Living For Jesus

“Physical death is a separation of the person, the spirit, the soul, from the body…[Adam] died spiritually the moment he disobeyed; he was separated from God.  Death is separation.”

(J. Vernon McGee. Thru the Bible. Vol. 1. pg. 27)

It is common to say when someone dies that they are gone, that they have passed away.  Since God has put eternity in our hearts we almost intuitively sense a human being is more than a body, for the person we knew departs the body in death and is separated from us.  For a believer the bitterness of separation is sweetened by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life, for those who are in Christ by faith will never die.  We will meet again, and we will be together forever with God our Saviour.

When Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, he was instantly separated from God by his sin that brought death.  The spiritual, eternal component of Adam died that moment, and ultimately his body would die as well.  An illustration of what happened can be derived from the fig leaves he plucked from the tree to fashion into a covering to hide his nakedness.  The moment leaves are pulled off a tree they are cut off from their source of life.  Death is instant, but the symptoms of that death take hours and days to become apparent.  Green leaves begin to dull in colour and they become dry and brittle.  Before very long the leaf bears little resemblance to what it did previously when it can be crumbled into dust.

Adam's sin cut him off spiritually from God who was his source of life, and it would only be a matter of time before his body gave up the ghost.  A leaf pulled from the tree cannot be reattached, and Adam's sin lead to permanent, eternal death apart from God.  There was absolutely nothing Adam could do to remedy the situation, but praise the LORD for His redemptive plan to save mankind by sending His own Son Jesus Christ to provide atonement and impute righteousness to sinners through faith in Him.  Adam had no clue how lost he truly was, and we can miss how amazing the grace of God and the Gospel is too.  To think that God has destroyed death so we could have eternal life; the Son of God died and rose again so we could be adopted as children of God!

Being born of Adam who sinned is a guarantee of death, and being born again through Jesus Christ who provided atonement for sin gives assurance of forgiveness and eternal life.  This is great news, isn't it?  When we have good news we cannot wait to share it with others:  better than planning to tell others about Jesus someday, let us be living for Him right now.  Then we will be trusting Him, believing Him obeying Him, speaking of Him and glorifying Him as we ought now and forever by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.