Why is Death the Punishment for Sin?

“ For I am the LORD, I change not; …...” Malachi 3:6

God, as the Creator of all we know has the sovereign right to establish His own standard of right and wrong and system of justice.
It is interesting when we look at our world we see how inescapable is the standard God set forth from the time of creation. How closely a civilization builds its justice system on God’s justice system directly determines what kind of society it is.
His ten commandments are even today a bedrock of right and wrong in a courtroom or in everyday life.
God is a God who does not change - and neither does His standard of justice.

When God was giving the ‘law’ to Moses He established the justice system of retribution for wrongs. In whatever way a man was ‘harmed’ by another, there needed to be a restitution or price paid in ‘kind’ . In Lev. 24 we are told …. animal for animal , eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, etc.

Life for Life ... "And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot". Duet. 19:21

Like for Like was the only ‘restoration to wholeness’ that was lawfully right.

For example, if I give someone a valued piece of pottery and ask them to guard it well and they through carelessness chip it, there is only one way that they can make it right. For them to return to me the chipped pottery does not ‘restore’ or pay for the damage. The only thing that will make it right would be for them to find a ‘perfect same as’ piece of pottery and return the undamaged one to me. It must be the ‘perfect like’ in place of the broken/damaged one.

Before God created the earth and all that is in it, there was only the perfection of God’s heaven. Not only was God perfect, but all that was around him was also perfect. Nothing but indescribable beauty surrounded Him and filled His heaven, including the angels who served Him. Not least of which was the most beautiful of them all , Lucifer, the angel leading heavenly worship.
But then, Lucifer, became proud and in becoming proud, entertained arrogant thoughts of being like God in ruling by his own desires and over a domain of his own. He persuaded one third of God’s angels to follow him in his rebellion.
God, of course, could allow no such thing -- it was open rebellion in His face. Lucifer and his followers were banished from their estates and forever condemned in their sin.
We know God as a forgiving, merciful God .. Why did He not find a way to forgive Lucifer and the angels who followed him ?

Remember God’s ‘like for like’ law of justice ?
What had been ‘damaged’ / ‘misused’ by Lucifer ? Was it not the ‘life’ that God had given him ? God is the Source , the Being from which ALL life originates, flows and is given. All life belongs to Him. As it says in Job 33:4 "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. and all God has to do is ‘recall’ that Life and "man will return to dust". (Job. 34:14)

Life, because it belongs to God is ‘holy’ … all life is meant to glorify God, all creatures with Life meant to fulfill the purposes of God and His desires. Because God is also LOVE ,He is only satisfied with perfectly happy creatures of His creation and He has given man instructions/commandments on how to live in perfect happiness, contentment and fulfillment. Anything we do contrary to that is a violation of His Life in us and is called ‘sin’.
If a creature ‘misuses’ the life that has been given him to harm himself or others or uses it to rebell against the God of Love that gave it , that is sin and must be atoned for.
So using God’s law of justice … like for like … that means Life for Life when sin against it is committed.
In God’s perfect heaven, there was no ‘death’ …. so there was no retribution/forgiveness possible for Lucifer. Life could not be given for the life that he misused. His own life is now tarnished, broken in sin … it could not atone for itself .. no more than the chipped pottery could be returned for retribution.
So Lucifer and his angels face an eternal punishment.

When God created man, He desires creatures that would choose to love Him, choose to serve Him -- creatures that would be children - His family in every sense of the word. A Being of Love that delights in calling Himself ‘Father’ needs children to pour His love out on.
To give his ‘children’ the freedom to come to Him because they loved Him and desired Him , He had to give them free will.
Free will, however, has a default of self-rule. Does God have free will ? Yes, of course.. He is sovereign. Does His freedom of self-rule -- creating/governing according to His own desires make Him a selfish Being ? No, because He is also a perfect Being .. in truth, in justice and in love and mercy and lovingkindness. For a Perfect Being to rule according to His own will and desire results in a perfect world.
But give free will to an imperfect being, then the ‘default’ to self-rule becomes something easily misused in that decisions/choices will be made without consideration of others’ well-being and for selfish reasons/goals. God’s will will be overruled by self-will. Every parent knows the ‘self-bent’ of their child when they begin to recognize the power of free will.

