Why do we have to die?

LESSON 1

WHY DO WE HAVE TO DIE?

You are welcome to another edition of Insights from God's Word, a Bible study programme that is committed to sharing God's Word by allowing the Bible to speak for itself.

In this edition, we continue with our series on The Truth About Death. In this study, I want us to consider the question: Why do we have to die?

As people go through the various stages of life, not a few have pondered over the question of human mortality. Within the deepest recesses of the human heart is the longing to live forever. There is something in us that repulses the cold reality of death. In the perfect world that God created for mankind (Genesis 2:8-15), there were no graveyards because man was not made by his Creator to suffer death. Death, pain, sorry and sickness was never meant to be part of the experiences of man. The Bible teaches that God created us in His image (Genesis 1:26). Since our Creator possess immortality (1 Timothy 6:16), it was His plan to bestow on us this gift of eternal life.

However, just like other intelligent beings in the universe of God, we had a choice to make. One of the Creator's special angelic creation called Lucifer has disobeyed Him (Ezekiel 28:12-17; Isaiah 14:12-17), and cast a snare on His character of love. It therefore became necessary for all intelligent beings in the universe of God to choose whether they will obey the Creator, God or they will defect to the side of Lucifer and his host of fallen angels (Revelation 12:7-9).

Because God had made His intelligent creation to possess the gift of free will, they could choose to obey Him or decide to obey the voice of the enemy. And so in as much as God would have wished to offer the human race immortality right at our creation, He decided to hold on until man had passed a simple test of loyalty to His Creator. Man must be given the opportunity to choose between God and Satan just like all the other intelligent creation in the universe of God. And so from Genesis 2:16-17, we read about the details of God's test of loyalty for mankind as follows: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17).

Friends, from Genesis 3:1-6, we read the sad account of the fall of the human race. Our first parents disobeyed God's commandment not to eat of the forbidden fruit. They heeded to the voice of Satan rather than the command of their Creator. From the very moment Adam and Eve disobeyed the express command of God, death became a painful part of the experiences of the human race. We began to degenerate. We began to die. Our sin brought unto us the foreign enemy of death (1 Corinthians 15:26).

The apostle Paul made this point clearer when he wrote the following statement in the book of Romans: "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Beloved, the Bible is clear. We die because of sin. We die because of our disobedience to the express commandments of God. In fact, sin is defined in Scripture as the transgression of the law of God (1 John 3:4). Sin is actually obeying the voice of Satan instead of heeding to the commandments of God. And as we have noted above, sin brings with it the painful consequences of sorrow, misery, pain and ultimately death.

But dear friends, the text in Romans 6:23 does not just spell out the penalty for our sin, it also gives us hope. The entire text reads: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Beloved, the latter part of the text above provides a positive outlook to the sin problem. Yes! The wages of sin is death; but also the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This text offers hope to the human race. The text boldly gives an indication that something positive has been done about the penalty that man must suffer for His sin.

And friends, that's exactly what we read from the beautiful pages of Scripture. From the book of Genesis right through to the book of Revelation, we learn how God took a radical step to set us free from the penalty of the eternal death that our sin has brought upon us. We learn from the Bible how God offered His only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2, Romans 3:25, and Hebrews 9:28). Friends, in regard to this sacrifice that our heavenly Father made for the human race, the apostle John writes: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16, NKJV).

Exhortation: As we can see in this study, sin is a serious issue. Sin made us to lose our Eden home and brought unto us the curse of death, sorrow and all the suffering we see in our world today. But as tragic as this virus of sin can be, we cannot deal with it ourselves. We need a power beyond us to help us to overcome it. Thankfully, God has graciously provided this help in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ. If you will surrender your heart to Jesus today, He will give you the strength to overcome and resist sin. He has done it for me, and I know for sure He can do it for you. Why not ask Him to be the Lord and Saviour of your life today? Just ask Him Now!

In our next study, we will consider in detail whether God's solution to the sin problem offers us hope beyond the grave. The Bible Study references for this study are Job 14:14-15, Isaiah 26:19 and John 11:25. Please do well to go through these passages before the next study is released.

[Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture passages are from the King James Version.]

Stay blessed and keep shining for King Jesus.

Maranatha!

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