Subtitle: The choice is yours… and the decision is now.

Excerpt: The choice is yours…

Author: Klaus Meyer

Jesus said that in the resurrection we will be like the angels. He explains that angels are not given in marriage nor are they marrying (Mk12:24-25). Angels have an unending life, and neither will we die any longer after we passed from this life into the next. Unending life does not seem to be compatible with being fruitful and multiplying. Jesus gives us no further explanation, but I am sure that there is a good reason why people are born on this earth and not into Heaven.

Enoch walked with God, and he was not (i.e. died), for God took him (Gen. 5:24). This seems to be the dying process God had ordained for men before the fall.  After leading a full life, man should be going on with our hearts full of joy.

After God created man, and before man sinned, He told him to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). He also told men not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good evil because the moment he ate from that tree he would die (Gen 2:16-17). Obviously, God did not mean that man would drop dead, but that the dying process would start if he sinned.

God never prohibited men from taking the fruit from the tree of life and, apparently, that was not tempting to man. Only after the fall did He prevent man from eating of the tree of life  (Gen 3:22-24).

For fallen man, the dying process starts at the beginning of our life. Our body starts dying as soon as we are born. That process is painful and for many, the actual point of death is extremely difficult. That is the result of man’s fall (Gen 3:17-19). If I understand this correctly had man not sinned, we would walk with God during all our lives, thus leading a full life without slowly dying. Like Enoch, we would walk with God and at His own time, God would take us.

The first Adam got us into this mess. But God had better plans from the beginning (before man sinned) because He had foreordained his Son to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1: 29-30, 1 Pe 1:18-20). Jesus laid down his own life. And, because He did this, we can have peace with God and be reunited with Him. We can have peace that is far beyond our ability to understand (Php 4:4-7), not dreading death but looking forward to the next phase of our life.