TO LIVE, ONE MUST DIE

We live in a fallen world where human souls, entangled in sin, are held captive by death. Although God made man upright (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:29), man rebelled against the Creator God. As a result of human rebellion, God subdued the creation to futility. To borrow the words of the Apostle Paul from Rom. 8:20, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope.” Human rebellion against God brought about divine curse. Hence, there are pains, sufferings, wars, crimes, natural disasters, diseases, viruses, infirmities, sorrows, crying, groaning, trials, and afflictions, all because of sin. And the climax of the curse pronounced by God is the death of man. 

Because of sin, death came into the world, and all human beings experience it. Although the end of human life can be brought about by various means, God the Creator, who “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25), is the One who decrees the death of man and the end of all things. The Lord gives us life, but there comes a day when He takes away the breath of life that He has instilled into our lungs. And although our soul does not die, our body ceases to live and falls into decay. Death is not an accidental phenomenon; it is God-ordained. For the same God who gives life is the One who takes it away. He rules supreme over all creation – He is sovereign over the life and death of all living creatures. 1 Samuel 2:6 reads, “The LORD kills and restores to life; He sends people to the world of the dead and brings them back again.” In the beginning God created man and all things. Gen. 2:7 reads, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” God's sovereignty over life and death means that nothing and no one can exist without Him, and that all creatures, even creatures of lesser significance do not fall to their death unless the Lord wills it. (cf. Matt, 10:29).

In the beginning, when God created man, man was an immortal being, made to live forever; for neither his body nor his soul was subject to sin and its deadly consequences. However, death was designed by the Lord as a punishment for human disobedience. For when God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He commanded them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Death here in context refers to the destruction of the body; for all souls live forever. But man’s spiritual deadness and his eternal separation from God are also in view here. For when man fell, he became spiritually dead, alienated from God. 

With the fall of man death became an enemy – having become a completely depraved being, the body of man is now subject to destruction and his soul to eternal separation from God. This drastic change in the human condition finds its explanation in the character of God. For as a holy and righteous God, God does not tolerate evil, and He punishes those who do evil. Furthermore, because He loves his creation, God does not desire to see man live eternally in total depravity (cf. John 3:16; Acts 3:26). And we see the glorious character of our God and his infinite and tender mercies for mankind on display right after the fall. For in the very curse that the Lord pronounces on the serpent, there is a revealed hope and surpassing grace for humanity. God says to the serpent in Gen. 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” 

A gleam of hope for humanity was also revealed when God, in his benevolence, clothed Adam and his wife with tunics of skin before exiling them from the garden. This act of mercy foreshadowed the future promise of redemption that would come through the Seed of the woman. Also, in order that man might not live forever in bondage to sin and wickedness, the Lord prevented him from accessing the tree of life that was in the garden. And so in v. 22-24 we are told, “The Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever –” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”  

However, before man’s expulsion from the Garden, he was cursed, and so was the entire human race in him. For the Lord God said to the man, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:17-19). Death here in context refers to the destruction of the body. Death being the culmination of the divine curse cast upon humanity because of sin. For the pains and sufferings we experience here on earth are not the most devastating consequences of sin. However, God’s punishment for sin goes beyond the destruction of the body to target the souls of unrepentant sinners; for such are condemned to everlasting torment.  

Death manifests itself in different ways: when it affects the body, it is called physical death. Experienced by all people, physical death can result from illness, accident, attack or injury, and is related to the destruction of the body. It refers to when someone breathes his last, when his body falls into a state of deadness and begins to decay. It is distinct from spiritual death which affects the soul, the latter being the condition of every human being born of a woman from conception. 

Spiritual death springs from sin and refers to someone’s separation from God. Since we are all conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, we remain spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, alienated from God until the moment of our regeneration by the Spirit of grace. In other words, before our conversion, we are separated from God. For sin like a gangrene has spread throughout our being and subjugated us to the passions and lusts of the flesh, making us dead to the things of the Spirit, blind to the truth, haters of God and of his Son. By nature we love darkness rather than the light, and the darkness keeps us from seeking life (cf. John 3:19). 

Physical death and spiritual death are to be distinguished from eternal death, also referred to as the second death. Eternal death is the condemnation of the souls of unrepentant sinners to conscious, everlasting cruciation and alienation from God. Contrary to physical death which is temporal – for all the dead, good and evil alike, will be resurrected on the last day by the Lord Jesus Christ – the second death, reserved for the ungodly, is everlasting; it is the eternal torment of the souls of all unrepentant sinners in the fire of hell.

It should then be noted that the most terrifying threat to humanity, man's most vicious enemy, contrary to what the secular world believes, lies within man himself and not outside of him. “For (as the Lord says in Mat. 15:19) out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” Jer. 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Man has a rotten heart and a depraved mind. He is inherently evil, disobedient, and hostile to God. Because of sin the world we live in is cursed. We all experience troubles and sufferings as a result of sin. But these adversities do not make up the most vicious enemy we have, nor does the destruction of the body. For troubles and sufferings come and go; they are temporal. And on the last day when our Lord returns in full glory, there will be a bodily resurrection of all those who are physically dead. The second death, also called the eternal death, the eternal separation from God, is the most horrendous enemy of mankind, and hence the focal point of this message. 

Before the fall there was no death in the world; but with sin came death; “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). The fall of Adam our first parent into sin brought about spiritual deadness, thus condemning the entire human race to eternal destruction. As we read from Rom. 5:12, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” That is to say, when Adam disobeyed God, sin established its dominion into the realm of mankind. Since Adam was the head of the entire human race, his sinful nature was passed onto his posterity, the guilt of his sin was imputed to all of us, because we were all in him. Thus, we are all guilty of the original sin. And because Adam’s sinful nature was transferred to us, we all have an inclination to sin from the moment of our conception. Henceforth we are held captive by the sting of death. In other words, as Adam’s descendants, we all have inherited the sinful nature that he possessed because of his disobedience to God, and therefore we all sin. As a result of our sinfulness, we are all spiritually dead from the moment of our conception, and we all experience physical death. Furthermore, we are all condemned to face the eternal death, i.e., to spend eternity in hell.  

Since we are morally corrupt creatures, it is impossible for us to obey God perfectly, to live up to the standard of absolute holiness He has set for us. For we are all inherently evil, disobedient and sinful; none of us is righteous. “As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one’” (Rom. 3:10). Therefore, we have been alienated from God, subject to death. Because of our sinfulness, the curse of God remains on us. And the truth of the matter is that we are totally incapable of reversing this curse by our own design. Where then is our hope? How can we escape the spiritual death that holds our souls prisoners? How can we find peace with the holy God and overcome the grim reality of the second death that awaits every sinner? How can we be delivered from the sting of death and restored to life? 

No one can curse what God has blessed (cf. Num. 23:8). Conversely, no one can reverse the curse pronounced by God. What God plucks up and breaks down, what God overthrows and destroys, He alone has the power to reconstruct and restore (cf. Jer. 31:28). It is only by God’s design that man can be delivered from the sting of death and restored to life. However, to inherit this life, one must die not only to self but also to the world, and embrace Christ as Lord and Saviour. This must be done, not in a superficial manner however, but with the willingness to share in Christ’s sufferings, to suffer persecution, loss and even death for his sake. For we can share in our Saviour’s glory only if we suffer with Him (cf. Rom. 8:17). So, the only way for man to escape death is to turn to Christ the Saviour in repentance and faith. For He has conquered death for all those who would put their trust in Him. Blessed are those who die to sin that they may live in Christ Jesus. But woe to the ungodly, to they who refuse to repent of their sins! They cannot escape the grim reality of the second death. For life is in Christ alone.

Deliverance from the sting of death

God has set eternity in the heart of man. Hence, although some skeptics reject the everlasting nature of the human soul – a fact affirmed and evidenced by the Holy Scriptures – the manner of life of people of all nations, ethnicities and languages, even when they are pagans, reveals a keen interest in the afterlife. However, although many unbelievers admit that life after death is a reality, they fully miss the point. Their perspective on the matter is totally deceptive; for what they envision is nothing but a fantasy utterly disconnected from biblical truths. This fallacy is rooted in their rejection of the One True and Living God and his revealed truth. They refuse to admit the sinfulness of sin and its deadly consequences, they do not acknowledge man’s total depravity. This is a blatant scorn of the person of God, an utter blasphemy of his holy name, since God clearly affirms that all people are sinful (cf. Rom. 3:10-19,23; Is. 53:6). 

These heretics deny man’s alienation from God by sin, refuse to acknowledge man’s inability to find peace with God by human design, and thus reject the means ordained by God to reconcile all things to Himself. Since they have a high view of man and hold God in low esteem, they do not understand the holiness of God, nor consider his righteousness and sovereignty over all creation; because they are blinded by the spirit of the age, the devil. Therefore, they deny the existence of hell. For they do not see the judgements of the Lord of hosts, nor do they consider his righteous wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. They deny any possibility of an afterlife in eternal, conscious torment for the ungodly, and view the afterlife as ‘a rest in peace’ opportunity for all who die, good and evil alike. In fact, they fantasize about a heaven where there is no God. 

There is no such thing as heaven without God – heaven is the abode of God. Ps. 103:19 says, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his Kingdom rules over all.” “Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Is. 66:1). And “There is no peace,” Says my God, “for the wicked” (Is. 57:21). Therefore, since no one is righteous, there is a need for all to be reconciled to God; for our iniquities have alienated us all from his glorious presence. To borrow the words of Isaiah the prophet, our iniquities have made a separation between us and our God, and our sins have hidden his face from us. We are all dead in trespasses and sin from the moment of our conception, thus candidates for hell. All the world stands guilty before the holy God, and He “does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). On the other hand, no one can be justified before Him by the deeds of the flesh. For all our righteousnesses are filthy rags before the Lord (cf. Is. 64:6). 

Therefore, no one can overcome the grim reality of the second death by his own design. Ps. 49:7-9 says this about those who put their trust in what they possess, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.” That is to say, our works can never save us from the pit of hell. No matter how hard we labour, we can never achieve enough to redeem our souls. For we do not possess a righteousness of our own; rather we are inherently evil. We can only be justified by the righteousness of God. For it is God who graciously provides us a righteousness on the basis of our faith in his Son Jesus Christ, not according to our works – “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20) – and from that moment we are declared righteous by God. Eph. 2:8-9 reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. 

God is sovereign, He has a supreme rule over death. He alone can save sinners from destruction. No one is able to save himself from the sting of death. Ps. 89:49 asks the following questions, “What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?”  God alone can deliver our souls from the power death; for He is the source of our righteousness. God is the only just and the justifier of repentant sinners who put their trust in his Son. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). God sent his Son into the world to be its Saviour. Christ came and obeyed the precepts of God’s law. He kept all the requirements, i.e., the righteous deeds, the righteous thoughts and the righteous words required by God’s moral law, thus fulfilling God’s demand for absolute righteousness on behalf of those who would put their trust in Him. Christ also sacrificed his life for sinners to be justified – to use the words of 1 John 2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” I.e., on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross, the sins of those who believe in Him are forgiven, and they are declared just by God. 

Through Christ’s incarnation, perfect obedience and substitutionary death on the cross, God satisfied his demand for justice without compromising his righteous character. On the basis of Christ’s merits, God graciously justifies repentant sinners who have faith in his Son. So no man can be justified by his own doings. Rom. 3:21-26 reads, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” 

After the fall, God promised the redemption of sinful humanity through the Seed of the woman (cf. Gen. 3:15). Generations after, He reiterated this promise multiple times through his prophets to the people of Israel, through whom salvation would eventually be available to all flesh. For instance, Is. 25:6-8 reads, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” Ps. 98:2-3, “The Lord has made known his salvation; his righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his mercy and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” 

This promise has been fulfilled in God’s own Son, the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ; for in Him grace was given to us before time began (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9). I.e., in eternity past God predetermined the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross in order to redeem humanity from the bondage of corruption and death. And when the appointed time, as ordained by the sovereign Lord, had come, Christ the Lamb of God willingly “gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:14). God sent Him to bless us by turning away every one of us from our iniquities. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). 

Christ is the only One who can save sinners from spiritual deadness and help them escape eternal destruction. He is the means designated by God to reconcile all things to Himself. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die”, declares the Lord in John 11:25-26. Christ is the source of both physical and spiritual life. It is He who created all things, for “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:2-4). Christ is the Prince of life, the Author of life, the Supreme Being in Whom all things dwell; nothing came into being apart from Him. He gives us the breath of life, and He alone saves us from spiritual corruption by cleansing us from our sins. Christ raises us from spiritual deadness. He will also raise the dead bodies of all people on the last day; and to those who died believing in Him, as well as to believing Christians who will see his return, He will give eternal life, thus saving them from eternal destruction. But those who reject Christ in this life remain spiritually dead, and at the second coming of our Lord, they will face the second death, the eternal torment in hell. All the ungodly who have died will be raised for judgement and cast into hell with their fellow unbelievers who will still be alive when the Lord returns to judge the world.  

