WHICH LIFE WILL YOU CHOOSE?

Edward O’Hara Thu 5/7/2020 9:11 PM…

What is life? This is a question I was asked recently. It didn’t just come out of the blue. But, it was asked in kind of a strange context. A conversation about whether the earth is flat or a sphere. And this person I was speaking with insisted that if we do not believe the earth is flat, that somehow this means we can not possibly know what life is. In the correct context, something I would never have believed flat or spherical earth would fit with, this question can be quite profound. But, to me in this context it just seemed to be a question that wasn’t appropriate to the context. And as our conversation continued, this proved to be true. Because just how it was that this person believed these are connected, turned out to be a mish mash of convoluted reasoning that even they eventually came to see. 

But, it got me to thinking that this may be a great subject for discussion. Because, since God is the author of life, both physical and spiritual, it’s important that we know what God says about this. And the best way to find the answer is, of course, to seek it in God’s word. So as I shared with him, I will share with you now the difference between the two kinds of life God’s word teaches about. The life we are born into which is physical life. And the life that we may be born into if we will trust in Jesus which is spiritual life. 

These are the two kinds of life the Bible speaks of. Physical, natural life. And spiritual life. First I think we need to understand that Paul taught that it is because men are only born with the former, and have need of, or lack, or “fall short of” the latter, as is laid out for us in Rom.3, and especially vs.23, that Jesus had to come. Because when Paul taught that all have sinned he was simply stating the obvious. That no one is born knowing Jesus. He was simply agreeing with what Jesus said to the disciples in John16:9. This is what Paul meant when he taught that “all have sinned”, which is to miss the mark, because literally means to miss the mark, and that mark is Jesus. This is why Paul taught that we have all missed Jesus and are in need of, or lack, or fall short of His glory, which is His presence in us. This is something Jesus taught in John16:9 as well when He told the disciples the Holy Spirit would come after He left. And when He would come He would reprove the world of sin. Saying plainly that the sin the Holy Spirit would reprove the world of after Jesus was gone is “They believe not on me”. 

This is also something we see in the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus when Jesus said “Ye must be born again” in John3:1-8. He was telling Nicodemus that spiritual life is more than the life his natural fleshly birth provided for him. And that only by having spiritual life can one ever hope to see heaven. We will gain a more complete understanding of why Jesus said this by going back to the beginning. Back to Genesis. Because the events in Genesis that tell us of what happened when God created Adam not only tells us what physical life is. It shows us why we need spiritual life. 

The Bible tells us in Gen.1:26 that God created man in His image and likeness by creating man with dominion and free will. God has dominion. And He has free will. And since these are the things God said He gave to Adam when He made him in His image and likeness, we know that at least these two things are that image and likeness. So this is what the Bible is referring to by saying God made man in His image and likeness. 

In Gen.2:7 God explains more fully exactly what happened in Adam’s creation when He made him in His image and likeness. Which if read objectively provides the necessary understanding to know what kind of life it was that God gave Adam when He made him. We see that the life God gave to Adam, just as it is given to us, happens when air is breathed into the nostrils that goes directly into the lungs. Take a breath right now through your nose with your mouth closed. What happens? The air that goes into your nostrils goes straight into your lungs, right? Your chest raises and lowers as  your lungs expand and contract when you inhale and exhale through your nostrils, right? Well that’s exactly what happened for Adam when God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. Air went into his lungs. And this air that goes into the lungs transfers to the blood to be carried throughout the body which gives it life. This is why God said that when this happened “he became a living soul”. Which is a living breathing creature according to the Hebrew defined in Strong’s Concordance. 

