Did God Design Eons of Death into the Creation?

If there were eons of pain, suffering, and death before the awful rebellion of Adam brought "death" into the world, then the suffering of our Lord Jesus becomes unnecessary.

Some have suggested that all living things were originally designed by God to die, that over the millions of years in which animal and pre-human life was developing, death played a perfectly natural role in the creation. Some have even taught that the death which God threatened Adam with was a "special" kind of death that applied only to humans.

Necessary death and long ages are exactly what atheistic science would advocate. How can the God who is life create death as part of His own signature? How ludicrous to think God would design death into His creation, and then agonize over the necessity of His own death in order to bring us salvation. Death by the design of God is absolutely foreign to the revealed nature of God (Romans 1:20).

In Genesis 3--the turning point in Scripture--all of the "good" was instantly withdrawn by God, who by His word activated the "groaning and travailing" of the earth and its inhabitants. The ground was cursed, yielding thorns and thistles, surrounding Adam with sorrowful labor for the rest of his life until he himself would return to the earth from which he was fashioned.

But was God lying? Was He now blaming Adam for what He Himself had done? If the death pronounced by God is nothing more than a "symbol" of a greater message, then death can be relegated to a mystical musing that has no tangible meaning.

A most dangerous extension of the "death" equation is that physical death becomes essentially irrelevant in the punishment of sin. Gethsemane's agonizing was for nothing, and the hundreds of warnings, curses, and consequences detailed in Scripture are now twisted into allegorical advice or suggestions.

If there were eons of pain, suffering, and death before the awful rebellion of Adam brought "death" into the world, then the suffering of our Lord Jesus becomes unnecessary. If the "wages of sin" is nothing more than some sort of spiritualized distance from the Creator, then the entire burden of sin becomes nothing more than a mental attitude. Heaven and hell are "what you make of it."

(extracted from Henry Morris III, "The Issues of Death", Acts & Facts, November 2009, Institute of Creation Research)

Parable of a Man and the Immovable Rock

A man was sleeping in his cabin one night when suddenly his room filled with light, and God appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock at the shore near the man's cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might…

So, obedient to the Lord's request, the man pushed day after day, week after week. For many years he toiled from sunup to sundown, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might!

Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain. Satan decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the weary mind: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time and absoulutely nothing has happened. Don't you know that it is an impossible task? Why not just put in your time, and do the minimum amount of effort. That will be good enough.”

Feeling like a failure, the man decided maybe that's what he should do. However, he thought that since God had asked him to do this task, he would take his failure to God and see what God wanted him to do. “Lord,” he prayed, “You know everything. You know I have been faithful to Your request. But in all all this time, I have not even budged that rock even one inch. Why am I such a failure?”

Compassionately the Lord responded, “My friend, you accepted my request and were faithful to the mission that I gave you, to push against the rock with all of your strength. You have done this. But never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.”

“Your task was to push. Look at yourself. Your back, your muscles, your hands are stronger than when you started. You were patient and obedient to my command. Along the way you have grown in faith and wisdom. That's why even in your discouragement, you didn't give in to despair, but you turned to Me for direction. Well done, good and faithful servant.”

(from a Christian newsletter, January 2011)

Please write Encouraging Letters to these Christian Prisoners

Li Ying, China: A Chinese court sentenced Christian Journalist Li Ying to 15 years in prison for her role in the publication of an underground church magazine in China. Only the state-controlled TSPM church can legally produce a magazine. All other Christian publications are illegal. Li Ying was arrested in April 2001 along with 16 others and was originally sentenced to death in December 2001. After a retrial, ordered by the Hubei Provincial Supreme Court in October 2002, her sentence was reduced to the current 15-year term. Arrest and imprisonment are not new to Li Ying, who is only in here early thirties. She has been arrested many times and spent a year in prison in 1996. Li Ying cannot have a Bible and is forced to work 15 hours a day. Prison officials, stunned by the thousands of letters she receives at the prison, ask her, "How many overseas relatives do you have?" Please pray that this young woman will persevere in faith during her imprisonment.

Please send an encouraging letter to:
Li Ying
No. 2 Division, Section 3
Wuhan Female Prison
Wuhan City
Hubei Province, 430032
Peoples Republic of China

Asia Bibi, Pakistan: Asia Bibi, a 37-year old Pakistani woman from the village of Ittanwali, was arrested in June 2009 after telling a group of Muslim women, "Our Christ is the true prophet of God, and yours is not true." The woman had been pressuring Asia to convert to Islam, but she held to her Christian faith. Christians there urged the police not to file blasphemy charged, but police claimed that they must go forward due to pressure from local Muslim leaders. On Nov. 8, 2010, a judge sentenced Asia to death. At press time, her attorney was preparing an appeal.

Please send an encouraging letter to:
Asia Bibi
District Jail
Sheikhupura
Punjab
Pakistan

Dmitry Shestakov, Uzbekistan: On Jan 21, 2007, Pastor Dmitry Shestakov was arrested during a raid on his Full Gospel Church in Andijan, Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan's Religious Affairs Committee claims that Shestakov, an evangelical pastor affiliated with the registered Full Gospel Church, is not an authorized leader of an officially recognized religious organization in Uzbekistan. They describe him as an "imposter" who leads an underground group of "charismatic Pentecostals" engaged in proselytizing. Pastor Shestakov is appealing his four-year labor camp sentence.

