Jesus Christ appeased God’s wrath against sin BY DYING – not by suffering in hell for eternity. (See Romans 8:3). God’s word plainly declares that the worst kind of sinner DESERVES DEATH – not eternal suffering in fire! (See Romans 1:18-32). After enumerating a great, long list of the most depraved sins, Paul under divine inspiration writes, “Those who do such things deserve DEATH!” (verse 32, Romans 1). Romans 4:25 says Jesus “was delivered over to DEATH for our sins.” “The wages of sin IS DEATH!” (Romans 6:23). “Christ DIED FOR OUR SINS, according to the scriptures” (See I Corinthians 15:3). Yes, long before through scripture after scripture penned by the prophets God had plainly and clearly declared that sin warrants THE DEATH PENALTY, not never-ending life in the fires of hell. God decreed death, the cessation of life, as the final just punishment for sin.
Millions believe human beings have immortal souls that live on after the physical body dies and, if lost, will suffer the flames of hell for trillions and trillions of ages – for eternity! When the premise is wrong, or erroneous, everything that follows is wrong. If the foundation is improperly laid, everything built on that foundation is askew. In the first two chapters of the Bible, God states emphatically that man is neither an animal nor an immortal soul. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (not of some immortal spirit substance), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man BECAME a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The English words “living soul” in that verse are translated from the single Hebrew word nephesh, and that Hebrew word is first used in Genesis 1, verses 21 and 24 and is there correctly translated as “living creature,” and is speaking of birds, fish and animals! Had the King James Version translators correctly translated Genesis 2:7, that verse would read: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became A LIVING CREATURE!” No hint would have been given that man was in any sense immortal.
The “parable” of the rich man and Lazarus is probably the most misunderstood of all Christ’s parables. The main reason that parable is so misunderstood is because religious men and women ignorant of the previous revelation given in the Hebrew scriptures have FOR CENTURIES proclaimed from the pulpit and in their writings that this account is not a parable but an actual glimpse into hell. Jesus Christ is not teaching His disciples eternal truth in that parable. He is not even speaking to His disciples. He is speaking to ungodly, self-righteous, murderous-minded, mocking Pharisees, “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things (that Jesus had just said about ill-gotten gain), and they derided (mocked) him. AND HE SAID UNTO THEM (notice, Jesus is now addressing His remarks to these truth rejecting mockers)….” (See Luke 16:14-15). He then paints the most ludicrous, unbelievable picture of this fictional rich man and the beggar Lazarus. Many overlook what Jesus emphasizes again and again in this parable, “the law (Moses) and the prophets” (verse 16), “Moses and the prophets” (verse 29), and, again, “Moses and the prophets” (verse 31). Jesus tells these know-it-all Pharisees they need to take heed to the foundational truth God had given us in the writings of Moses and the prophets. Had they done so they would never have believed that a faithful Pharisee when dying would be welcomed into Abraham’s embrace and that the ungodly’s “soul” would immediately descend into hell and suffer mind-boggling torment.
The Pharisees ignored the fact that long ago the Psalmist under divine inspiration had revealed that when a human dies “his breath goes forth, he returns to his earth, IN THAT VERY DAY HIS THOUGHTS PERISH.” (See Psalm 146:4). They also ignored the fact that “the dead praise not the Lord, nether any that do down into silence” (Psalm 135:17). The grave is a very silent place. The dead do not utter a sound.
“Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him, for he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14). The Pharisees forgot that Moses had written long before that God created man from the dust of the ground and that our Creator had told Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken. For dust thou art , and unto dust shalt thou return” (See Genesis 4:19). To be continued….
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley