A Letter to the 21st Century Church - Chapter 1

I bring you good news. Jesus is alive. Through him, we too are alive, because Jesus defeated death for us and saved us from two things. Wonder of wonders he saved us from SIN and DEATH and from everything associated with these two curses on humankind.

You may say to me, "Geoff, what do you mean by that?"

We cannot separate the two concepts, sin and death, by much. Like the meaning of words soul and spirit, they are closely associated and often used interchangeably, but then perhaps incorrectly.

Preachers and bible teachers major on the thought that Jesus died for our sin. We understand how the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is sufficient, and satisfactory to take away the penalty that we would otherwise need to bear.

They may go as far as to explain that part of the penalty for sin is death, but that is about as much as we learn about it

As a result, while we understand clearly that God has forgiven and forgotten our sin, we are not at all sure about what has God done with death?

It can only mean that God has forgiven and forgotten our death, right?

Our experience tells us something different, so we reason that we understand things incorrectly.

The 'death,' which the bible associates with sin, that is gone and past away, cannot mean what we read. Therefore, we invent something that fits. Something that we cannot experience, but something we can only accept by faith, so we reason it must mean 'spiritual' death.

This introduces my first point; we so readily accept things that bible scholars tell us from the pulpit without question. If it means spiritual death then surely it must also means 'spiritual' sin.

Spiritual sin is as meaningless as spiritual death.

Geoff, are you saying that death means death, the death that happens when someone dies?

Yes, but we cannot accept it. Therefore, we don't, and so we die. As I read the Acts of the Apostles, I get the distinct impression that they believed that death had passed away. It is what they believed, well until many of the flock actually started dying and then they started preaching that some other generation would be the one, never to die.

More and more, today we hear the question, "Is our generation, that generation?"

Many thanks to Prophet Kobus of Spirit Word Ministries for bring this thought to our attention. See the link to Spirit Word Ministries on the left panel.