The Wages of Sin

Q: Why does God allow people to die?

A: Thanks for your question. Simply put, God allows people to die because He gave man freewill. And it was the exercise of that free will that led to sin and physical death as a consequence of that sin. "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12)." Soon after God created Adam, in the Garden of Eden, He gave Adam a warning. God said to Adam, "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die (Genesis 2:17)." Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because he did this Adam would die two different ways. First, he died spiritually. The life of God breathed into Adam at his creation (Genesis 2:7) was removed from him and he died spiritually. Subsequently, 930 years later, Adam experienced the second form of death when he died physically.

Because Adam did not have any children at the time he ate the forbidden fruit all mankind is born into this world in the image and likeness of Adam and not in the image of God as commonly understood. Genesis 5:3 says, "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth." Like Seth, we are all born into this world spiritually dead to God in sin. We do not have the life of God indwelling us and because we are in sin, our physical bodies will eventually die as well. Because our bodies are dead in sin they will have no part in the Kingdom of God. "I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50)." Therefore, the only option available is to die and have our bodies return to the earth from which they came. However, the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God has a plan to once again indwell mankind like He did prior to Adam's sin.

Originally, physical death was not a part of God's plan. He created Adam and Eve to live forever with Him in the Garden of Eden. However, because sin and death entered the world God devised a plan to restore mankind to Him as He originally designed it to be. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)." Because the penalty for sin is death, God had to first deal with the sin that caused Him to remove His life from Adam back in the Garden. Unfortunately, because all mankind is trapped inside our sinful bodies, there was nobody who had a life to give that would satisfy God as payment for our sins. Therefore, God died Himself. Jesus Christ, being God in the flesh, was and is the only man born into this world with a life to give that satisfied God as payment for our sins. That is why the death of Jesus was a "propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2)." Jesus Christ's death on the cross took away the sins of the world for eternity. The sin issue is no longer a problem between mankind and God. Now, God was free to restore His life to us.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the moment in time where God was now able to offer His life to mankind that was originally lost when Adam sinned. "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies (John 11:25)." When a person recognizes their condition of being spiritually dead in sin and accepts God's one and only provision of life in Jesus Christ, as a free gift, they become spiritually alive to God. And because of Christ's death on the cross the life they have received will never leave them. That is why it is an eternal life. The body will still die and go to the grave, but because the Spirit is now alive to God, we will be given new bodies at the future resurrection. "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands (2 Corinthians 5:1)." Christians have been raised from the dead spiritually and at the future resurrection we will be raised from the dead physically and given our new bodies to match. We will all die physically, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we will live eternally with Him because we have the Spirit of God indwelling us. If you are in Christ, death is not something to fear, but a time when you will step into eternity and be with your God and Savior. Amen!