“You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” (Job 14:5 NLT)

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-10 NLT)

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!” (Psalm 139:16-18 NLT)

“For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice. And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:24-28 NLT)

“So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.” ((1 Corinthians 15:21-23 NLT)

…I have been called…

…to help the children of God realize that it is our Father’s desire that as His children we live strong long lives worth living, without limit or end, with nothing missing or broken; therefore He designed us to live lives filled with purity, passion, power, and purpose; as in partnership with Him we expand the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (here and now); regardless of our current age or condition.

“And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:27-28 NLT)

This is the last passage that we will look at in this series of life. In this passage the writer of Hebrews is comparing the Old Covenant in which there were continual sacrifices made to cover people’s sin to the New Covenant in which Jesus had made one final sacrifice. This final sacrifice not only covered sin, it removed it. That is a huge difference. Throughout the Old Covenant age God had no choice but to deal with mankind according to their sins. They were living under the rule of the enemy and continually chose to live separated from him in their sin and rebellion. Their minds were darkened and they were dead in their trespasses and sins.

The point that is being made in Hebrews 9 is that the old way of doing things is over. Jesus’ sacrifice is final. The point that man only dies once was not written to make the point that everyone dies, it was to emphasize that Jesus would only die once to set us free from sin. In emphasizing this point the writer was also confronting a common belief of his day – reincarnation. While the writer does not directly confront this practice, pointing out that Christ only gave his life once like man only dies once was a subtle way of correcting this false teaching. I am convinced that the primary intent was to emphasize the final one time sacrifice of Christ with a secondary application of confronting the idea that we live multiple lives.

If I die, it will only be once. If I am not alive in Christ when I face death, I am not going to come back and try again prior to judgment. There is only one life given, and that life lasts forever. No reruns or do overs. This is not a proof text to rule out the possibility of living free from the world’s way of aging and death.

Bottom Line: while death is obviously the way in which most people transition into the next phase of life, it is not the only way to go. If death is imminent with no exceptions then scripture is contradictory, and the examples of those who never die are false. That means the following claim is also false…

…“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV)

The following claim would also be false…

…”For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4 NIV)

I can’t help but wonder if things would be different if I had been raised with as many messages about the potential of life without sin and its consequences today as I was about escaping this sin-filled world and going to heaven (even though I do fully embrace the hope of heaven). What if all funeral messages focused on the hope of heaven without stating that death was imminent? What if equal time was given to being like those in scripture who did not taste death? What if? What if? What if? Well, rather than keep wondering, “What if?”, I am going to make the change and place my faith and expectation on abundant life here and now.

I will continue to stand behind scripture’s claim to come directly from God and hold onto the hope that it gives me to expect a future that outshines anything that I have yet experienced. I plan to live from faith to faith, glory to glory, and victory to victory. Everything written in the pages of the book that I have been given was given for my benefit. It serves as my standard of truth and guides me into the “Hope of Glory.” 

I will choose to accept the heart of the message shared in……Eric’s Life Lesson # 380: Late Life Assignment: Part 16 – The Promise: Strong, Long Lives: Part 12