God sent his Son into this world to ransom us from the evil ways we inherited from our forefathers. He came to fulfill the law of God on our behalf, and He died for the sins of all those who would ever believe in Him, that they might be set free from the bondage of corruption and escape eternal destruction. As Paul writes in Gal. 1:4, Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). Therefore, “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). Col. 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in Whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

Christ is the greatest revelation of God’s grace and love to mankind. As the Apostle Paul writes in Gal. 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” “God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

It is only through the Lord Jesus Christ that one can be restored to life and overcome the grim reality of the second death. Ps. 68:20-21 reads, “Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. But God will strike the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.” Christ is the means by which sins are forgiven and reconciliation with God possible. He is the life and the light of men (cf. John 1:4); He came to rescue those who sit in darkness, to help them pass from death to life. 1 John 5:11-12 reads, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 

In Christ we no longer bear the guilt of sin and we no longer incur the penalties for violating God's law. This does not mean, however, that Christians have the right to sin against God. Rather, it means that what was once held against us has been atoned for. For the full penalties for the sins of all who would put their trust in Christ were paid for by Him through his death on the cross, and his righteousness was imputed to them. Being cleansed and justified before God by his precious blood, we pass from death to life. Christ graciously imputes to those who have faith in Him his own righteousness, and they are no longer guilty before God. As Paul writes in Rom. 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But all unbelievers are held captive by spiritual death; there is no life in them. Therefore, they will end up in the fire of hell, where they will feed on the wrath of God forever, because they have rejected his Son. John 3:18 reads, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” 

If you have not yet repented of your sins, I urge you to do so right now and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not be caught up in lies and deceptions. Hell is real, judgement is coming. Do not be fooled by those who think that man can earn access to heaven by his good works. Also, don't be seduced by those who claim that because God is love, He cannot send people to hell. It is true that God is love, but God is also holy and righteous. As a holy God, He has established a standard of absolute holiness to which all men must conform. And to escape divine condemnation, you must conform to this standard of absolute holiness. For any violation, any sin brings about judgement in time and eternity. 

Furthermore, God’s holiness and perfect love justify his hatred toward sins and unrepentant sinners. Thus, God punishes anyone who refuses to abandon their evil ways. Nah. 1:1-2 reads, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” V.6-8, “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.” In Ps. 5:4-6 we read this testimony concerning God, “For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” 

Anyone who spurns the incarnate Word of God, anyone who despises the Gospel of Christ, condemns himself to eternal destruction. Christ came and fulfilled all righteousness by his perfect life, He satisfied God’s holy justice by his substitutionary death on the cross, that sinners through faith in Him might be forgiven and reconciled to God. This was ordained in eternity past by the Father (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2; 1 Cor. 2:7). Whoever wants to escape judgement, whoever seeks life, whoever desires to overcome the grim reality of the second death, must embrace the way of righteousness designed by God, i.e., repentance and faith in his Son. For sinners are saved by the work and merit of Christ the Lord alone. 

If you are an unrepentant sinner, you stand guilty before God, the King of the universe against Whom you have sinned. And the price for your sins is too high for you to afford. I urge you to humble yourself before God, seek forgiveness in the name of his Son, and He will give you life. Stop shaking your fists in the face of God, stop clinging to your good works, lest you wake up one day in hell. There is no hope for those who dishonour or deny the existence of God. Anyone who rejects God’s Son and reviles his Spirit is without excuse. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). What awaits those who reject the Son of God is the second death, an everlasting, conscious torment in the pit of hell. Christ is the only way to salvation. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). 

Call upon the name of the Lord today, acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you cannot save yourself. Cast yourself on the mercies of Christ. Do not hold onto your pride. Do not cherish the sinful desires and lustful passions of your flesh, lest you be held by the sting of death forever. For to live, one must die to sin and embrace Christ as Lord and Saviour. “For (as Paul writes in Rom. 8:6-8) to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” 

It is only in Christ that one can be justified before God and escape hell. I urge you not to despise the grace of God and his love revealed to us in his Son Jesus Christ, lest God’s curse remain on you forever. There is no forgiveness for those who trample underfoot the precious blood of God’s Son. God sent his Son to redeem sinners from all lawlessness, to save them from judgement, divine wrath and hell. Anyone who despises Him will perish. There is no escape for those who rebel against God and despise his Son, those whose god is their natural desires. Borrowing the language of Acts 13:40-41, I declare to you today, if you have not yet embraced Christ as Lord and Saviour, “Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: ‘Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.’”

To live is to die to self

By nature, we live to satisfy the desires of the flesh, desires that are sinful and opposed to the will of God. We have no inclination for the things of God; for our minds are futile and our hearts darkened. The natural man is characterised by self-love, self-indulgence, self-exaltation, self-sufficiency, self-will and pride. He neither glorifies God nor thanks Him, but glorifies himself. For he is blind to the truth, disobedient, rebellious against God, deceitful and wicked; he is held captive by sin and death. As long as we are in bondage to our sinful desires and lusts, we are spiritually dead, alienated from God. For no man who walks according to the flesh can please God; for the desires of the flesh cannot be reconciled with the will of God. There is no fellowship between light and darkness; there is no accord between truth and falsehood. 

He who lives to satisfy the desires of the flesh is of the devil. He walks in darkness and is ruled by the spirit of falsehood; he hates God, despises his truth, and indulges in deeds of wickedness such as “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before (says the Apostle Paul), that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21). But he who seeks after the things of the Spirit is born of God and is controlled by the Spirit of God – he loves God and his truth and bears the fruit of the Spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (V. 22-23). There is therefore no harmony between the Spirit and the flesh. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other”, as Paul writes in Gal. 5:17. 

Life and death are set before every human being here on earth, and the eternal destination of each person is determined by where they set their heart. “For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” (Gal. 6:8). Paul also writes in Rom. 8:13-14, “If you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Rom. 8:5-8, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The natural man is spiritually dead, separated from God. To pass from death to life, he must crucify the flesh with its passions. 

Now the question is, why does the flesh have to be crucified? Our body of sin must be destroyed so that we no longer serve sin, but become slaves of righteousness, and thus escape death. And so Paul writes in Rom. 6:6. “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” Being bought by the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we have become his slaves. Thus we are to live in perfect submission to Him and in obedience to his Spirit. “For (as Paul writes in Rom. 7:5) while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” Our Saviour freed us from lawlessness “in order that we may bear fruit for God” (Rom. 7:4). 

1 John 3:6 reads, “No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him.” John is not saying that those who are in Christ no longer sin; for we cannot reach perfection here on earth. For although we are born of the Spirit, the dead body of sin is still attached to us (cf. Rom. 7:24). Thus while waiting for the redemption of our bodies, we fall from time to time. What John is pointing out here is the habitual practice of sin – this is the evidence that a person is not of God. For the Christian life, though not marked by perfection, is characterised by a wholehearted commitment to Christ, and an earnest desire to be like Him. A true disciple of Christ is marked by an earnest pursuit of holiness rather than the practice of sin. As V.7b-9 says, “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” 

We die to sin in order to set our minds only on the things above. For we cannot serve two masters. The natural man yields his members unto sin as instruments for unrighteousness (cf. Col. 3:7), because he is in bondage to sin. He does not love God nor keep his commandments. The Lord declares in John 14:21, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Paul writes in Gal.5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” He who is not of Christ is in bondage to the flesh. Anyone who is controlled by the flesh abides in death, no life abides in them; for there is no life in the Spirit without the death of the old self, without the destruction of the body of sin. Sin has dominion over those who present the members of their bodies to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, and death is their reward. In other words, anyone who lives to satisfy the desires of the flesh condemns his soul to eternal torment. But he who renounces to the flesh and walks according to the will of God escapes condemnation. As the Lord says in John 12:25, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” 

Any heart that indulges in a life of sin will be sent to the fire of hell. But anyone who despises his life of sin, anyone who rejects the flesh with its desires and throws himself on the mercies of Christ is granted everlasting life in the Kingdom of God, where sin is completely powerless and death is conquered. Therefore, until a man has, by the power of the Holy Spirit, crucified the flesh, he cannot have life. There is no hope for those who love their body of sin. Unless someone dies to sin, he will remain its slave, he will be held captive forever by the sting of death, man’s last enemy. This is the wages of sin. But he who is dead to sin has died with Christ: he has shared in Christ’s death, he has been baptised into his death. And since Christ lives, he also lives in Christ, being born again, regenerated by the Spirit of grace. As Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 

So we cannot have life, unless we crucify the flesh with its sinful passions and lusts. However, we are not capable to put to death the desires of the flesh by human design; for in and of ourselves we have no power over sin and the flesh. Furthermore, as natural men we do not even will to let go the desires of the flesh. Therefore, it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, through his supernatural work of regeneration and sanctification, that we can crucify the flesh. The Lord recognizes our inability to conform to his will by our own efforts, He recognizes our inability to overcome the flesh by our own doing. Therefore, during the Upper Room Discourse, He promised his disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 16:13, saying, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.”

By the power of the Spirit of Christ, we can put to death the flesh with its passions and lusts, if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. But this cannot happen without saving faith, which is a gift from God. Saving faith is evidenced by self-denial, by a humble and genuine acknowledgement of one’s sins, of one’s sinfulness, unworthiness and unrighteousness. Saving faith also produces godly sorrow and hatred for one’s sins, the recognition of one’s need of Christ, and a sincere affirmation of one’s desire to turn away from sin. Additionally, a person who has saving faith confesses Christ as Saviour and Lord, as the only Mediator who reconciles sinners to God. 

Unless we embrace the righteousness of God, which is graciously imputed to every repentant sinner, through faith in his Son Jesus Christ, we cannot be delivered from the flesh. For no one can be freed from the bondage of corruption without the help of the Spirit of Christ. For in and of ourselves we have no power over the flesh. However, the Spirit of God, who alone is able to defeat the flesh, lives only in those who have turned away from their sins and put their trust in Christ the Saviour. The Spirit seals us in God’s love and sets us apart for Christ. And so Paul writes in Rom. 8:9b, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.” And anyone who does not belong to Christ therefore cannot crucify the flesh. But being born of the Spirit and adopted as sons into the family of God, the Spirit gradually sanctifies us to conform us to the image of Christ; He restrains our sinful desires so that we no longer live according to the flesh but according to the will of God. 

The Spirit alone is able, through his supernatural work of regeneration and sanctification, to set sinners free from the bondage of corruption and bring them captive to Christ. No man can crucify the flesh by human effort or craftiness. Therefore those who are not in Christ cannot please God because they cannot walk according to his will. Only those who are born of the Spirit can please God, for they are prepared for all good works by the Spirit at the moment of their new birth. And so Paul writes to the Galatians in Gal. 5:25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” The unregenerate man does not walk in the Spirit, because he is unwilling and unable to do so. Thus his habitual lifestyle cannot be in conformity to the will of God. But someone who is born of the Spirit does the things of the Spirit. As the Lord Himself says in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” 

Thus, through the command for Christians to walk in the Spirit, Paul, like the Lord, draws a dividing line between the lifestyle of a carnal man and that of a man born of the Spirit – he commands the Galatian believers to live in such a way that their walk, actions and conduct testify to their new life in the Spirit. For he who is born of the Spirit obeys the Spirit and not the flesh. When we are in Christ we are a new creation. Therefore, our conduct and desires must match the will of God. For everyone who is born of the Spirit bears the fruit of the Spirit. Those whose lives are not marked by the fruit of the Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and gentleness, prove by their conduct that they are not born of the Spirit but of the flesh. Such cannot inherit everlasting life. Thus declares the Lord in John 3:5, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” 

There cannot be life without the death of the flesh. When a seed falls into the ground, it dies and a new life sprouts out of the dead shell. Likewise we die to the flesh and are begotten as living souls in Jesus Christ our Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through his supernatural work of regeneration. Our new birth of the Spirit marks the death of the old person we used to be. As Paul writes in Rom. 6:4, “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” As a new creation, we walk in newness of life – Christ abides in us and we abide in Him. And so with boldness, we affirm with the Apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). 

There is no life for those who cherish their sins; there is no life for those who live to satisfy the flesh. To live, one must die to self, one must forsake the flesh with its corruption. But this is not possible unless we embrace Christ the Redeemer and share in his death. For those who died with Christ also share in his life. In Christ we are recreated, born of the Spirit, for a new life, a life of righteousness and holiness. As Paul writes in Gal. 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” They no longer live to satisfy their lusts, but for the glory of God; for their heart is no longer set on the things of this world, but on God and the things of God. 