This is why Lev.17:11 says “The life of the flesh is in the blood“. This is because blood carries the oxygen and nutrients the body needs to begin and sustain physical life. Just as it did for Adam when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. So this is the life that the Bible says Adam had when God made him a “living soul” in Gen.1:26 and 2:7 by God breathing into his nostrils the “breath of life”. It was only physical life. We see then that this “breath of life” refers specifically to physical life, and not spiritual life because this is the same “breath of life” that the Bible says God breathed into “all animals, birds, and creeping things” in Gen.7:14,15,21,22. And we know these do not have the same spirit in them that God places in man. But, they do have the same air going in and out of their lungs. 

This life of the flesh, Adam’s physical life, was God’s purpose in the beginning for the instructions He gave to Adam about the trees in the garden. Telling him that he must eat from the tree of life, and also from the rest of the trees in the garden, save one. Because by doing so it along with the air coursing in and out of his nostrils would sustain the life of his physical body. And that by eating from the tree of life he could live physically forever in the garden(Gen.2:15-17). God also included in these instructions that if Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. Which we know from Gen.3:22 that this meant that Adam could no longer live in the garden to eat from the tree of life to continue to live physically forever. 

And it is important to note here what made this happen. It happened because God said “the man has become as one of us to know good and evil”. And that this was not because his sin was imputed to him or anyone else so that it is a punishment for sin. We know this because Paul taught in Rom.5:12-14 that sin was not imputed from Adam to Moses because there was no law. So even though this does not speak to what life is, it is important to understand because it says a great deal about why we need Jesus. 

So we have seen from Genesis that when Adam was made he did not have spiritual life. But, was only given physical life that would be able to continue on forever by physically eating from the tree of life. Spiritual life, on the other hand, is something completely different from physical life. One of these differences is that physical life alone limits our ability in what and who it is that we can relate to. Paul says this in 1Cor.2:14 saying that the natural man can not receive the things of the Spirit. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Because as a man with only physical life he is only able to relate with his physical senses to what has been made. So we see that from the beginning, before Adam ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, that because God only gave Adam physical life, Adam could not know God spiritually as Jesus said we must in John4:24. 

So to know God spiritually as Jesus said we must in John17:3 and John4:24 to have eternal spiritual life, we needed something that Adam never had. Being just as Adam was when God made him we fell short of the glory of God. Which simply means we lacked His presence in us. Because for this to happen we needed to be a spiritual being. But, the Bible says through Paul’s teaching that Adam was “not spiritual, but natural”(1Cor.15:45,46) when God made him. And Jesus said they that truly worship God can only do so in spirit and in truth(John4:24). So what we see when we believe what the Bible plainly says is that even before Adam ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he could not worship or know God in spirit and in truth as Jesus said we must for spiritual life. This then is part of the reason why Jesus had to come. The other part being that we needed Him to conquer death for us. 

When people are told about Jesus by someone who really knows Jesus through witnessing, the first thing they come to realize is that they themselves do not know Jesus. So this is the first thing they must realize to be prepared to receive spiritual life. Because until they hear the gospel they can not know Jesus or His deliverance from death to life. This then is why believers witness to unbelievers. To show them who Jesus is. This is what Paul described as the ministry of reconciliation in 2Cor.5:19,20. 

Jesus did not come to condemn them by pointing out the fact that they may have done some bad things. He came so that when people are shown who Jesus so that they can know Him they can have eternal life. Because they can then make a free will decision with this information to either trust in the gospel they heard or not. So that if they will believe the gospel when it is shared with them God will then give to them the gift of faith to receive the gift of eternal life. The spiritual life that Adam never had when God made him. Because knowing Him is eternal life. By being made a spiritual man, who is the “new creation” Paul spoke of in 2Cor.5:17, they can now worship God in spirit and in truth as Jesus said we must in John4:24. Or by that same free will they can choose to reject the gospel as many do who then forfeit His gift of faith that receives the gift of spiritual eternal life. Because by rejecting Jesus who is the only way, truth, and life, they choose of their own free will to remain natural, not spiritual, so that they have no eternal life. 

