Genesis 3:22 And the Lord Godsaid, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
This is a verse that you do not see mentioned at funerals, but it means a lot to me. It shows me the mercy of God and the love that God has for us. Let me explain.
When God created this world, He created a perfect paradise. In this paradise, we had two responsibilities. The first was that man and woman were to have lots of sex with each other. The second was that we were to learn what God did in creation of the garden and to make the rest of the world a paradise. There was no trouble, hardships, or anything bad in this place.
Everything bad that takes place in this world, does so because of us. When Adam and Eve rebelled by eating that fruit, they started a chain of rebellion that has been passed down to each and every one of us. It is this rebellion that has resulted in every bad thing that happens.
When I read this verse that I quoted, I see that God does not want us to live forever with all these bad things that have been caused by us. You see God wants all of us (who want to be with Him) to live in that perfect paradise and death is now the door to get there. That is what this passage is really all about.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not arguing for purposely ending life on a whim. I am just commenting on the attitudes that we have.
It seems to me that if we really believed in this paradise after death, it would affect the decisions that we make towards life and death. We would not be so afraid of death for us or our friends and family.
No comments:
Post a Comment