Those who refuse to let go the desires of the flesh, those who love their sins hate the Living God; for their god is their natural desires. They despise God’s commandments, they reject Christ the Saviour, and suppress the truth with their unrighteousness. Such cannot find favour in the sight of the Lord. “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed”, writes the Apostle Paul in 2 Thess. 1:9-10. Anyone who rejects Christ the Light, anyone who suppresses the truth is held captive by death, and the eternal destination of his soul is hell. Unless a person turns to Christ the Saviour in repentance and faith, death abides in him. The body of sin must be crucified by the power of the Holy Spirit for the soul to be preserved. 

Christ came to destroy sin and to give life to those who love Him. Whoever rejects Him cannot be delivered from sin, he cannot find peace with God. 1 John 2:23 reads, “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.” Those who deny the Son remain under divine curse and are assigned a portion with the wicked. But anyone who turns to Christ finds peace with God; he receives life through his faith in Christ and is baptised into the family of God by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes residence in him and gradually sanctifies him, that he may be conformed to the image of the Son. Those who deny the Son have neither seen the Spirit nor known Him. For this is how the Son reveals Himself to those who love Him, this is how He gives life to those who put their trust in Him, by taking residence in them. John 14:23 reads, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.” By taking residence in those who believe in Him, Christ imparts life to their dead souls and preserves them by his Spirit for the day of the redemption of their bodies.

There is no life apart from Christ. For it is He who raises the spiritually dead, it is also He who gives sinners victory over the second death. If you have not yet submitted yourself as a slave to Christ, I urge you to do so right now, lest you remain forever under the dominion of sin and harvest death as your eternal reward. There is no freedom for those who are not in Christ – every unrepentant sinner is a slave of sin, held captive by death. The Lord Himself says in John 8:34 that “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” That is to say, anyone who practices sin and rebels against God, anyone who refuses to forsake their evil ways is under the dominion of sin, he is a slave of sin. “And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever”, says the Lord in v.35. In other words, slaves of sin are cast out of the Kingdom of God, unless they turn to God’s only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and seek forgiveness in his name. “He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). There is salvation in God’s Son for all those who put their trust in Him. “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed”, says the Lord in John 8:36. So repent of your sins today, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and He will set you free from the bondage of sin and death.

To live is to die to the world

As studied previously, the flesh with its evil desires and lustful passions holds man captive and incites him to sin against God. And until the flesh is crucified by the Holy Spirit, a person remains under the dominion of sin and death. It is important, however, to note that the flesh is not the only threat against man’s relationship with God. James 4:4b reads, “Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Someone may ask: How is the world a threat to our relationship with God? First of all, we need to understand the meaning of the word ‘world’ in the context of these two verses. The world here in context does not refer to the created universe or the physical earth on which we live but to the system of evil, the system of darkness, which dominates the human realm, and which opposes God and his Word. “The whole world (i.e., this system of evil, as 1 John 5:19 says) lies in the power of the evil one.” The world is Satan’s domain. It reviles God’s Word and upholds lies and deceptions; it devises evil schemes to hinder the truth, to drive man away from the truth and to set him up against God; it calls evil good, and good evil.  Anyone who embraces this system of lies and deceptions does not obey God but does the desires of the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies”, declares the Lord in John 8:44b. 

We must keep ourselves unstained from the world (cf. James 1:17). For between the kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God there is no fellowship but enmity. Those who conform to the standards of this world make themselves enemies of God. Such abide in darkness, and death abides in them because they do not love God. In other words, there is no life for those who love the world and the things in it; death is the eternal destination of their souls. In order to have life, one must reject the world, one must die to the world. To borrow Paul’s language from Gal. 6:14, the world must be crucified to you, and you to the world. That is to say, you must reject any ideology or belief, any speculation or philosophical theory raised against the Word of God; you must reject any doctrine that denies Christ, his deity, his humanity, his virgin birth, his resurrection and work; you must denounce any movement that stands against the Truth, any government decree that contradicts the Word of God, and every law that condemns biblical truths and exalts evil, lies and deceptions. To borrow the words of the Apostle Paul from 2 Cor. 10:5, you must denounce “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” This is what it means to die to the world. 

Life is for those who neither walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but listen to the Lord and walk in his statutes, and are dead to the basic principles of this world. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:1-2). But all those who walk in darkness, following the doctrines of demons, and are swept away by all kinds of philosophical speculations, legends, human ideologies and traditions that spurn God’s wisdom, are enemies of God, sons of disobedience, lovers of the system of evil which stands against Christ and his Kingdom. Any system of belief or ideology that creates hindrances to the message of the cross and rejects the nature of Christ or his work is demonic. Anyone who turns away from listening to the truth and wanders off into myths is not of God, but a child of the devil. Such a person cannot inherit eternal life. 

To please God, one must not love the world, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world”, as John writes in 1 John 2:16. But the truth of the matter is, we are by nature driven by lusts because of our fallenness. The inclination of our hearts is for the world and what it has to offer. It is not in our nature to love God. Rather, we love darkness, we hold onto lies, deceptions, and philosophical speculations; we are ruled by the spirit of falsehood. Therefore, the divine injunction to refrain from loving the world is opposed to the natural inclination of our hearts; for by nature we love the world rather than God. This unfolds our inability, humanly speaking, to obey the command set before us. For the natural man walks according to the flesh, and the flesh cannot fight against itself. We cannot make the shift from worldliness to godliness on our own. It is impossible for a person to free himself from the grip of worldliness and to make room in his heart for God by his own effort. It takes the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit to change the inclination of our sinful and deceitful hearts. No man can, by his own power, stop loving the world; no one has a natural inclination to love God. 

Loving God is not a decision we make, overcoming the world is not the desire of the natural heart. Nor is it possible to overcome the world by the power of the flesh. “This is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith”, says 1 John 5:4b. By faith, which is a gift graciously infused by God into the hearts of undeserving sinners as we are, we are set free from sin, the flesh, the world, Satan and death. 1 John 5:1 says, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” That is to say, the evidence that we are born of God, that we are children of God, is our faith in his Son Jesus Christ. He who does not believes the Son remains spiritually dead, alienated from God, and the wrath of God is his portion forever. V.4a says, “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.” We who are in Christ have overcome the world, and not only the world, but also death and he who has power over death, i.e., the evil one. We have conquered death and Satan by the precious blood of the Lamb of God. 

Unless one is born of God, he remains under the dominion of Satan, he remains a slave to the system of evil ruled by Satan. Our love for the world separates us from God until the moment of our conversion. For there is no unity between darkness and light; between the world and the Kingdom of Heaven there is no fellowship. There is no coherence between the holy and the profane. Between moral purity and depravity there is no harmony; there is no friendship between the world and God. People who love the world are alienated from God’s glorious presence. For, as already mentioned, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Anyone who upholds any ideology that is against Christ is an enemy of God, and he cannot inherit Christ’s Kingdom. Unless a person renounces to the abominations that are in the world because of lust, and turns to Christ in repentance and faith, Satan will continue to rule over him, and he will remain a candidate for the second death. 

You cannot inherit life if you hold onto lies and deceptions, and embrace the speculations that this world promotes. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God if you feed on demonic ideologies, and call evil good, and good evil. You cannot escape the second death, unless you turn to Christ in genuine repentance and faith, and embrace Him as Lord and Saviour. You may be someone who professes to know Christ but loves the world. You need to know that you are under the dominion of Satan, and what awaits you is the second death unless you truly turn to Christ. Remember what 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

You may be an adherent of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, atheism, or Roman Catholicism. What you need to understand is that the ideologies of these religious systems and philosophical movements are demonic, they are anti-Christ and anti-God. They are abhorrent to God because they deny man’s total depravity and exalt him before God. They deceive man into believing that his good works can earn him access to heaven. For they disregard God’s holiness and uniqueness or completely deny his existence. They dishonour God by giving his glory and praise to idols, they reject Christ, deny his exclusivity and nature, and trample underfoot his precious blood by upholding human merits. They uphold the doctrines of demons and revile the Holy Spirit by rejecting the whole counsel of God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. God is not mocked. “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols”, declares the Lord in Is. 42:8.

You cannot claim to be right with God while worshipping deceitful spirits and following the teachings of demons. For “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7). You cannot give God’s glory and praise to false gods and expect to be reconciled to God. The object of one’s faith is a determining factor, for it indicates to which kingdom he belongs. For there are two kingdoms: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. There are two families: the family of God and the family of Satan. There are two types of people: the children of God and the children of Satan. And any person on this earth is either of God or of Satan. 1 John 3:10 says, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother” 

You cannot worship the spirit of error and claim that somehow you belong to God. If you worship any deity other than the true God, if you bow your knees to someone other than Christ, you are a child of the devil. Your lack of obedience to God demonstrates your hostility toward Him and your alienation from Him. The Lord says in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” God’s children keep God’s commandments. “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us” (1 John 3:23). V.24, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

The object of our faith matters. So crucial also is the genuineness of our faith in Christ; for no one can be reconciled to God without genuine faith in his Son. This is evidenced not only by one’s obedience to God’s commandments, but also by a correct view of the person and work of Christ and a proper view of sin. If you believe you are good enough to be right with God, if you deny the presence of sin in your life, you are a self-righteous person; and that is the evidence that you are not of God. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Furthermore, an incorrect view of the person and work of Christ attests that your faith is not genuine. If you claim to be a Christian while denying the very nature of Christ (i.e., his humanity and deity) or his finished work of redemption, such denial proves the superficiality of your faith and demonstrates that you are not born of God. 1 John 4:2-3 says, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.”

Also, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the only Saviour, sent by the Father to ransom sinners from lawlessness, the object of your faith is none other but an idol; and this is the proof that you do not belong to the family of God, but are his enemy, an antichrist. Any idol worshipper is not born of God but is a child of the devil; for they reject God’s Son to genuflect before the prince of the power of the air, who like them, is at enmity with God. Anyone born of God worships the Creator God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Your lack of faith in Jesus Christ proves that you are not born of God. And because you are not born of God, you cannot enter his Kingdom. The Lord Himself says in John 3:5, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” 

To escape hell one must be born of God. And the evidence that one is born of God is his ongoing faith in God’s Son, which is evidenced by a proper view they have of the person and work of Christ. True children of God throughout their lives affirm Christ’s deity and his humanity – Christ is at the same time truly man and truly God. That’s to say, Jesus is one divine person who possesses two distinct yet inseparable, unchangeable and non-conflicting natures: a human nature with all its attributes except sin, and a divine nature with all its attributes. As long as they live, those who are born of God also affirm Christ’s virgin birth, his oneness, his exactness in nature and equality with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; they affirm his eternality, his substitutionary death on the cross, his resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God the Father; they recognize Christ’s sinless nature, his complete and sufficient work for the redemption of sinners, and his pre-eminence over all things. True Christians acknowledge that Christ is the Creator, the only Mediator between God and men, the Redeemer of humanity, the Great High Priest, the Prophet, the King of kings, Lord of lords and the Judge of all.

1 John 2:23 reads, “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.” Those who love the Father love his Son also. A person who denies the Son of God manifests by such denial his hostility against the Father and the Holy Spirit who have borne witness of the Son. Faith in Christ the Saviour is the evidence that one is born of God, that they are adopted into the family of God; it is the testimony of one’s saving relationship with God. And when I speak of faith, it must be noted that it is not an intellectual assent or approval of facts concerning the person of Christ and his work, but rather a perpetual expression of assurance and conviction that lasts the lifetime of an individual and shows itself in one’s submission to the Word of God. The Lord declares in John 8:31-32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” God’s children prove their new birth of the Spirit by the ongoing faith they have in his Son, Christ the Lord. This type of faith that defines true believers is a gift of God to his elect. No one who is not born of the Spirit can have it. 

