"Look! I Am Making All Things New"

The Enemy - Death

God has stated the penalty for disobedience -death.   In passing sentence upon the first woman, Jehovah said:  "I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will dominate you."  To the man Adam he said: "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread unto you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.  For dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:16-19)  The disobedient couple were expelled from the Paradise of happiness into the uncultivated earth. In course of time they died. -Genesis 5:5.

It was only after they had fallen from the mark of perfection that Adam and Eve began to produce children. All men today are their descendants in imperfection, and hence all die. One Bible writer explains it in these words:  "Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned."  What is this "sin"?  It is a falling short of the mark of imperfection or completeness.  Jehovah God does not approve of or keep alive anything  that is imperfect.  Since all men have inherited sin and imperfection from the first man Adam, death has "ruled as king" over them.  (Romans 5:12, 14) Fallen man dies, in the same way that the animals die. -Ecclesiastes 3:19-21. 

What is this "death"? Death is the opposite of life. God had held before man the prospect of endless life on earth if he obeyed. However, he disobeyed, and the penalty was death, unconsciousness, nonexistence.  God had said nothing about transferring man's life to a spirit realm or a fiery "hell" if he disobeyed and died. He had warned man:  "You will positively die."  It  was the  man-slaying Devil who had lied in saying:  "You  positively will not die." (Genesis 2:17; 3:4; John 8:44) What all men have inherited from Adam is dust-like death. -Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; Psalm 115:17; 146:4.  

Is there, then, no future for  man who dies?  There is a wonderful future! The Bible shows that God's purpose of a paradise earth for all mankind, including those now dead, will never fail. says Jehovah:"The heavens are my throne, and the earth  is my footstool."  "I shall glorify the very place of my feet." (Isaiah 66:1; 60:13)  Out of the abundance of his love, Jehovah sent his Son, the Word, to this earth, that the world of mankind might gain life through him.  (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9)  There are three important things that we must now discuss and that Jehovah accomplishes through his Son, name, (1) providing  a release from the power of death; (2) actually restoring the dead to life: and (3) establishing a perfect government over all mankind. 

Next time: "Look! I Am Making All Things New"/Release From Death 

From the Awake! magazine