though the infidel elite had tyrannical dominion over the poor, including believers, in their lives, yet in the coming day all will be reversed and the poor powerless believer will have dominion over the unbelievers.
"But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (II Tim. 1: 10)
If one wants to know the answer to the problem of death, to know about eternal life and immortality, then there is no other place to obtain that knowledge except through the gospel revelation, the light of knowledge of Christ. The gospel reveals the cure for mortality. Christ's conquering of death by his resurrection is the remedy. The gospel informs of his victory over sin and death. It also points men to the way in which they can themselves be saved from death and mortality, as we have already spoken. The gospel not only informs of the definition of life and immortality but illuminates the way to obtain it. "The wages of sin is death," says the apostle, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 6: 23)
Immortality of the Soul?
"That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen." (I Tim. 6: 14-16)
Who has immortality? How came they to be immortal? There is a sense in which God alone has both life and immortality. On the words "who only has immortality" Gill wrote:
"Angels are immortal, and so are the souls of men, and so will be the bodies of men after the resurrection; but then neither of these have immortality of themselves, they have it from God; who only has it, of himself, originally, essentially, and inderivatively." (Commentary)
Further, the text above may be interpreted not as saying "God alone has immortality" but as saying "God alone has immortality in the unapproachable light," his immortality being unique to him as God and Creator.
There has long been a division among bible believers about what is called "the immortality of the soul," the idea that all human beings have an immortal soul, or an eternal existence. Many affirm that immortality is not, in any sense, possessed by any other than they to whom God will give it, either in conversion, or in the resurrection, or in both. Why do believers seek immortality and eternal life if they already have it? That is the question pointedly asked by those believing in "conditional immortality." All immortality, for both body and soul (or spirit), is a gift for believers only, say the advocates of this view. Though I do not want to address that point in much detail in this series, as it is somewhat outside the scope of our study (on "status" in Corinthians), yet I will offer a few observations.
Death, like destruction and perishing, in the bible, never denotes annihilation. The bible record pictures dead people as still consciously alive in soul or spirit after the death of the body. Death in the bible is defined as the spirit's exiting the body (James 2: 26), the body becoming dead when the spirit departs the body. The adverse is not a fact, that is, the body does not leave the spirit so that the spirit becomes dead. The spirit does not die as the body dies. Further, in neither case, with body or with spirit, does death denote non existence or annihilation of being. Notice the description of Hell's occupants in this passage:
"Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirs up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?" (Isa. 14: 9-10)
These are they whom Peter called "spirits in prison." (I Peter 3: 19) Notice that "the dead" in "Hell" are able to think and "speak." This description of the inhabitants of Hell shows conscious existence. They are "alive" in that sense and that sense only. In all other respects they are dead. Wrote Thomas Boston in his well known work "Human Nature in its Fourfold State" (here):
"Destroyed indeed they shall be– but their destruction will be an everlasting destruction (2 Thess 1:9); a destruction of their well-being, but not of their being. What is destroyed is not therefore annihilated– 'Are you come to destroy us?' said the devil unto Jesus Christ (Luke 4:34). The devils are afraid of torment, not of annihilation (Matt 8:29), 'Are you come here to torment us before the time?'
The state of the damned is indeed a state of death; but such a death it is as is opposite only to a happy life, as is clear from other notions of their state, which necessarily include eternal existence. As they who are dead in sin are dead to God and holiness, yet alive to sin– so dying in hell they live, but separated from God and His favor, in which is life (Psalm 30:5). They shall ever be under the pangs of death; ever dying, but never dead, or absolutely void of life.
How desirable would such a death be to them! But it will flee from them forever. Could they kill one another there, or could they, with their own hands, tear themselves into lifeless pieces, their misery would quickly be at an end. But there they must live, whom chose death and refused life; for there death lives, and the end ever begins."
To "live" means more than to "exist." To exist is not to be equated with to live. Yet, in everyday talk we use "live" in the sense of "exist." This is evident even in the above words of Boston. He speaks of souls "living" forever in Hell and by this he means "existing in Hell" because he speaks (rightly) of "ever dying but never dead" in the sense of never being "absolutely void of life." But, those in Hell are in its truest sense not "living" at all (a point Boston also makes). They are a very real case of "the living dead." Death in the bible does not denote non existence but separation.