Another evidence that one is a child of God is their obedience to God and the love they have for God and for all who are born of God. In John 14:21 the Lord says, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” If you love God, you will keep his commandment. As already mentioned, the commandment of God is that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. The genuineness of your faith in Christ is attested by your love for Him and the honour you give Him because of who He is. For Christ is God. If you love Christ you will not give his glory to an idol, you will not exalt yourself or anything else above Him. Anyone who does not hold to a correct view of the person and work of Christ as revealed to us in the Scriptures, though he may claim to be a Christian, is not born of God. His faith is a sham. Anyone who upholds human philosophy and demonic doctrines as superior to the Gospel of Christ is at enmity with God. Anyone who rejects Christ the Son of God is under divine curse. In John 3:36 the Lord says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” 

The Son was sent into the world by the Father to purchase our redemption. The Holy Spirit bore witness about the Son through signs and wonders, and the Father also bore witness about the Son. Before Christ began his three-year ministry, after his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist, the Father uttered these words from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17). Later on, during Christ’s transfiguration, the Father spoke to the disciples from the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him” (Mat. 17:5). Therefore, whoever rejects the testimony given by God concerning his Son Jesus Christ commits the ultimate sin of blasphemy against God by making God a liar. As 1 John 5:10-11 says, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

If you have not yet bowed you knees to the Son of God, I urge you to turn away from your idols today. Forsake all the abominations of this world and turn to God, lest you die in your sin and spend eternity in conscious cruciation in the fire of hell. Salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, through Scriptures alone, and to the glory of God alone. Christ came into this world and taught us the whole counsel of God, so that all might believe and be saved. He brought to us the Gospel of grace without which there is no salvation. “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). The Gospel reveals to us that sinners are justified before God only on the basis of their faith in Christ. Because we are all inherently evil, it is only by believing the Gospel, by putting our trust in Christ Jesus that we can be made righteous through imputation – Christ imputes his righteousness to everyone who turns to Him in repentance and faith, and God treats them as righteous. By quoting Hab. 2:4, Paul intends to make it clear that the basis for justification has always been the same – faith from beginning to end. We are graciously justified by God through faith alone. As Hebrews 11:6 points it out, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

The message of the cross, “the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). Although it is foolishness to the perishing, the Gospel alone has the power to save sinful humanity. For it is endowed with God’s authority and omnipotence. No heart of stone, no depraved mind internally summoned by God can resist such power. When God sends forth his Word, when the Gospel is preached, light shines in the darkness, the power of darkness is broken down, and the souls of elect sinners are set free. They are rescued from spiritual deadness, delivered from sin and darkness, from the dominion of Satan, from the power of death; they are saved from divine wrath, and brought captive to Christ. They pass from death to life. The Lord says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” There is no life without the Gospel, there is no salvation without the living and eternal Word, that is, the incarnate Son of God, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – as Peter reminds his readers in 1 Pet. 1:23, “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God.” And there is only one Gospel, the Gospel of Christ, revealed by the Spirit of Christ to his holy apostles and prophets, preached by the apostles and recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Any message or doctrine that contradicts the Word of our Lord as revealed to us in the pages of Scriptures is demonic, and leads to perdition. 

Only the Gospel of God has the power to raise the dead, to restore life to spiritually dead sinners who deserve nothing but God's wrath, eternal, conscious torment in hell. It is so unfortunate that over the years the Gospel has been attacked by all sorts of heretics. The world constantly assaults the Gospel by promoting lies and deceptions. Doomed are all those who are swept away by the doctrines of demons. Accursed is anyone who perverts the Gospel of Christ. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatian church, whose members were being led astray by the Judaizers who sought to distort the Gospel, writes, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:6-9).  2 John 9 reads, “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.” If the Word of God abides in you, “then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father”, as the Apostle John points it out. “And this is the promise that He made to us – eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

The Lord Himself made it clear that those who reject his words will die in their sins, and hence go to hell. Speaking to his revilers in John 8:23-24, He pronounced judgement on them, saying, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” 

Anyone who refuses to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour will die in their sins. Christ alone is the Saviour, the Truth that sets people free. Unless you believe He was sent by God to save you from moral corruption, divine wrath, judgement and hell, unless you recognize that Christ alone can pay the penalty for all your sins, unless you believe the true Gospel, i.e., the person and work of Christ for redemptive purpose, you will remain in bondage to sin and death. Note that to believe is not synonymous with having a mere intellectual assent of what Scripture affirms about the person of Christ and what He accomplished at the cross for our redemption when He died as a substitute for sinners. But it rather refers to saving faith in Christ, evidenced by a radical transformation of your heart and mind and a complete newness of life. 2 Cor. 5:17 reads, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Anyone who believes the message of the cross, whoever turns to Christ in repentance and faith is born of the Spirit and baptised into the family of God. 

There are so many people in the world today who believe they can reject Christ and still be pleasing to God; they believe they can have the favour of the Father even though they deny his Son. Because the Gospel, the message of the cross, is offensive to them, they have rejected the Son and crafted a god in their own image, as unholy as themselves. They are liars, the antichrists; they propagate lies and deceptions to hinder the truth. “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” Asks the Apostle John. “This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). V.23, “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.” God, the eternal and holy God, is tree persons in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All members of the Holy Trinity are one in essence and inseparable. Therefore, those who reject the Son, those who reject the Gospel of Christ reject the whole Trinity and stand condemned before the holy God. You cannot separate the Godhead, you cannot love one member and hate the other, you cannot accept one member and reject the other. “I and the Father are one”, says the Lord Jesus in John 10:30. John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” 

The sacrosanctity that defines the union among the Trinity also characterises the union between God and his children, i.e., those who are born of the Spirit. For being baptized into the family of God, we all have become one with Christ. The Lord therefore makes it clear that when a person welcomes or shows kindness to a child of God, they do it to God. Conversely, when a person rejects a child of God, they reject God (cf. Mat. 25:35-45). In Luke 10:16, the Lord says to his disciples, “The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” 

There is perfect harmony in the Godhead, perfect communion, perfect unity and perfect love.  Whoever rejects the words of Christ also rejects the words of the Father who sent Him and of the Spirit who testified to Christ’s deity through signs and wonders. The Lord declares in John 12:46-50, “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.” The Lord Jesus came the first time to bring us salvation, to grant us deliverance from sin and peace with God. But at his second advent, He is bringing judgement upon all those who reject Him, who refuse to believe the words that the Father sent Him to proclaim the first time He came into the world.

The message brought to us by the Son was from the Father who sent Him. Whoever rejects that message not only rejects the Son but also the Father. This is the testimony that John the Baptist bore concerning Christ, “He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what He has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For He Whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:31-36). 

All those who deny God’s Son cannot receive eternal life. Anyone who holds to his pride deceives himself. For by rejecting God’s offer of forgiveness and salvation by grace through his Son, they forfeit the opportunity to pass from death to life. “This is the path of those who have foolish confidence; yet after them people approve of their boasts. Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell” (Ps. 49:13-14). All authority has been given by the Father to the Son to reconcile all things to God. The Son is the Way to the Father – “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”, declares the Son in John 14:6. Christ has authority over life and death; He has authority over your life and your death. “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life (i.e., He restores spiritually dead sinners to life and raises those who are physically dead), so also the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:21-24). 

What a great news for those who recognize the wretchedness of their hearts and surrender their souls to the Lord Jesus who sets sinners free from the bondage of corruption and reconciles them to Himself! All those who feel the burden of their sins weighing down upon their shoulders and turn to the Lord Jesus are delivered from the bondage of sin and death, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ the Saviour. They pass from death to live, being revived by the Holy Spirit of love. What a gracious God we have! His tender mercies are unsearchable. The Lord does not cast out those who turn to Him, but rather He is the Seeker and Saviour of lost sinners; He calls sinners to come to Him and be saved. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Calls the Lord in Mat. 11:28-30. This call is for you today. Do not harden your heart, for tomorrow may be too late.

Anyone who believes in Christ is no longer spiritually dead but alive. He also escapes the second death, the everlasting torment that unrepentant sinners consciously face in hell. For when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are graciously reconciled to God and granted the gift of life. The Lord raises us from spiritual death and imparts life to our souls. This is known as spiritual resurrection, distinct for physical resurrection which will take place in the future. For when the Lord comes to rapture the Church, He will raise the saints who fell asleep. They and we who are still alive will each receive a glorified body fit for everlasting life in the Kingdom of our God. The Lord declares in John 6:47-48, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.” V.51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”  “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”, declares the Lord in v.53. 

Metaphorically, Christ is the Bread of life and the Fountain of living waters. Just as food and drink are necessary to keep us physically alive, we need Christ in order to be alive spiritually – He is our spiritual food and our spiritual drink. It is He who gives life to our dead souls. Without Christ we can never know God savingly. Christ alone enables us to pass from spiritual deadness to life; He alone saves us from everlasting torment in the fire of hell and grants us access to his Kingdom. He willingly laid down his life as a ransom for sin and opened access to God to all who turn away from their sins and believe on Him – they receive Christ’s imputed righteousness, are thus justified before God and baptised into the family of God by the Holy Spirit of promise. And because Christ lives, they also live in Him. In v.54-57 the Lord says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on Me, he also will live because of Me.” John 6:27, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on Him.” 

Those who feed on Christ receive life. But those who follow the doctrines of demons, human traditions, philosophical speculations and legends poison their souls; for they feed on ashes. Such nourishment profits them nothing but judgement. As the psalmist writes, “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply” (Ps. 16:4). For in their delusion, they have exchanged the food which endures to everlasting life, i.e., the Word of God, for ashes. They follow ideologies that promote lies and deceptions in order to gratify the desires of their flesh. 1 John 2:3-6 says, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” Anyone who is offended by the words of Christ, anyone who professes heresies against the Truth, anyone who denies the Lord Jesus Christ is of the devil. Such hate the Light because their deeds are evil; they refuse to come to Christ because they do not want their evil deeds to be exposed. As the Lord affirms in John 3:20, “Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

We cannot uphold truth and lies at the same time; we cannot seek the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan; we cannot have one foot in the Kingdom of light and one foot in the kingdom of darkness; we cannot love God and the world. We must choose whom to worship and serve; for we cannot worship Christ and Satan simultaneously. Joshua understood that it was not possible for Israel to reconcile the worship of the Lord their God with the worship of the false gods which their forefathers had served before them. So when Joshua gathered the people of Israel at Shechem, after he had reminded them all that the Lord had done for them, he exhorted them, saying, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord” (Jos. 24:14)! And in v.15 he said to them, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” 

Many in the world today believe that they can reconcile the worship of the Living God with that of their false gods; for they have a low esteem of the holy God. They claim to be Christians but at the same time they observe the demonic rituals and traditions of their forefathers. People consult sorcerers, mediums, magicians and fortune-tellers, they attend all kinds of cults, and on Sundays they go to church. There are places in the world where the worship of the dead is a common practice: people consult the dead and offer them sacrifices and prayers. Do not be fooled! The Lord God is a jealous God who tolerates no rival. Ex. 34:14 says, “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Deut. 4:24, “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deut. 6:13-15, “It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you – for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God – lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and He destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

This is a warning to all those who believe they can worship God and the devil at the same time; it a warning to those who believe they can gather for themselves all kinds of false gods and the Lord God will never be offended. There is no fellowship between God and those who practice such things. For they are of their father the devil; they belong to the kingdom of darkness. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:5-6). You cannot claim to be of God while you embrace demonic practices. You may call yourself a Christian, but until you let go the world with its evil practices, lies and deceptions, and give the Lord the glory and praise due Him, you cannot enter his Kingdom. The Lord says in Mat. 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

The necessity to crucify the world and all that it offers in order that the love of the Father may be perfected in us is plainly stated by 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:6 says, “Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.”

There is a clear opposition between the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of darkness. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the world with its evil practices and turned away from its lies and deceptions. You cannot embrace truth and falsehood at the same time. You cannot reconcile the Kingdom of light with the kingdom of darkness. You cannot worship the deities of Hinduism and have fellowship with the One True God. “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols”, says the Lord Almighty in Is. 42:8. You cannot exalt Mary, or Buddha, or Mohammed, or any false god and call yourself a child of God. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). You cannot offer sacrifices and prayers to the dead or to any other idol and still be pleasing to God; for the things which you sacrifice, you “sacrifice to demons and not to God” (cf. 1 Cor. 10:20). As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 10:21, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s Table and of the table of demons.”

Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, all forms of cults and human traditions are not from God but from the evil one. These are evil systems established by men and the demonic spirits to promote idolatry and rebellion against God. Their goal is to create hindrances to the knowledge of the One True God and his Son Jesus Christ, and elevate the worship of demons. The Pope of the Roman Catholics, for instance, who claims to be the Head of the Church, is nothing but a usurper of Christ’s prerogative; he is an antichrist who promotes the worship of Mary and elevates himself above the Church. Primacy over the Church is a prerogative that belongs to Christ alone – He laid down his life for his Church and all glory belongs to Him alone. Christ is the Head of the Church, and He alone is to be worshipped. For “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence” (Col. 1:15-18). God “put all things under his feet and gave Him as Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23). Eph. 5:23, “Christ is Head of the Church; and He is the Savior of the body.”

Whoever upholds any ideology that rejects the Gospel of Christ is an antichrist. If you are part of any system of belief that does not exalt Christ but rejects his nature and exclusivity, you are nothing but an antichrist. If you live according to human traditions, according to the elemental spirits of the world, you are a demon worshipper, an agent of Satan. True children of God obey his Word and exalt Him. But those ruled by the spirit of error that is in the world do not and cannot endure sound doctrine; they blatantly reject the Gospel of Christ (cf. 1 John 4:6). 