This makes the justice of God what the Bible says it is. Not condemnation for bad behavior as so many falsely teach. But, deliverance from death to life when we will choose of our own free will to believe the gospel when it is shared with us. Which brings the gift of faith from which we then receive the gift of spiritual life. 

So in sharing what the Bible says about what life is, and specifically spiritual life, I made it very clear to this man I was conversing with that we must focus on what is pertinent to the gospel. Which is that Jesus came, He died, He rose, and He lives, and all that is related to this. A focus on what the Bible says about why we need Jesus. And that this shows that it is not because the earth is flat or a sphere. 

People can come up with the silliest things as requirements for salvation. Even some saying we must first acknowledge that we are sinners to be saved. That bad behavior whether done by us or imputed from others creates our need for Jesus. These are not only silly but they are dangerous. Because they take our focus off of Jesus and place it on something or someone else. On behavior rather than in whom we have believed. 

But, because the Bible never makes these an issue for salvation, and in fact teaches the opposite, we should never put these road blocks in front of someone when sharing the gospel with them. They need to know Jesus. That’s it. No one goes to heaven or to hell because they believe one or the other of these. Any more than one goes to heaven or to hell because they have been good or bad. But, both Jesus and Paul, and the whole of the scriptures, make it abundantly clear that we need Jesus because we are all born “not spiritual but natural” in Gen.1,2,3, John3:1-8, and 1Cor.15:45-50. So according to these our need for Jesus for eternal life began when God made Adam. And not after he ate the fruit. 

So for any that have mistakenly believed that we must believe in a flat or spherical earth to be saved, I want you to know that you have been seriously misled. Because knowing Jesus is the only necessary part for eternal spiritual life. Because by knowing Him and trusting in His death and resurrection we have passed from death to life. Knowing Jesus who entered into death with us so that by His resurrection He could conquer death for us. So that through faith in Him and His resurrection we too could have eternal spiritual life that comes only through a personal loving relationship with Jesus. 

Will you be born of His Spirit so you too can inherit eternal life? The fleshly birth only prepared you for this natural world where death reigns. Will you too be born again by being born of His Spirit? So that as His child you will now have for your inheritance His kingdom that is eternal where there is no death? 

If you are reading this God is calling you. He loves you and wants you to know Him. Because knowing Him is this eternal life that provides you with the spirit that makes you God’s child.John17:3. Because while all men are created by God, not all men are born of His Spirit so that they are children of God. It is only those who have come to know Him that are spiritual because knowing Him is to be born of His Spirit. So if you do not know Him, but have now believed that He is Lord and that He has raised from the dead to conquer death for you, then please take the time right now to talk to Him and confess to Jesus that He is Lord of your life. And believe that He has raised from the dead to conquer death for you. If you do believe in Him then tell Him something like this and you will have eternal life: 

Dear Jesus, I believe you. Thank you for joining with me in death so that by conquering death by your resurrection I could join with you in eternal life. Thank you that you raised from the dead so that I could raise from the dead too by trusting in, clinging to, and relying solely on you. Thank you for giving me a new spirit now Lord so that I can live with you in your kingdom forever. In Jesus’ name, amen. 

By praying a prayer similar to this one and really meaning it from your heart you have been saved from death to life. And now as you begin reading the Bible and believing what it plainly says it will begin to change the way you think and believe. Because when you trust in Jesus you leave the old life behind where you were only able to relate to and trust in what has been made. And now will be equipped for God’s kingdom because you are no longer only natural flesh and blood, but are a new creature made a spiritual being ready to inherit God’s spiritual kingdom. Jesus is the only WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE because only Jesus has broken through death’s wall that the flesh and blood natural body is subject to. Only by the new birth are we made ready to receive the spiritual body that can go through the wall of death as Jesus’ did first. Preparing the way so we could follow Him in this way that conquers death that He has prepared for us. By the new body we will receive in the resurrection that is not subject to death like the one we now live in is.

God Bless you in your new life in Christ.  

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