"Another Blemish on the Face of Jesus"
"Only Jesus!" Yes, but which One? Some popular preachers paint Jesus with ghastly distortions. "Christ first!" Of course, but in an era when doctrines are spurned, hideous depictions of the Savior gain acceptance. Today, we need solid Bible doctrine, scriptural brush strokes to accurately portray the Savior's death and resurrection. Scripture on these topics can reveal His smile again.
A. HALF-DEATH DOESN'T SAVE. When Paul wrote,"I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified," (1Corinthians 2:2, KJ21) he wasn't recommending that modern Christianity abandon doctrine. Paul was both expressing that Jesus is the center of our faith AND describing Jesus by writing a doctrinal statement. That's the vital purpose of Bible doctrines. They describe and portray the true picture of Christ, the real Jesus. The real Jesus really died for sinners, Paul insisted. If Jesus didn't really die, sinners aren't really forgiven and saved! "Now that we have been made righteous by His blood, we can be even more certain that we will be saved... We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son." (Romans 5:9-10,CEV) Yet, the most prominent Death tradition in America and Western societies asserts that when someone dies it's only half-death. You know the concept, bodies die but spirits are released to keep on living. Theologians even label the released spirits "immortal souls," meaning they cannot die. Unknowingly, almost all of us have grown up embracing a pagan Greek understanding of death that's incompatible with Biblical salvation! It robs sinners of the Savior's full death. The theory offers only Jesus' physical death while an ethereal part of Him escaped into thin air, never dying at all. Either Jesus fully died or we are not saved! Half-death distorts the most sublime gift in universal history and leaves us with a Christ Who didn't really die and a Savior that didn't really save. That's a portrait of a cheap God giving a cheap gift that doesn't work. It's false doctrine replacing Christ's broadest smile from Calvary with a horrid grimace. It's another blemish on the face of Jesus.
Classical Greece is to blame for the fact that popular Christianity contradicts scripture. Plato said, "That's not a chair. An ax can splinter that! If it can be destroyed it's faulty. Physical items are only the faulty mani-festations of their realities. The real chair is in your mind's eye, pristine and perfect, not physical and faulty." Smart guy, Plato, went further. "That's not a person. They have a body. It can get sick. It's physical and faulty. The real person is in your mind's eye, separate from the body. It can't be harmed. It can't get sick. It cannot die." Thus a sinister lie was born. People do die, and they need a Savior! Platonic philosophy replaced the Old and New Testaments as our source of truth and the immortal soul concept originating in Greek paganism has captured Christianity. Old Plato has influenced Western thought for so long that most Christians read scripture Plato's way rather than the Bible's own way.
B.SCRIPTURE TEACHES FULL-DEATH.Careful Bible readers list a preponderance of straight-forward passages proving full death, physical-mental-spiritual:
1. Dust Plus Breath = Living Being. "The LORD God formed man [Adam] of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7,NKJV) To create human life, God added two ingredients together, a body formed from dust plus the breath of life. When combined, there was human life.
2. Body Minus Breath = No Life. "Human beings and animals share the same fate. One dies just like the other—both have the same life-breath... All go to the same place: all are from the dust; all return to the dust." (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, CEB) Dying is the reverse process of creation. When the breath of life leaves the body, there is no life, only a lifeless body. "You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust." (Psalm 104:29, NKJV) Nothing of the original life goes on living.
3. The Dead Have No Brain Function. "The dead know nothing; they don’t even have their memories. Whatever they
did in their lifetimes—loving, hating, envying—is long gone,
and they have no part in anything here on earth anymore." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, TLB) Physically, man's brain dies with the rest of his body. They are dead intellectually and emotionally, too.
4. The Dead Go to the Grave Where There's No Doing and No Thinking. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no...knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going." (Ecclesiastes 9:10, NKJV) This verse doesn't say that only bodies of the dead go to graves while their spirits are released to go on living. It does not say "in the grave where your body is going." It says, "in the grave where you
are going." Again, no mental activity or consciousness is described for the dead. When a man dies, "in that very day his plans perish." (Psalm 146:4, NKJV)
5. The Dead Are Not in Heaven Praising & Thanking God. "The dead do not praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence." (Psalm 115:17) "In death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?" (Psalm 6:5) "Sheol [the grave] cannot thank You, death cannot praise You; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth. The living , the living man, he shall praise You, as I do this day." (Isaiah 38:18-19) The Bible describes magnificent praise and adoration of Our Father in Heaven. If the dead were there, surely they'd be praising and thanking God. The answer to this puzzle is simple. The dead don't go to heaven when they die. They're not there so they are not part of the celebration until Resurrection Day when the grandest reunion celebration of the ages is planned!
6. Evil Angels Are Busy Drawing People to Satan. "We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities,
forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.... Stay alert!" (Ephesians 6:12-18,CEB) Every year, several patients recount a very moving sensual experience to me as their chaplain. They're sure one of their cherished deceased family members has visited their bedside. But this blog is soaking us in Bible evidence that their visitors cannot really be dead loved ones no matter how authentic the masquerade seems. Both Testaments are replete with inspired warnings against involvement in spiritualism. Our entertainment media is saturated with warlocks, mediums, supernatural heroes, and communication with the dead. What parent wouldn't warn their children about red-hot stove-top burners or a coiled rattlesnake at the mailbox? Jesus has warned us of the devil's deceptions. Continuing to speak and share the Greek concepts of a ghostly afterlife puts the brush of false doctrine in our hand. It actually recommends involvement in the Spirit World! The Bible's teaching about Death and The Resurrection is Jesus' careful warning against spiritualism. The pervasive Greek view makes Jesus look like a delinquent parent who doesn't warn his children of kidnappers lurking nearby! That's painting a cockeyed sneer on the face of Jesus!
7. Jesus Didn't Go to Heaven While He Was Dead. "On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning... Jesus said to her, 'Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:1,17,NABRE)
Crucified on Friday, Jesus didn't ascend to heaven to confirm His saving sacrifice until His resurrection on Sunday. Neither Jesus, nor Lazarus, nor Jairus' daughter, nor the widow's son from Nain, nor any other person recorded in scripture as being resurrected from the dead described seeing the celestial courts of glory while they were dead.
8.Rewards Are Given on Resurrection Day. "All these people won approval for their faith but they did not receive what was promised, since God had planned something better for us, so that they would not be perfected without us." (Hebrews 11:39-40) Something better for sure! What a day! We're all going together--all the great faith heroes, the risen saints of all the ages, my precious mother released from her Parkinsons, my Dad in-law without his Leukemia! The saved of earth will enter "the land of the free and the blessed" altogether!! Now that truth puts a handsome bearing on the countenance of Christ, doesn't it?! He's planned a Welcome Home like no One else could!
Embracing the Bible truth about Death and the Resurrection is the only way to clear our picture of Jesus and Salvation. Think this Bible doctrine is important? More than important, it's essential to knowing the real Jesus!
The Greek view of death has surmounted the Bible's in only the last couple generations. Satan must be eager to make Jesus look bad here in our time. For scholarly quotes agreeing with this blog from Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and other seminaries, leave a note below, email me, or use faceBook Messenger.
Like you, wanting to paint the real face of Jesus for others needing to know Him as saving Friend,