True Christianity is the only religion that comes from God and the only way for all people to be reconciled to God. If you do not worship the One True and Living God, if you do not bow your knees to Christ the Lord Saviour, the God of the universe, there is no way you can escape hell. Anyone who is not a genuine Christian is under the bondage of Satan and his minions, and death abides in him. Whether you are a religious or self-righteous person, all your merits and good works will only be enough to reserve a place for you in hell, where you will suffer conscious torments and divine wrath for eternity. Or you may call yourself an atheist. Know, however, that you are without excuse. For your denial of God’s existence is an outrageous blaspheme against God, a blatant rebellion against Him. For even without the knowledge of the written law of God, every human being has an inborn cognizance of God’s moral law. This is evidenced by man’s instinctive attempt to practice some good deeds while loathing some evil acts, because he has an innate sense of right and wrong. This is the evidence that God’s law is written in the heart of every person. On the basis of this innate knowledge alone, you stand condemned before the Holy God for any sin you have ever committed. Greater, therefore, shall be your punishment if you continue to deny God. For apart from your conscience, you have the general revelation of God by creation, and the Holy Scriptures. 

All those who deny the existence of God are without excuse. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). The creation is a magnificent and irrefutable display of God’s infinite glory, goodness and faithfulness. God’s glory is captured by our mind’s eyes which perceive God’s attributes in the things He created. Also, the innate mechanism of discernment between good and evil that we each have, i.e., our conscience, either condemns us when we violate the law of God, or excuses us when you don’t. Thus the creation and our consciences testify to the existence of the Supreme God and his invisible qualities. Furthermore, God has revealed Himself to us in these last days through his Son Jesus Christ, and before his Son through his holy prophets. Thus you will never have peace with God if you continue to deny his existence. 

Therefore, I implore you to flee from perdition. Make peace with God through his Son Jesus Christ, lest He unleash his wrath upon you for dishonoring Him. The Lord has given us his Son as a free gift of life. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. The world will pass away, the wicked will be destroyed, all those who reject God will be condemned. But those who are in Christ will live with God forever because they are no longer held captive by sin and death. So repent of your sins today and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Acknowledge that you cannot save yourself, that you have no value, no virtue. Acknowledge that you do not have a righteousness of your own, and with a deep conviction admit that Christ alone can set you free. Recognize Him for who He is – Christ is God, the sovereign Lord and Saviour. As Paul writes in Rom. 10:9-11, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” In Christ there is deliverance from sin, the flesh, death, Satan and the world. Anyone who puts his trust in Christ passes from death to life. V.13 says, “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 

Today is the day of salvation for all those who put their trust in Christ. He has stretched out his hand of mercy to welcome those who have a contrite spirit and a broken heart. This moment will not last forever. The day is coming when the Lord God and Saviour will unleash his judgement on all those who have chosen to love the world rather than Him. All those whose god is their natural desires will be put to shame; for their pride and wickedness will testify against them. All those who long for temporal pleasures and self-fulfillment will face the just and eternal wrath of God. Many are the deceived today. For the world keeps telling those who want to exalt themselves, ‘Your best life is now’. This, by the way, is true as far as the perishing are concerned; for they aspire only to temporal pleasures, and death is their eternal reward. Pursuing the desires and lustful passions of the flesh, they exchange the truth about God for lies and deceptions, in order that they may indulge in deeds of wickedness without restraint. They worship and serve idols rather than God. To live, one must turn away from falsehood and walk in truth, one must die to the world and live for Christ. However, because the world is hostile to the truth, anyone who rejects falsehood must patiently endure to the end, and be willing to suffer for the sake of the truth, even unto death; for our defense of the truth always earns for us suffering and sometimes death.

Life is for those who suffer and die in Christ

Contrary to what many professing evangelicals believe and proclaim, the Gospel is not about prosperity, health and wealth. The ‘name it and claim it’ gospel is not biblical. In biblical Christianity, the Gospel is the good news of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead for the salvation of all those who believe on Him, and who have been given to Him by the Father. It is God's message of peace to man, concerning the person, words, and works of Christ, through Whom redemption is accomplished and utterly depraved, undeserving and helpless sinners are justified by grace through faith, to the glory of God. We live in a hostile world that despises this good news of peace. The rejection and murder of Christ when He came in the flesh and dwelt among us is an irrefutable evidence of the hostility of the world. For Christ was killed because He told the world that its deeds were evil. 

As followers of Christ, we, like Him before us, are hated and afflicted by the world, and this is not something strange. For as the Lord says in John 15:18-21, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know Him who sent Me.” “In Mat. 10:24 the Lord says to his own, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.” He said this in order that we, his disciples, may understand that in this world we will also suffer persecution as He did. In John 13:16 the Lord says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” That is to say, we should not expect the world to treat us with dignity; for we are an extension of Christ, we are his body. Is. 53:3 says of our Lord that, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”  

The Lord Himself knew what the world would do against his disciples, those who would be faithful to Him. Therefore, He repeatedly foretold the sufferings we would endure for his name’s sake in this world. For instance, the Lord says in John 16:33b, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” From generation to generation, faithful believers continue to endure fierce hatred from the enemies of Christ. For it is our lot as Christians to suffer rejection, affliction, persecution, and even martyrdom for the sake of the name of our Lord. But we are to count it all joy when we suffer for the sake of our Lord, because of the fruit that trial produces in our lives. For our Heavenly Father subjects us to trials in order to test our faith. In other words, through suffering, God our Father reveals to us the quality of our faith. And the testing of our faith produces steadfastness (cf. James 1:3), and the fruit is our sanctification, our spiritual maturity.  

In this broken world, it is impossible for a faithful Christian to escape hatred. The Lord Himself says to his disciples, “You will be hated by all for my name's sake” (Mat. 10:22). No one who identifies with Christ and follows Him faithfully can escape the hostility of the enemies of truth. Being a Christian does not put an end to our suffering in this world, it instead brings us more affliction. “For to [us] it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for his sake” as Paul writes in Phil. 1:29. We have been granted by God to share in the sufferings of our Lord, so that by suffering in the flesh we might be trained and equipped to live the rest of our days in our earthly tent no longer for the vicious passions of the flesh but for the will of God and the glory of Christ our Lord. Peter writes in 1 Pet. 4:12-13, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” As believers, we should willingly endure, without being terrified, everything that the world throws at us because we identify with our Saviour. Such endurance is a clear sign of our salvation. For it produces obedience, and obedience inspires hope.

Christianity is not for those who want to escape suffering in this present life, but for those who admit that they are spiritually sick, recognize their need of Christ the Saviour, submit to his lordship and are willing and ready to partake in his sufferings in this age, that they may share in his glory in the age to come. To suffer for the love of Christ is a proof of our union with Him. The Lord says in Luke 14:27, “Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Anyone who desires to live his best life now is not heavenly-minded but worldly-minded; for he is not Christ-centered but self-centered. He is not a seeker of God but a seeker of self. Anyone who wants to preserve himself in this life cannot be a true Christian. Although such a person may profess faith in Christ, he is like the rocky ground in the Parable of the Sower that the Lord uses in Mat. 13, “the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away” (v.20-21). 

There are many people today who view Christianity as a means to escape the troubles of this life. They decide to become “Christians” not for the sake of Christ, but for the benefits He offers. To these, I would like say this: first of all, being a Christian does not depend on a decision that we make, nor on what we ourselves have done. For it is by the sovereign grace and will of God that we are saved through faith in his Son Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in Rom. 9:16, “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” Also, what you have signed up for is not Christianity but a utopia; because Christians are called to suffer in this age. If you truly want to be a follower of Christ, fasten your belt; because it will cost you everything – the world will make you suffer. For God’s ordained path to blissfulness and blessedness is opposed to the supposed path to happiness set before man by the world.

Although as Christians we have peace with God through Christ our Lord, the Christian’s life in this world is not devoid of suffering. For our identification with our Lord and our defense of and faithfulness to the truth results in conflict and division. The Lord Himself says in Mat. 10:34-36, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.” The promised glory does not come without suffering, but rather suffering for Christ's sake precedes the crown of glory. Just as the Apostle Paul puts it, we become “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Rom. 8:17). The Lord says in John 12:26, “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” 

A true disciple does not live to serve sin and the flesh, but rather he lives for Christ, to serve and honour Him. A true disciple offers himself to God as an instrument for righteousness. And to be a useful instrument, one must follow Christ wherever He goes. We live in a world where people are driven by lust – they seek temporal pleasures and freedom; for they are enslaved by sin. It is easy to live that way, but destruction is the reward. We are commanded not to be conformed to this manner of life but to take the way that leads to life. We are called to embrace a lifestyle where Christ, not self, is exalted, a lifestyle where self is crucified and Christ is glorified, a lifestyle where self is nothing and Christ is everything. This is the path we are called to follow – the narrow gate, being led by our Lord. As the Lord Himself says in Mat. 7:14, this is not an easy path. That is to say, it is difficult to be a follower of Christ; for serving our Lord Saviour demands a complete denial of self and the willingness to embrace suffering for his sake, so that we may partake in his glory. 

Those who partake in the glory of our gracious Saviour are pilgrims in this world, wholeheartedly committed to the Lord, with the willingness to suffer loss, persecution and even death for his sake. I am not suggesting that we are saved when we suffer afflictions for Christ’s sake – salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But what I want to point out is that: a heart commitment to our Lord always earns for us persecution from the world, because what we believe and proclaim, what we stand for is offensive to the world. And as the Lord says in John 12:25, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Those who think that Christianity is a means to satisfy the passions of their hearts get it all wrong. Those who reduce Christianity to the pursuit of one’s best life in this present age profane the Gospel. For in this world anyone who is a true follower of Christ will experience suffering, rejection, persecution, violence, loss, hatred, and potentially martyrdom, as they seek to remain faithful to the Lord. Indeed, this is clearly stated by Paul when he writes in 2 Tim. 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”   

There is no glory without agony, there is no crown of life without thorns in the flesh, there is no exaltation without humiliation. Anyone is in Christ must suffer for the sake of our Lord. As the Apostle Paul writes in Acts 14:22, “We must through many tribulations enter the Kingdom of God.” When we hold fast to the Word of God, when we deny ourselves, renounce to worldliness, bear our cross daily, and faithfully follow our Lord wherever He takes us, we become the target of this hostile world. No genuine Christian can escape persecution, no faithful follower of Christ can escape the hostility of the world. This is a reality that the Lord Himself affirms on multiple occasions during his earthly ministry. He says to his disciples in Mat. 10:16-18, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.” John 16:2-4 reads, “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.”

Although in Christ our Lord we receive every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world and the promise of eternal glory, our life in this world is not free from trials. On the one hand, our life as Christians is replete with heavenly blessings; but on the other hand, because of our identification with our Saviour Lord, the world hates us and persecutes us. Discipleship is a package deal; for to partake of the blissful reward, of the everlasting glory of God’s children, one must accept the afflictions that come with it. Every true follower of Christ is blessed by God in many ways, in time and eternity; but he is also afflicted by the world. The Lord affirms this reality in Mark 10:29-30 when He says, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my sake and the Gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life.” The Apostle Paul testifies to this reality by relating his own experience in 2 Cor. 4:8-11, saying, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

Many are the troubles of God’s people in this present life because of the world’s hatred toward Christ and all those who belong to Him. Psalms 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” The psalmist in Psalms 44:22 writes, “Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” The Gospel we proclaim is offensive to the perishing; they hate it because it exposes their evil deeds. The message of the cross divides people, it splits families, and stirs the world’s hatred. Those who are offended by the Gospel rise up against and persecute those who hold fast to it. The Lord warns us in Mat. 10:21-22 of coming persecutions, saying, “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” When the Lord addressed the seven churches in the Book of Revelation, He said to the persecuted church in Smyrna, “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death” (Rev. 2:9-11). 

Anyone who follows the Lord Jesus Christ must partake in his sufferings. Therefore, following the example of Moses, one of the OT figures of faith, anyone disciple of Christ must choose to suffer affliction for Christ’s sake rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. We must esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the perishable treasures this world has to offer. We must suffer like Christ did. For we share in the glory of our Lord, provided we suffer with Him. We must also share in the death of Christ in order to share in his life. 2 Tim. 2:11-12 reads, “For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.” 

True discipleship demands wholehearted commitment that requires self-denial and separation from the world. As natural men, we offered our members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but in Christ we are to present our members to God as instruments for righteousness, and be willing to suffer martyrdom for our Saviour’s sake. When we embark on this journey, Christ’s death and burial become ours. And as partakers in the death of our Saviour, we also share in his resurrection. In other words, we spiritually partake in Christ’s death and resurrection. “For (as Paul writes in Rom. 6:5) if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like his.” And since Christ lives, we also live through Him.