To be separated from God in Hell is to be separated from all that is good, from all that makes life worth living. In the sense of "living" we may mean either 1) remaining consciously and biologically "alive," or 2) "barely living," with nothing much more than mere existence. Hell's occupants will be "alive" in the former sense but certainly not in the latter. They will rather be eternally dying rather than eternally living. Jesus spoke of these two aspects of "life" when he spoke of not only giving "life," the essence of life, but "life more abundant." (John 10: 10) When we speak of "the immortality of the soul" as it relates to those who go to Hell forever we should be careful to explain that we mean not so much the "immortality" of the soul or body but of the unending "existence" of each. Hell is the absence of all good and therefore existence alone is not itself good.
As God is good, to be separated from him (in every way possible - God is omnipresent) is to be separated from every good. There is no pleasure at all in Hell. Every sensation and every thought is painful. There is no relief for any of the sufferings and torments of Hell. Eternally suffering in a place where all good is absent in not "immortality" in its widest and loftiest sense, but is rather an eternal mortality, an eternal dying.
Though the believer has immortality in soul as unbelievers, yet his immortality is superior. Believers not only have the bare minimum of "life," or mere vitality and conscious existence, but they have the most abundant life possible for human beings. They are not just barely alive, but living in the fullest sense of the word. Even the immortality of the soul of the believer is immortal in a much wider and greater sense than is the immortality of the soul of the unbeliever. His conversion and his future glorification each greatly expands his soul's immortality, so that his spiritual life, like his soul's immortality, is vivified, made most abundant.
As far as the mortality of the body is concerned, both believer and unbeliever are alike, both being equally mortal. Also, both the body of the believer and unbeliever will be resurrected so that their bodies never cease to exist. But again, the immortality of each is not the same except in the sense that both exist forever. The immortality of the bodies of believers will be an eternal life without death of any kind. The immortality of the bodies of the wicked, after their resurrection, will be as we have said, an eternal dying. When there is no good in a person's life we say he has a "life not worth living." So too the life of the wicked in Hell. They will be forever "alive" but only in the meanest sense. People say "you call that living," meaning that life is so bad that it can barely be called life at all. So too the life of Hell's occupants.
Resurrection Power
"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Phil. 3: 10-11)
The resurrection of Christ empowers believers. They participate in his resurrection power. The above prayer of the apostle Paul has him praying that he might "know him," that is, to know Christ. But, did he not already know him? Yes, but not fully. He wants to know Christ more in depth, more intimately. Paul also prays that he might "know the power of his resurrection." But, did he not likewise already know this in his spiritual resurrection experience, in his conversion to Christ? Yes, but again not fully.
Clearly Paul is looking towards obtaining an immense future knowledge of Christ, of resurrection power, of participation in the sufferings of Christ, of being made "conformable unto his death," of "attaining unto" all that comes with his being a part of "the resurrection out from among the dead," of a special resurrection, "the first resurrection" (Rev. 20), the "resurrection of the just" (or the justified). Paul uses the word "resurrection" twice in the above passage because it is the focal point of his remarks.
Paul wants to know by experience "the power of the resurrection of Christ." He wants to know it both now and in the future. He wants to finally experience the power of Christ's resurrection in his own bodily resurrection to immortality. He was participating in the death of Christ by himself dying and being crucified, to self, sin, and the world, but he even more so wanted to participate in the resurrection of Christ by himself being raised to life and immortality in his body in the last day. Of that future bodily resurrection Paul wrote:
"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." (I Cor. 15: 53-54)
The Greek word for "incorruption" is "aphtharsia" and is simply another word for "immortality" involving "perpetuity." The word is the negative (hence the alpha letter "a" before the word), meaning "without corruption and decay," or "no mortality." In the above passage "immortality" (incorruption) is set in contrast to that which is "mortal." The word mortal is from the Greek word "thnetos" and simply means to die, or to be subject to or liable to die, i.e., to be mortal. The Greek word for "immortality" in the above passage is "athanasia" and means deathlessness, not subject or liable to dying, the alpha letter meaning "without" or "no." Thus, it means "without death," or "no death." That is what it means to be immortal. Forever alive.
When Paul earnestly prays and labors to attain the resurrection of the justified he has in mind his "mortal" body "putting on" that glorious "immortality," along with the powers that come with his mighty, glorious, and spiritual body. It will be eternal youth and vigor, zest for living. Said the Psalmist: "Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s." (Psalms 103:5; NKJV)
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