It’s hard to imagine the suffering
Jesus went through in both the garden of Gethsemene and on the cross. It’s also
hard for many to imagine why he had to do so. For some, it was a cruel act,
perpetrated on Jesus by a cruel God. Many have turned away from Christianity
because of this one seemingly cruel act.
Even so, I would like to make an
attempt at trying to explain this seemingly awkward scenario, if I can.
However, rather than dive right into the New Testament account of this event,
we must go all the way back to Adam and Eve, if we are going to begin to
understand this two-thousand-year-old mysterious event.
When Adam and Eve were created, they
were created immortal. That is, they could not die, as death had not yet
entered into the world. This is attested to by the pronouncement of God
himself:
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17.)
If death was in the future tense,
then death could not be in the present tense. Thus, Adam and Eve were immortal
and could not at the present time die, as death had not yet entered into the
world.
As it turned out, and as all
believing Christians know, Adam and Eve did partake of that forbidden
fruit, whatever it may have been. This indeed did bring forth that prophesied
death into the world, albeit 900 plus years later, bringing into focus that a
day unto the Lord is equivalent to a thousand years of man (2 Peter 3:8).
That act of disobedience also
brought sin into the world. And here, we must understand that sin, in the
context of the Bible, is simply disobedience to God’s commandments—nothing
more, nothing less. No one outside of Christianity appreciates the concept of
sin. Even for many Christians, the idea of sin has a somewhat sinister
connotation.
However, in addition to this
physical death of which God spoke, Adam and Even underwent another kind of
death—a spiritual death. This spiritual death occurred when Adam and Eve were
cast out of the garden eastward in Eden and thus were separated from the
physical presence of God. Previous to this, they both walked with and talked to
God. Hence, they were literally in the presence of God when they were in the
garden in Eden.
As mortals living in today’s world,
we continue to suffer from these two deaths—physical and spiritual. Our
physical bodies die and molder in the ground, or would, were it not for the
embalming process. On the other hand, our spirit bodies leave our physical
bodies, which, ultimately, is the real cause of death, although illness and old
age hasten that finality.
Without our spirit bodies, our
physical bodies have no life in and of themselves. And in dying, we continue to
be separated from the presence of God. That is, we would were there no
atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we’ll get to that.
So, thousands of years later, we
continue to suffer from these two deaths because of Adam and Eve’s
transgression. However, we are not born in sin, as many Christian religions
believe and teach, due to Adam and Eve’s transgression. We are each responsible
for our own sins and no one else’s. That is what the scriptures teach us,
although there is one verse that suggests that we are born in sin.
However, this is not supported by the rest of scripture, so I have to assume
that some self-serving copyist inserted that one verse. You may, of course,
believe as you have been taught, but I tend to view the scriptures as a whole,
rather than a single verse, with very few exceptions.
What it all boils down to is this:
we as mortals are all subject to sin or disobedience. All have sinned.
“For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20.)
And if there’s not a just man
living on the earth who does not sin, then we can assume that those whom God
considers unjust also sin.
And I’m sure it’s commonly believed
that no unclean thing can enter into heaven, else heaven becomes polluted and
unclean. If that’s not in the Bible, it should be because it’s true.