Blessed are those who suffer persecution, loss and death for the sake of Christ. 1 Pet. 3:14 reads, “Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed.” Mat. 5:11, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.” James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.” But those who love their lives here on earth and deny Christ because they are not willing to suffer loss or death or persecution for Christ’s sake forfeit their opportunity to be justified before God, and thus remain under divine curse. “For (as the Lord says in Mat. 16:25) whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Those who by faith renounce their lives here on earth, those who renounce their body of sin and commit themselves wholeheartedly to Christ, and remain faithful to Him even unto death will each receive life from the Lord. But anyone who preserves his body of sin will face great loss; they will die in their sin and go to hell. As followers of Christ, we are freed from the sting of death and reconciled to our Heavenly Father through the precious blood of our Saviour. And when we die in the Lord, we leave this earth without blemish; for all our sins are forgiven. For Christ was delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification (cf. Rom. 4:25). 2 Cor. 5:21 bears this testimony of our Saviour, “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

It is God’s perfect and sovereign will to give us peace and to reconcile all things to Himself through his Son. However, peace with God does not come without death to self, death to the world, and suffering for Christ’s sake. But it is worth the cost. For what profit is it if we deny Christ in our pursuit of temporal pleasures and forfeit an eternity of blissfulness? Anyone who is not willing to accept Christ as Saviour and Lord, anyone who denies the Lord Jesus in order to preserve his body of sin will not live. Rather, they will endure everlasting torment and divine wrath in hell, because they have trampled underfoot the precious blood of God’s Son. But those who crucify their bodies of sin and submit to the Lord shall not perish. Such receive in Christ everlasting blessedness.

The blessedness of being dead to sin and alive in Christ

The wages of sin is death. But “whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God” (1 Pet. 4:1-2). Someone may ask: Who is he who has ceased from sin? Anyone who is in Christ. By the Spirit of Christ, we who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its lusts. That is to say, as followers of Christ, we are dead to sin. Therefore, our heart is set on the things above, and we delight in the ways of our Lord. We are no longer governed by the basic principles of this world because we are not of the world. Rather, we put our trust in the Lord our God. Although sin is still in us, we are no longer its slaves, i.e., we no longer live in sin, we do not practice sin, nor do we delight in it – and death no longer holds us captive. But rather, as Christ’s slaves, we “walk in newness of life”; and in this new life, our relationship with God is restored. As Paul writes in Rom. 5:1-5, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

In Christ we have peace with God: there is no more enmity between us and our Father God but fellowship; we are no longer in rebellion against Him but obedient to Him; we are no longer separated from Him but reconciled to Him, sealed into his love by the Spirit of grace who graciously preserves us for the day of our redemption. In Christ we are no longer without hope, but prepared for us in heaven is the Hope of glory. We embark on a totally new life as citizens of heaven, justified before God, not by our own doings, but on the basis of the perfect and finished work of our Savior Lord, according to his abundant grace and mercy. What we once lost through Adam, i.e., peace with God, has been restored by our Saviour through his atoning sacrifice. And so declares our Lord in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

In Christ we are no longer children of wrath but sons of God. For we have been justified by his precious blood, baptised and adopted into the family of God by the Holy Spirit who has sealed us into God’s love and promises, and prepared us for all good works. In Christ we are made citizens of heaven, co-heirs with our Saviour according to the riches of his grace (cf. Rom. 8:16-17). Furthermore, we abide in our Father and He abides in us. And on the basis of our Savior Lord’s merit, which is imputed to us through faith in Him, we go to our Father in prayer, with confidence and the assurance that his ear is attuned to our cry. (cf. John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:24).  

As citizens of the Kingdom, co-heirs with our gracious Saviour, our hope is kept for us in heaven; our eternal reward dwells with our heavenly Father. As 1 Pet. 1:3-5 points it out, “According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” So our inheritance is neither earthly nor decayable, it has no flaw and cannot be destroyed. Rather it is heavenly, unchanging, pure, and eternal. For being chosen out of the world by our gracious Saviour, we no longer belong to the kingdom of darkness but to the Kingdom of God, and have become co-heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, although tribulation, rejection, distress, persecution, suffering, and even martyrdom may be part of our life as Christians, however none of these troubles is able to steal our joy and the peace given to us by our Lord. For no one can destroy the hope that is kept for us, nor can one separate us from the love of our Saviour. As the Apostle Paul writes in Rom. 8:37, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” “For I am sure (writes Paul in V. 38-39) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

As people who are dead to sin but alive in our Saviour, we neither fear death nor the hostile world which persecutes the Church – “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” as Paul points it out in 2 Tim. 1:7. As 1 John 4:18 highlights it, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Being born of God, we have confidence for the day of judgement because we have been forgiven in Christ and sealed into God’s love by the Spirit of love. Therefore, the fear of punishment and death is replaced by an earnest longing to be away from the body, but at home with our Lord. He has overcome the world and the evil one, and given us victory over death. Through Him we have become partakers of all the promises and blessings of God in time and eternity. So, as Paul points it out in Rom. 8:18, although we are now subject to all kinds of afflictions, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” And it is all the more comforting to know that our Lord has gone before us to prepare a place for us, so that we may be home with Him forever. He will come again as promised to take us to Himself (cf. John 14:1-4). 

During our pilgrimage here on earth, we look forward to the day when our heavenly Father will take us to glory. For our joy in the Lord is complete, although our life here on earth is marked by sufferings. And because the fear of death has been taken away from us, the desire to be away from the body and at home with the Lord our Father holds our hearts captive. “For we know (as the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:1-2) that if our earthly house (meaning our physical body), this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God (i.e., a glorified, spiritual body), a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.” Therefore, as we take our final steps down the corridor of sin, sorrow, grief, trial, affliction, suffering, illness, persecution and death in this cursed world, joy inexplicable fills our hearts. And when the hour comes, we die in hope, knowing that our Lord will adorn our heads with the crown of life as soon as we are home with Him. 

So, although the world constantly spurns us and afflicts us, our joy in our blessed Saviour is complete, even in the face of death. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come”, “the city that has foundations, whose Designer and Builder is God” (Heb. 13:14, 11:10). For we know that once we breathe our last, the death row closes behind us, and our soul is immediately received by our Heavenly Father, being ushered into life everlasting by our Great Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. And from that time on, opens before us an eternity of glory and blissfulness, where there is no more sin, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more affliction, no more tribulation, no more illness, no more persecution, no more death but everlasting joy and life in our resurrected, glorified, and eternal body, in the presence of our Great God and Father.  

As we anticipate this blissful life in the glorious presence of our Father and Saviour, our longing to be in heaven with Him is always present and ever increasing. Although as Christians the Spirit of our Lord dwells within us, although we commune with our Father through prayer and He constantly speaks to us through his written Word, we all feel like the Apostle Paul who further anticipates the time of reunion with the Lord and reiterates his strong desire to be at home with Him in 2 Corinthians 5:4-8, saying, “For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”  

This uncommon joy and the longing to depart from the world are based on the justification we have in Christ our Saviour – being cleansed by the blood of his covenant – and are substantiated by the love of God, his promises, and the steadfastness of Christ. We understand why Paul expresses his satisfaction when he writes in Phil. 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” When he was present in the body, Paul lived for Christ alone, even when this posed a threat to his physical life. In other words, Christ was the center of Paul’s life, the reason why he existed; for he looked to the future, to the glory that Christ has prepared for all who die for his name’s sake. Paul also knew that his departure from this world would mean the end of hardship, suffering, loss, and of all that he had to endure on this earth. He knew that his life after death would be glorious and blissful, that he could finally love and worship the Lord perfectly. In Christ, as Paul himself said, “we walk by faith, not by sight”. And because we have a faithful God who loves us, and who shed his blood to redeem us, our hearts remain set on the promises that are secured for us in Christ our Saviour. Therefore, looking unto to Christ, the Hope of glory, the author and perfecter of our faith, from Whom nothing and no one can ever separate us, Paul rejoiced. For he knew that glory, peace, joy and eternal life were kept for him in heaven. Death, therefore, could not deter him from devoting himself fully to the service of the Lord.

In the midst of his suffering, Job also perceived the glory of the saints and experienced the blessedness of dying in the Lord. By resting on the promises of God, he kept his mind on the glory that awaited him, and trusted in the power of the Lord to restore his life. Job knew that death would not hold him; for the Lord God Almighty is sovereign over all things, including death. Job knew that the Lord is the Resurrection and the Life. And so he said in Job 19:23-27, “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Although his body was diseased, Job was certain that when the Lord returns for his elect, He will give him a glorified body. For he believed in the resurrection of the dead and the glorification of the saints by the Lord our Redeemer. Hence, he affirmed with confidence, “in my flesh I shall see God”.

Referring to his own physical death on the cross before it took place, the Lord says to his disciples in John 14:19, “Before long, the world will not see Me anymore, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live.” Speaking in context of his temporal absence from the body after his crucifixion and burial, the Lord reassured his disciples that his physical absence would not be permanent, for they would see Him again. And that is exactly what happened – three days after his burial, the Lord rose from the dead, and in his glorified body “He presented Himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). For God did not “let his Holy One see corruption” (Acts 13:35). Now and forever the Lord lives. He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, and his Spirit lives in all who believe in Him. 

Just as the Father raised Christ from the dead, He also delivers the souls of his elect from death. For as Ps. 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Thus, just as our Lord was temporarily absent from the body and was raised from the dead with a glorified body three days later, the day is coming when, by the glorious power of God our Father, we who are in Christ will be raised from the dead with a glorified body. For when we physically depart from the world, though dead in the body, in Christ our Lord we live. For the Lord our Redeemer has conquered death for us. So when we breathe our last, our spirit is immediately received by our Father in heaven, and in the day to come He will raise us up and glorify our body.  

Our Lord has given us life through his death and resurrection. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we have been baptized not only into our Saviour’s death, but we have also been granted life in Him. For the Spirit of Christ has taken up residence in us from the moment of our conversion. Christ is our life – because He lives, we also live. Being born of the Spirit, we are now a new creation, redeemed by the precious blood of our Saviour who, before the foundation of the world, was chosen by the Father to bear the sins of his elect. Death no longer holds us. To borrow the words of the Apostle Paul, we have died to sin and our life is hidden with Christ in God. When our Lord who is our life appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory (cf. Col. 3:3-4). Because we live in union with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are eternally secured and protected from the forces of the demonic realm, and endowed with every blessing of the heavenly Kingdom. Although we are in the world, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). This newness of life that we share with our God is hidden from the world. For the world does not know the Spirit who baptizes us into the family of God, nor does it grasp the significance of our new life in Christ. 

Those who are outside of Christ walk in darkness, they are children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sin. They walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. For their self-indulgence has darkened their thinking and perverted their conduct. Therefore, they completely turn their backs on the grace of God and live in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. They abide in darkness and death abides in them. They trample underfoot the precious blood of God’s Son and revile his Spirit. Therefore, death is the eternal destination of their souls because they do not know God savingly. “But now that [we] have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit [we] get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22).

The most glorious reality anyone can attain is the knowledge of God through his Son Jesus Christ. He alone is able to free sinners from the bondage of corruption and death, and to bring them into the Kingdom of God. If you are not in Christ, I urge you today to turn to Him in repentance and faith. In Him alone, there is life. No one can conquer death by his own power; no one can inherit eternal life by human effort; no one can know God savingly by means of human wisdom. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). Christ is the wisdom of God and his power unto salvation. Today is the day of salvation, your opportunity to be freed from the sting of death, to overcome the grim reality of the afterlife, by having your past, present, and future sins forgiven through Christ the Lord and Saviour. Throw yourself on his mercies now, and all will be well with your soul. For you cannot conquer death by your own efforts.

The Conqueror of death

Christ is the conqueror of death. No human being is able to escape by his own doing the inexorable death sentence – the wages of sin. For among those born of women, no one is able to keep the Law of God perfectly; for sin has enslaved the soul of man. Christ is the only human being who has ever lived, and there will never be one like Him, who was able to perfectly obey the law of God on behalf of all those who would ever believe in Him. Under the law death reigned because of sin, but in Christ grace abounds much more. Grace reigns “through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21. He destroyed sin and defeated death by his atoning sacrifice on the cross. As the author of the Book of Hebrews writes, “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). Thus the Lord was able to redeem the souls of his elect, He was able to raise us who believe on Him from spiritual deadness and to bring us into life eternal according to the riches of his grace. As Heb. 10:14 says, “By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Christ “offered Himself without blemish to God, [to] purify our conscience from dead works [so that we may] serve the living God” (Heb. 9:14). 

Christ is our Mediator; for He died to redeem us from all lawlessness (cf. v. 15). Through Him we have received the promised eternal inheritance, which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. As Paul writes in Rom. 6:4-7, “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Just as He has raised us his children from spiritual death, the day is coming when the Lord will sovereignly restore to life all those who are physically dead, believers and unbelievers alike. 

The triumphal victory of our Lord over death, i.e., his resurrection from the dead three days after his burial, substantiates God's promise of bodily resurrection of the dead in the future. When that time comes, unbelievers will be raised to face eternal torment in hell and believers to enter into God’s eternal glory. For all of us who are in Christ have been baptized into his death and raised with Him by the glorious power of God the Father. He conquered death for us who are in Him, so that we might live with Him in the presence of our God forever. And so Paul writes in Rom. 6:8-11, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Paul also expressed his confidence in God’s power to raise believers from the dead when he writes in 2 Cor. 4:13-14, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.” 