Please send an encouraging letter to:
Dmitry Shestakov
Ispravitelnoye Uchrezhdeniye 64/29
Novoyiskaya Oblast
Uzbekistan

(from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, January 2011)

Iran rounds up Christians in crackdown

In the midst of tyranny, thousands of Iranian Muslims are finding hope in Christ! They are being invited to Iran's house churches by other Muslims who have turned to Jesus. And Iran's fundamentalist Islamic government is embarassed. They can only offer stepped up arrests and repression.

AP reports that "Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they provide room for other faiths. Caught in the middle is the small community of Iranian Christians who get together for prayer and Bible readings in private residences and out of sight of authorities. They are part of a wider "house church" movement that has taken root in other places with tight controls on Christian activities such as China and Indonesia.

"Authorities increasingly view them with suspicions that range from trying to convert Muslims to being possible footholds for foreign influence."

Christian activists claim their Iranian brethren are being persecuted simply for worshipping outside officially sanctioned mainstream churches.

"Iran has claimed as a point of pride that it makes space for other religions. But in past years, authorities have staged arrests on Christians and other religious minorities, but the latest sweeps appears to be among the biggest and most coordinated.

"In the West, the followers are drawn to house churches because of the intimate sense of religious fellowship and as an alternative to established denominations. In places such as Iran, however, there also is the effort to avoid monitoring of sanctioned churches from Islamic authorities — who have kept closer watch on religious minorities since the chaos after hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed election in 2009.

"Tehran Governor Morteza Tamadon described the Christians as "hard-line" missionaries who have "inserted themselves into Islam like a parasite," according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

"It's the nature of the house churches that worries Iran. It's all about possible converts," said Fleur Brading, a researcher for Middle East and North Africa at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British-based group the follows Christian rights issues around the world. "It's a very specific and pinpoint strike by Iran."

"The wave of arrests began Christmas morning and since then, opposition websites have reported 70 Christians arrested, including those regarded as pastors in the house church movement. Many were later released, but the reports say more than a dozen remain in detention and officials have hinted more raids are possible.

"The use of the word missionaries instead of evangelicals is an intentional move by the government," she said. "As evangelicals, they are a group entitled to their faith. As missionaries, they are enemies of the state seeking to corrupt its people."

"What's most troubling about this wave of detentions is the fact that Iran is continuing its recent trend of targeting evangelical Christians, which they've been doing for years, and also leaders from the recognized and protected Armenian Christian community," said Leonard Leo, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent government advisory panel.
"The manager of the Iranian Christian News Agency, Saman Kamvar, said authorities likely perceive some kind of challenge to the religious status quo and are "feeling insecure." "This, in my opinion, was a green light to the other authorities to crack down on them," Kamvar said from Canada, where he now lives.

(for more, see Iran rounds up Christians in crackdown, Brian Murphy, Associated Press)

Body, Soul & Life Everlasting

The best book on resurrection that I've read is John W. Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting, Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate, 1989, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. 

Sorry, it does not try to deduce principles of the resurrection from fantastic models of physics.... Instead, Cooper goes to both the Old Testament and New and gives a very satisfying explanation of what awaits believers after death, in both the intermediate state before they receive their glorified bodies, and who they will be after judgment day.

Here is Cooper's own summary:

Body, Soul and Life Everlasting makes the case that as Holy Scripture progressively discloses what happens to humans when they die, it teaches not only that each of us will undergo bodily resurrection, but that believers continue to exist 'with the Lord' until the resurrection. The Old Testament notion of ghostly survival in Sheol, eventually augmented with an affirmation of bodily resurrection, is developed by the Holy Spirit into the New Testament's revelation of fellowship with Christ between each believer's death and the general resurrection at Christ's return. Thus the Bible indicates that humans do not cease to exist between death and resurrection, a condition sometimes euphemistically termed 'soul sleep,' or that final resurrection occurs immediately upon death.

Body, Soul goes on to argue that, given this teaching of Scripture, human nature must be so constituted that we - the very individuals who live on earth - can exist at least temporarily while our physical bodies or organisms do not. In other words, there must be enough of a duality in human nature so that God can sustain Moses, Paul, and my mother in fellowship with him even though they are currently without their earthly bodies. At the same time, I follow Scripture, most traditional theology, and almost all current thought in emphasizing the unity of human nature, its essential bodiliness, and resurrection as the final Christian hope. All things considered, therefore, the biblical view of the human constitution is some kind of 'holistic dualism.'

(from John W. Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1989, pp. xv-xvi)

So, if you have entrusted your life to Jesus Christ, what happens to you when you die? The body is dead, but the soul is not. Your soul goes into the intermediate state, where you wait for the day of judgment and resurrection, when you will receive your new glorified body. While you are in the intermediate state, you are alive. Your soul is conscious of the presence of the Lord and that of other believers, and you are in a state of slowed-down existence.

You are also filled with the joy and hope of the coming resurrection, which comes without the anxious waiting of time as you presently know it. Finally, when you receive your glorified body, you are ushered into the new reality of a new Heaven and Earth. All along the way, you retain your full identity as the person that God made you, in Christ!