And so God, knowing that in creating man with a free will, He was creating a man who would fail, who would make wrong choices/decisions -- in other words ‘sin’ against or with the LIFE that God had given him -- God formulated a plan so that He would not have to condemn man when he sinned as He had to do with Lucifer.

That is why God told Adam and Eve … the day you sin, you will die. Death was not ‘created’ by God in His original creation -- only ‘sin’ brought God’s pronouncement of death into our world.
Why was death the punishment God decreed upon Adam and Eve ? Because only if there was death .. could their ‘sin’ be paid for …. LIFE for LIFE … can only be given where there is death.

A ‘broken’ life cannot atone for itself .. or one broken life for another broken life.. Only a Perfect Life can atone for a broken one. Adam and Eve both sinned and every man after them, there was no Perfect Life to give for broken Life.

We read in Rev. 13:8 that “the Lamb (was) slain from the foundation of the world.” We know Jesus did not come until 4000 years after Adam and Eve … yet God says for all intents and purposes He was ‘crucified’ from the foundation of the world. Why ? How?

God, in human form, Jesus, was the only Perfect Life that could be given to redeem the broken Life of every human being.
So how to apply the Life for Life before Jesus was slain ?
God set up, as it were, a line of credit. From Adam and Eve on, to the day Jesus gave His Life, every man could ‘borrow’ against that ‘reserve’ .
Every man could come to God with his ‘sin’ and with a token ‘life for life’ perfect animal sacrifice allowed God to ‘cover’ his sin until everyone’s sin debt would be paid in full by the Perfect Life for Life sacrifice of Jesus.
Animals cannot take away the sin of the world, (Heb 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.) it is not really like for like .

But in establishing the animal sacrifice God was able to use the life of a perfect animal to apply the ‘line of credit’ to everyone who came to Him. And the people in bringing a perfect animal sacrifice for their sin … Life for Life... they were continually reminded how serious ‘sin’ was before God and that without forgiveness there was no fellowship/communion with God and no eternal living with Him.

In the old covenant sin was only ‘covered’,(Psa 85:2 Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin) it was not taken away as it is with the new covenant. ( I John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and JUST to forgive us our sins and to CLEANSE us from all iniquity) Why is He just ?? because Perfect Life has been given for Life -- and therefore we can be cleansed from our sin as if it never were ! In the new covenant the ‘line of credit’ is no longer necessary - every believer in Jesus draws on His riches of forgiveness directly - simply for the asking.

My Life has been given to me for the glorifying of Jesus and for His good purposes for me. If I misuse that life to pursue my own interests , or to fulfill my own fleshly desires, then I am ‘sinning’ against that Life that belongs to God. How aware I need to be to ‘use’ my ‘life’ -- not just my given earthly life span -- but the moment to moment use of it , being careful that I am truly using it in a way that will glorify the God to whom it belongs.

Col 3:17 "And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."

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Do All Roads Lead to God and Heaven?

Recently someone in conversation with me raised the question if it wasn't possible that there could be more than one way to find God. Since God is a God of love and wants everyone to be in heaven with Him why could He not accept people who take a different religious path than the Christian one?

I lay awake that night thinking about it and I realized that the pat answer of "Jesus said there is only one way - a narrow one" answers the question for most Christians but everyone considers their religion to be the true path to God. Also over recent years, the teaching of Universalism is being considered by more and more people.. even evangelical Christians.

As I thought about the question, I wondered if thinking outside the 'religious box' would give me an interesting perspective. It did... and I would share my night time reasonings here.

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If all roads lead to heaven …. Then …
1. there can be no absolute truth about God - Every ‘path’, every religion has its own definition of God and if all paths are valid then so also are each of their defining boundaries and statements of belief. If what each path says about ‘God’ is valid then the only authority is self-authority -- God’s ‘truth’ is moulded to fit the image of what is acceptable to the adherents of each path or religion.

If all roads lead to heaven … Then…
2. there are can be no definition of sin. A definition of ‘sin’ is based on an accepted or commonly recognized standard of right and wrong. If there are many paths to God, then there can not be a determined set of rules that govern right and wrong definitions because each ‘path’ will develop or evolve its own standard of what would, within that path, be considered ‘sin’. To have an objective and conclusively authoritative law governing what is ‘sin’ , all paths would have to hold to the same standard, which removes the freedom to determine one’s own path to heaven.