Christ died as our substitute on the cross to purchase our redemption. His vicarious death sets us free from the bondage of sin and death; it saves us from the wrath to come. Christ’s death and resurrection brought victory over death to all those who would turn away from their sins and put their trust in Him. Even Caiaphas, one of the prominent public enemies of our Lord and high priest in his days, recognized the expediency of the substitutionary death of Christ. However Caiaphas’ intent and motives were evil – he, like many other Jewish religious leaders who hated Christ, wanted to preserve his position and influence among the people. Also, these religious leaders and the people thought the Messiah would come and free them from their oppression by Rome. The work and ministry of Christ therefore fell short of their expectations: rather than defending them against Rome, Christ instead exposed their hypocrisy and spiritual deadness. Therefore, they resolved to kill Him because He was a hindrance to their malicious activities – for they were preying upon the weak and leading people astray with their legalism. And when many people were drawn to Christ, which implied their rejection of the false teachings of their religious leaders, the latter became enraged and sought to kill the Lord in order to maintain their influence among the people. 

When the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council to plot the murder of our Lord after He had raised Lazarus from the dead, they said this about Jesus, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:47-48). To this Caiaphas responded, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (v.49-50). V.51-52 tells us that, “[Caiaphas] did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” 

Christ came so that the nation Israel and all of God’s children scattered throughout the nations might not perish because of sin. No one else but Christ can set sinners free from the sting of death. For He is the only righteous Man, the perfect Lamb of God – He came and lived the perfect life we can never live and offered Himself willingly as a propitiation for our sins. He died as our substitute, conquering death for us who believe in Him. Christ is our victory over death. Which means that, if Christ our Lord had not died for sin, we would all perish; for there would be no salvation for us sinners. The death and resurrection of Christ was to bring salvation to the sons of men. For no one is able to satisfy the demands of God’s Law; for we are all inherently deceitful, wicked, hostile to God, rebellious and foolish by nature.

The only one who could satisfy the Law’s demands was Christ, the only righteous Man, the God-Man, because of his impeccancy. Therefore, He willingly and voluntarily offered Himself as a sacrifice so that his righteousness might be graciously imputed to those who would put their trust in Him. Those who reject Christ reject his penal, substitutionary atonement. For this reason, they themselves will pay the full penalty for their sins, because they have rejected the precious blood of God’s Son who takes away the sins of the world. For as Heb. 9:22 points it out, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Therefore, they will live throughout eternity under divine curse and their souls will rot under the yoke which will hold their necks captive forever. Their sins will never be forgiven, they will never be able to appease the wrath of God. For their wickedness will testify against them and condemn them. Thus their portion will be torment and wrath throughout eternity.

In the day to come, the Lord will raise both the wicked and the righteous, i.e., those who died in their sins and those who died believing in the Lord. He will condemn the wicked for their deeds of evil and send them to hell, where wrath and torment will be their portion forever. But we believers will be given a glorified body by our Lord. He will take us into his glorious Kingdom and will reign with us forever. Christ will be our King and God throughout eternity. For the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies. As Rom. 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

The Lord gave us a foretaste of bodily resurrection of the dead during his earthly ministry by raising Lazarus from the dead – Lazarus had been in the tomb four days and his corpse had already begun to decay. And our Lord’s own resurrection is an undeniable guarantee of the future, bodily resurrection of all the dead, good and evil alike, promised by God. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of God, anyone who dies in the Lord shall live through Him. Even if our physical body perishes, we will be restored to life by the Lord our God. For He has conquered death for all those who share in his death, refuse to obey sin, bear their cross daily and follow Him faithfully wherever He goes. All those who abide in the Lord, although they may fall to the sword of man, shall live forever. As the Lord says in Mat. 16:25, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

Anyone who hates his life in this world rejects a life of sin to embrace a life of righteousness; for he is dead to sin and alive in Christ. And death, the wages of sin, has no grip on him because he no longer serves sin. Since he is no longer enslaved by sin, he is now Christ’s slave, a slave of righteousness. He lives in and for Christ, and Christ lives in him. And because Christ lives, he also lives. Therefore death no longer has a hold on us who believe in Christ Jesus. And before we are taken into the Kingdom of our Lord, we will each receive a glorified body. All those who died in the Lord will be raised, each with a glorified body – “For (as Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:53-55) this perishable body (we now have) must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” But those who reject the Lord will be raised to face the second death, that is, hell. 

The Lord came into the world to set people free from darkness and from the sting of death. He came to save those who sit in the shadow of death. John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” V.51, “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word he shall never see death.” Before our conversion, death had a hold on us; we were separated from our God, dead in trespasses and sins. Now, having been cleansed by the precious blood of our Lord through faith in Him, we have been reconciled to God and set free from the dominion of sin and its consequences. 

Thus our Lord gave us victory over death while we were yet his enemies. This truth is a building block of our assurance. “For (as Paul says in Rom. 5:10) if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” For, being sealed into God’s love by the Spirit of love, nothing can ever separate us from our God. Speaking of the inviolability and the eternality of the love of God for us who are in Christ, Paul writes in Rom. 8:38-39, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you are still lost in darkness, if you are not a true believer in Christ the Saviour, I urge you to seek the Light. Turn to the Lord while He is near, lest you remain in the shadow of death. Run now to Christ, in Whom life is found, lest death pierces you with its sting. For the day is coming when many will seek the Lord and will find Him no more, but face the fierce and righteous anger of the Lord because of their wickedness. We all need to know the Lord. And this knowledge begins with the acknowledgement of your spiritual bankruptcy. Unless you acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you are unable to save yourself, and turn to Christ, the Light of life, in repentance and faith, your sins will not be forgiven. Hence you will die, still being at enmity with God, and your soul won’t find rest for all eternity.

Those who are of the world, i.e., anyone who rejects the Gospel of Christ, anyone who believes a watered down gospel, the self-righteous, all will die in their sins and go to hell. They cannot enter the Kingdom of God. The Lord declares in Jer. 17:13, “Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters.” The NT relates the hostility of the Jewish religious leaders toward the Messiah and their pretense of righteousness, especially the Pharisees. Although these were of the world, in their own minds they thought they were right with God. They hated the Messiah, reviled Him, sought to trap and kill Him many times. They denied the deity and authority of Christ, blatantly rejected Him and ended up killing Him. When the Lord confronted them for their wickedness in John 8, He said to them, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come” (John 8:21). This is true of anyone who rejects the Lord – they cannot enter his Kingdom, for they are of their father the devil. They are of the world, just like those self-righteous, religious leaders who plotted and killed the Messiah, and to whom He said in v. 23-24, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” 

The desire of the Lord our God is to see sinners turn to Him for forgiveness; for He wills to give life to everyone who forsakes his evil ways. His desire is not to see people die in their sins and go to hell. He has always called sinners to repentance and warned them of coming judgments. In the OT He made the call through his prophets. For instance, in Ezek. 18:30-32 the Lord calls Israel to forsake her evil ways and turn to the Lord in repentance, in order for her to receive life and escape judgement, saying, “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” In the NT God sent his own Son to call sinners to turn to Him. The Son came and completed his earthly ministry by his death on the cross, followed by his resurrection from the dead three days after. And before his ascension back to glory, the Lord commissioned his apostles and disciples to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The Lord continues to call people all over the world even today through the preaching of his written Word, the Gospel, to turn to Him in repentance and faith, to seek forgiveness in his name in order to be crowned with life.

The Lord is very patient with us, but his patience will run out one day and He will unleash his wrath upon the ungodly. To borrow the language of 2 Pet. 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” The Lord is waiting for all his elect to be saved. But many people continue to interpret the Lord’s patience as the absence of coming judgements. They confuse God’s longsuffering with impotence. Therefore, they scoff the Lord and revile his Spirit; “For (as 2 Pet. 3:5-7 says) they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”  

Nah. 1:3 says, “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” If God did not spare those who despised his authority in the past, do you think that you who trample underfoot the precious blood of his Son and revile his Spirit will escape his wrath? Don’t be fooled by the position that many people have today; they tend to separate the God of the OT from the God of the NT. They portray the God of the OT as a God of wrath, as opposed to the God of love of the NT who, according to them, tolerates sin and loves rebellious evildoers unconditionally. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He is a God of love and a God of wrath, immutable from eternity to eternity. Rev. 19:15-16 reads, “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” 

As the image of the invisible God, the God-Man Christ is the greatest revelation of God’s glory to mankind. 1 John 4:9-10 reads, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Christ embodies God’s glorious and gracious love for sinners. He is the Rock of salvation for those who turn away from sin, but a Rock of offense for the ungodly. “And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (Mat. 21:44). Anyone who rejects Christ chooses God’s wrath, not his tender mercies; he chooses death rather than life.

Set before you today are two ways: life and death. I urge you to flee from perdition.

Cling to Christ the Saviour and He will crown you with life eternal. Turn away from your sins and put your trust in Christ the Lord. He alone can save you from the wrath to come. There is salvation in no other name. Do not wait for the Day of the Lord to come upon you. “The great Day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the Day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end He will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zeph. 1:14-18). 

The ungodly and the grim reality of life after death

Man by nature is inherently evil, and all he deserves is death; for the wages of sin is death. But in his grace, the Lord has given us his Son Jesus Christ through Whom we can be justified before Him, and thus escape the sting of death. “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). “And (as Paul writes in Rom. 4:5) to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” That is to say, all those who turn to Christ in repentance and faith are clothed with the Lord’s own righteousness; they are graciously justified before God and treated by God as righteous. 

There is no forgiveness without genuine repentance, nor justification apart from the grace of God and faith in his Son Jesus Christ. Repentant sinners are freely justified by God according to the work and merit of his Son Jesus Christ, and are graciously granted the gift of eternal life. As Rom. 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This verse reveals to us two inexorable absolutes: on the one hand, those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy and their inability to save themselves, and cry out to the Lord for mercy find peace with God through his Son; they receive God’s free gift of life. Ps. 126:5 says, “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” That’s to say, those who mourn over their sins and seek forgiveness in Christ the Saviour receive the glorious grace of reconciliation with God, and are endowed with life everlasting in the bosom of his glory. But on the other hand, anyone who serves sin, anyone who rejects the Son of God, remains under the bondage of corruption; he is given a portion with the wicked – death is his eternal reward. Prov. 3:33 reads, “The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the just.”

Obedience to the Lord produces blessing, blissfulness, hope and life. But disobedience or sin brings about curse, it leads to death. Having this truth in mind, Moses in Deut. 30:19-20 says to the people of Israel during their wandering in the wilderness, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” 

Set before every human being on this planet are two ends: life and death. The end of each person depends on whether they choose to love the Lord, obey his voice and be faithful to Him until the end or not. All those who reject the Lord Jesus in this life will one day wake up to their surprise in hell. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Thess. 1:8-9, the Lord will inflict “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” Their souls will be delivered to everlasting and conscious torment. Only those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who die to sin and live in Christ will inherit the Kingdom of God. The Lord says in Rev. 21:6-8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” 

There is no escape for those who are not in Christ; their portion is the second death. Some people think that hell does not exist, and many others believe that because God is love, He cannot send people to such a horrific place. Still many others believe that they do not deserve to go to hell because they think they are ‘good people’. But I tell you this, based on the authority of the Word of God: hell is real. And because God is love He hates sin and all workers of iniquity, i.e., all those who refuse to abandon their evil ways, as well as those who deny the existence of God and refuse to give Him glory. Whether they have heard the Gospel or not, they are without excuse. For God has revealed Himself to all men not only through his Son, but also through creation and by his written law in our hearts. Yet in their boastful pride, many shake their fists in the face of God.

God has revealed Himself to all men through creation, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). This type of revelation called general revelation is an unambiguous and wonderful display of God’s glory and might, a clear proclamation of his handiwork and provident care for his creatures. As David writes in Ps. 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Therefore those who reject God are without excuse. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them” (Rom. 1:19). Ps. 19:2-6 reads, “Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” 

While the physical world testifies to the existence of God, his divine nature, his infinite providence and everlasting power, our conscience helps us discern between good and evil. This mechanism is meant to guide man toward the truth. Hence, every time he sins, his conscience accuses him. The testimony of creation and the work of conscience are sufficient to refute any assertion that a person can be totally unaware of the existence of God. Therefore everyone who denies the existence of the Creator God and refuses to worship Him stands condemned; all those who suppress their consciences in order to freely indulge in deeds of wickedness are without excuse; all those who bow their knees before false gods rather than the Creator God are under divine curse because they suppress the truth about God with their unrighteousness. Such are doomed, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18).  

Apart from general revelation, God has also revealed Himself to all men in a special way through his incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus Christ – “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father”, declares the Lord Jesus Christ in John 14:9. Col. 1:15 tells us, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” For the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit are one, one in essence, with the same attributes. Just as the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is also God. God the Son was in the beginning with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth. Christ is the Light that shines in the darkness. For after the fall of Adam, we were all dead in sin. But, when the fullness of time came for our redemption, the Father sent the Son into the world. He became flesh and came to earth, that through Him all might know God. For sin had separated us all from God and kept us prisoners of death. As John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, came to reconcile us with God, He brought salvation to all who sit in darkness. For He is the Light of the world, the Lord our salvation. Without Him no one can be justified before God. 

Christ came into the world to save sinners. However, it is essential for us to understand that his coming into the world was also to make God known to us; it was to reveal to us the attributes of God. Christ’s sinless life, his teaching and preaching of the Word of God here on earth, and his works – i.e. the signs and wonders and healings that He performed, his crucifixion, his resurrection from the dead and his ascension to glory – clearly reveal to us the nature and character of God. As Paul says in Col. 2:9, “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

Therefore we are all without excuse. No one can justify his rejection of Christ by ignorance; for God has revealed Himself fully to all through his Son. Anyone who rejects the Son rejects the Father who sent Him. Therefore God will unleash his righteous wrath upon those who dishonor Him. Ps. 7:11-13 reads, “God is a just Judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, He will sharpen His sword; He bends his bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.” 

Wrath is God’s righteous response to the wickedness of man. Such a righteous and justified indignation substantiates the love of God, his righteousness, holiness and goodness. Because God is love, holy, good and righteous, therefore He abhors all that is evil. The psalmist understands this to be true of God. And so when he prays in Ps. 5:4-6, he bears this testimony about God, “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” 

Now, to those who think they are good enough to be right with God, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). The Lord Himself affirms in Mark 10:18, “No one is good but One, that is, God.” If you see yourself as a good person, this is what you ought to know: all your good works are just enough to buy you a ticket for hell; for they are only filthy rags in the sight of the Holy God. There is no escape for unrepentant sinners. Anyone who rejects the Son of God ought to be terrified; for there is no other way to be reconciled to God. Christ the Lord came to bring light into the world, to turn sinners to God, to give them life at the cost of his own life. He died to save sinners from sin, judgement, wrath and hell. Anyone who rejects the Son of God is condemned to eternal destruction. John 3:18-20 reads, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” 

He who tramples on the precious blood of Christ cannot escape judgment. For God will not let unpunished those who dishonour his Son. Whoever hears the Gospel and rejects it commits the ultimate sin against God, and there is no way they can be reconciled to Him. All that is left for them is to face the wrath of God, to spend eternity in the hell of fire, subject to conscious cruciation. “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God”, Heb. 10:26-31 reads. 

Sin is a lack of conformity to or a violation of God’s law, it is an act of rebellion against God, punishable by death. There is no hope for people who do not seek reconciliation with God through his Son Jesus Christ. Such ought to be terrified, because by rejecting Christ the Lord and Saviour, they turn their backs on the grace of God and remain dead in trespasses and sins; they are held captive by the sting of death. Unless they find peace with God, through repentance and faith in his Son Jesus Christ, they will never find freedom from sin and death. Therefore hell will be the eternal destination of their souls. 

The Lord Jesus took on the wrath of God on the cross, so that anyone who believes on Him might have their sins forgiven. He is the only means through which sins are forgiven, He is the only access to God. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”, declares the Son in John 14:6. His blood was shed to cleanse repentant sinners from their idols and impurities. There is no cleansing for those who reject the precious blood of Christ. Anyone who rejects the Lamb of God remains covered with filth inside and out, from head to toe, and cannot enter the Kingdom of God. In this life we all have two choices: to turn to the Lamb of God that was slain, in order to be cleansed from all our filths by his precious blood, or to hold onto our filthy garments and be cast into the outer darkness. The option we choose determines our end. Those who are purified by the blood of the Lamb belong to Him; they alone will inherit the Kingdom of God. So declares the Lord in John 13:8, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 

If you reject Christ the Saviour, it is foolish to think that somehow you will escape hell. God is angry with you every single day. I encourage you to consider the judgements of God that fell upon those of old and the angels who despised the authority of God and disobeyed Him. 2 Pet. 2:4-10 says, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the Day of Judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones.”  

Unless you turn away from your sins right now and seek forgiveness in the name of the Lord Jesus, there will be no escape for you. As I quoted earlier, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). The Son of God cannot be dishonoured. The Father Himself promises in Ps. 89:23, “I will crush his foes before Him and strike down those who hate Him.” Therefore I urge you not to delay. Turn away from your sins now, for tomorrow may be too late. Salvation is now! Judgment is coming soon. As Is. 55:6 says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.” Otherwise you will die in your sins, you will leave this world, dragging with you the heavy burden of all your sins. And God will cast his wrath upon you for all the abominations you have committed. For every unrepentant sinner is guilty before God. There is no rest for the ungodly, but torment and dread. Because they have rejected the only Son of God in Whom “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7), the eternal destination of their souls is hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Do not be caught up in your pride. I urge you to turn now to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith in order to be reconciled to God. For there is no hope for those who die in sin: the death row in which they confine themselves does not have an exit. The path they take while here on earth has no turnabout. It goes straight to hell and runs through eternity, being engulfed in the fire that is never quenched, and is infested with worms that never die (cf. Mark 9:48). Ps. 34:21-22 reads, “Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.” I plead with you to repent of your sins, to put your trust in Christ, and He will clothe you with his garment of righteousness. You will no longer be God’s enemy, but his child. You will be sealed in the love of God by the Spirit of grace Who will make you joint heir with Christ. Instead of wrath, you will receive mercy; instead of eternal torment in hell, you will have eternal life in heaven in the glorious presence of God.

Life is in Christ the Lord and Saviour

There is no life without Christ. For He is the Word of life who inhabits eternity, the Light of those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death. He alone guides our feet into the way of peace. “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:2-4). Christ is the second person of the Trinity, God the Creator, for “He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25).  Rom. 11:36 says, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” Col. 1:16-17, “By Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 

We exist because Christ made us; He made our body and gave us the breath of life. Gen. 2:7 reads, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” It is Christ who gave us biological life, and He sustains us daily – Acts 17:28 reads, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” As the second person of the Trinity, Christ shares the same exact attributes with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and is equal in essence with Them. The Lord declares in John 12:44-45, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” Christ is the exact likeness of God, “For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). 

Christ the Lord is preeminent, He sovereign over all creation. For He is the Creator, not a created being. Col. 1:15 reads, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” The word ‘firstborn’ here in context refers to the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ, his supremacy over all creation, his divine right to rule over all that exists. For He is not part of creation, but the Creator. He is self-existent, the Ruler over all creation, the Supreme Being from Whom all created beings and all things draw their existence and sustenance, and to Whom they all belong – “without Him was not any thing made that was made”, and He is the rightful heir. 

The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Author of biological life, but He is also the Author of spiritual life. Col. 1:19-20, “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” In our natural state, we are all dead in trespasses and sin, alienated from God. And the truth of the matter is, no man can free himself from spiritual deadness by his own efforts, no one can be justified before God by his good works and merits. There is only one way to be justified before God, one way to pass from death to life: the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”, declares the Lord in John 14:6. Life is found in Christ alone. No one can be made alive, no one can be raised from spiritual death except by the Lord Jesus, the Author of life. Thus every sinner who turns to the Son of God in repentance and faith receives life in abundance. For He is the Good Shepherd, the Fountain of life – He laid down his life for his sheep. In John 10:10 the Lord declares, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” 

“There is salvation in no one else [but Christ], for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Acts 13:39 reads, “By Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the Law of Moses.” Because we are all inherently evil, no one is able to keep God's Law. Therefore, we are all guilty before God. Unless we are clothed with the righteousness of his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we will all be condemned. For no one can be justified before God apart from the righteousness of his Son, the only inherently righteous Man who has ever lived on earth. We all came into this world as slaves of sin. For, as natural men, we seek not after God; and the only person who can redeem us is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Himself affirms his exclusivity in John 8:34-36, saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

When sin entered the world through our first parents, we all inherited their sinful nature. To borrow the words of Paul, just as through one man sin entered the world and death spread to all men (for the wages of sin is death), so the gift of life has been given to us through the one Man, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He purchased redemption for his people by his active obedience and the shedding of his precious blood. Through Him all those who believe are forgiven and reconciled to God; they pass from death to life. For sin came into the world through Adam, and life through Christ. As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” That is, all those who repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, excluding unbelievers. Those who wear pride like a necklace and refuse to turn away from their evil ways will die in their sins and go to hell. Only those who die to self and to sin, and put their trust in the Lord are made alive; they are raised from spiritual deadness by the Spirit of Christ. 1 Pet. 2:24 reads, “He Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness.” 

2 Cor. 5:21 reads, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Christ is eternal life, the justification of sinners. Rom. 5:18 says, “As through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.” Christ is our salvation. Anyone who rejects Him remains spiritually dead, enslaved to sin. But for us who believe in Christ, “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom.6:6). We are a new creation in Christ our Lord, indwelt by his Spirit who gives us life and works in us to produce fruit for God. And so Paul writes in Rom. 8:9-10, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” V.11, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”   

It is only through the Lord Jesus Christ that sinners are raised from the dead. We are justified before God by his Son’s work and merit. “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day”, declares the Son of God in John 6:40. 2 Pet. 1:3-4 reads, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

Christ is Life and the Light of men (cf. John 1:4). “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself” (John 5:26). In Christ is eternal life; for He “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). Christ gives life to those who are spiritually dead by graciously imputing to them his own righteousness and by baptizing them with his Spirit. For our sins were imputed to Him at the cross, and He conquered death on our behalf, being raised from the dead by the glorious power of God. Therefore, anyone who recognizes his spiritual deadness and turns to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith is granted a new life by Him. 

Christ “was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Is. 53:5). In Christ we, his elect, have victory over sin, death, the world and Satan. “For it was fitting for Him, for Whom are all things and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” And again: “I will put my trust in Him.” And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.” Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:10-15). 

In Christ, we are freed from the law of sin and death (cf. Rom. 8:2). “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v.3-4). Paul also writes in Rom. 3:24, we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” God has graciously given us life through his Son. And being baptized into the family of Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are dead to sin and alive in our Saviour. 1 John 5:11-12 reads, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” That is to say, to be freed from the sting of death, we must put our trust in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Anyone who rejects Christ remains spiritually dead and cannot inherit eternal life. Such a person will die (physically) in his sins and go to hell, for he is spiritually dead. But he who embraces Christ passes from death into life and is given access into the Kingdom of God. John 3:36 reads, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Is. 26:3 gives this testimony concerning the Lord, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” 

Salvation is in the Lord Jesus alone. Without Him, no one would ever know God savingly, no one would ever be justified before God. We would all remain children of wrath. Christ is the Key that opens the door to the knowledge of God; He is the Light that shines in the darkness and sets free every soul held captive by sin and death. 1 John 5:20 reads, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” Tit. 2:11-14, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

As the Author of life and the Sovereign Ruler, the Lord Jesus also has power over physical death. The day is coming when He will raise all the dead: unbelievers for eternal condemnation and believers for glorification. On that day all the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth, either to be sent to hell or to be crowned with everlasting life. In the same manner the Lord “cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out”, and Lazarus came out of his tomb, all the dead on that day will hear the voice of the Lord and come forth to receive their eternal reward. 

During his ministry on earth, on a Sabbath day near the pool of Bethesda, the Lord Jesus healed a certain man who for thirty-eight years had suffered from an infirmity. When the Jews sought to kill the Lord, He said to them in John 5:25-29, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” 

When the Lord says, “is now here”, He is referring to the spiritual resurrection which is taking place in the present age: repentant sinners are being born of the Spirit, they are graciously freed by God from their bondage to moral corruption and its deadly consequences. As 1 Pet. 1:3-5 points it out, “According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

But when He says, “an hour is coming”, He is referring to a future, physical resurrection. This is the resurrection of the bodies of all the dead at his second advent. First, there will be the resurrection of the righteous – they will come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years. After the thousand years are ended, the rest of the dead, i.e., the ungodly, will be raised for condemnation (cf. Rev. 20:4-5). In that day, at the utterance of Christ’s command, all the dead will walk out their tombs to present themselves before the King of kings and Lord of lords. For Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, is Judge of all. “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with Him for a thousand years.” Says Rev. 20:6.

If you haven’t settled your account with God yet, I urge you to do so right now, lest you die in your sins and wake up one day in hell. The only way you can be made right with God is by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. Lay down your pride and confess your sins to Christ. Admit that you do not possess a righteousness of your own; count all your supposed good works, virtues and merits as refuse, and embrace Christ as Lord and Saviour. Acknowledge his substitutionary death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. He alone can cleanse you from all your filthiness and give you life everlasting. So repent and believe in Christ our God and Saviour, and you will be saved from sin, judgement, wrath and hell. 

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Ps. 103:8-14, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”