If all roads lead to heaven …. Then…
3. there can be no One Person in authority - Without doubt, the stability or worth of a company will be judged by how well that company operates according to the vision or authority of the owner/President of the company. If the owner is either an absentee boss or one who is easily swayed by the opinions or inclinations of his workers the company will soon be in chaos. For the company to be successful and respected there must be a good strong ‘leader’. And a good strong leader will uphold and insist on things being done according to his vision and purpose for the company, as well as his own benefit! If a company for any length of time leaves its employees to their own inclinations and self-employment , the ‘owner’ will soon be completely out of the picture as the recognized President of the company and probably the company itself will ultimately self-destruct.

If all roads lead to heaven …. Then
4. There can be no utopia of peace and harmony – i.e. no ‘heaven” . There is a basic misconception that lies at the bottom of the opinion that there could be many ways to heaven. The underlying belief is that ‘heaven’ is simply a destination and just like any earthly destination can have many roads leading to the same place, so also heaven. It is simply the destination that is important. But an earthly destination, such as the city of Vancouver might be, is ever changing based on the desires and inclinations and personalities and beliefs of the people who arrive there and make it their home. Vancouver today is very different than it was 50 years ago… and is filled with the varied kinds of people who make it their destination. When they arrive in Vancouver they bring to the city their own flavour of personality and beliefs and they work toward having their own goals realized. If they were a criminal entering the city, they continue to be a criminal and influence the city’s standard of life. If there is not a strong leader with high ideals for the city that are consistently enforced then the city will go down to the standard of its lowest citizens. So if ‘heaven’ is simply a destination to which all roads are equal , then heaven cannot be the utopia that the word ‘heaven’ brings to mind. For heaven to be an eternal utopia, there must be strict rules of entry and obedience to the conditions set by the King of that Kingdom, otherwise its utopia will be a myth.

If all roads lead to heaven … Then …
5. there is no inspired writing - no communication directly from God If we consider all roads and all religions being valid paths then the conflicting writings of the different paths cannot all come from One Person or One God - unless He was being purposefully confusing. We would find it hard to conceive of a country or company’s President who sent out totally conflicting memoirs or instructions or directives. He would never have the people’s confidence nor their respect.

So if we are willing to follow the above reasoning logic and realize that to believe many paths lead to ‘heaven’ is self-defeating then we have one more question to settle.

If there is indeed only one way to heaven, then how do we know which path is the right one?
While each person will have to determine their own choice…. Here are several reasons why I believe that the Bible is indeed God’s inspired truth and that it alone reveals the one path that leads to eternal life in ‘heaven’ !

1. Of all the books in the world the Bible is the oldest, containing the earliest written records of history. Even though it is thousands of years old, it is still the number one best seller in the world.. In fact, it has for so long been the best seller of all books that you no longer see it topping the best sellers lists. It is simply a given!
2. The Bible contains the historical path of the oldest religion. All other paths came later.
3. No other ancient book of religion contains so much historical and scientific and medical information , none of which has ever been proven to be false.
4. Even though the Bible has been translated and passed on from generation to generation, when the Dead Sea scrolls were found in 1948 with original manuscripts they proved to be virtually identical to the modern translations of the bible.
5. The Bible is the only religious book that is filled with prophetic predictions of what was to come many years.. sometimes thousands, in the future. Every prophecy is perfectly fulfilled … except for the few that are yet future.
6. The Bible is the only book written by about 40 men over a period of 4000 years, most of whom never met each other and yet none of their words conflict or contradict each other… but all hold to a consistent message. Ask any judge to see how hard it it to get three people who witnessed the same accident to agree on the details. And yet the bible writers agree in all details. That can only prove that they were inspired by One Divine Author.
7. Only the Bible correctly predicts a Savior, the Messiah who would come… and only the Bible tells the story of a ‘God-man’ that conquered death and was resurrected -- with historical proof.

If we settle once and for all in our mind that there is indeed only one way to God and one path that leads to heaven, would we not then , with utmost diligence, strive to make sure that we are on that path and make the Bible the most read/studied book in our hand ?

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