If a man dies, shall he live again?

It is the age old question asked by Job, a man in the Old Testament, about 4000 years ago. The book of Job in the Bible is full of questions. There are at least 300 of them in the book for man has always wanted to know the answer to the questions that life poses. Many have believed in an afterlife. Last year London hosted two exhibitions pertaining to men who were convinced of an afterlife that they or theirs made elaborate preparation for it. I refer to Qin Shi Huang and his terracotta army (at the British Museum) and Tutankhamen and his treasures of gold (at the Millennium dome). They lived at separate times, were separated by many miles and lived in different civilisations but both men (and there have been thousands others like them) had sophisticated preparation made for the afterlife.

Why? Man has sought a utopia, a paradise throughout the ages. It may be that he seeks it on this earth but he is aware that even if he finds it he cannot ever hope to dwell there forever for he is subject to death.¹ It may be that he does not see that utopia is experienced in this world and then he must believe in the hereafter. Whatever their views of the afterlife one thing is clear from the discoveries at Xian, and on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, that these men believed that there was such a thing. It is modern man who, largely, has rejected the concept and the reality of an afterlife. In so doing he has also rejected the existence of God and the need for accountability to a higher being.

And yet man, in general, has always sought God. Whether he thought God was the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or the rain or even that he didn’t know, he has always sought for God. The Bible talks of people in Greece worshipping the unknown God. Some have raised great monuments of sacrifice to appease the god that they worshipped. I am thinking of Chichen Itza from the Mayan civilisation located in Mexico. Some have offered vegetables, others animals, some have even offered fellow human beings. Primitive man did this and so have men from quite advanced civilisations.

Appreciation of a deity, or a god, is not the domain of monkeys whose limbs work in a similar way to ours. They do not take a pile of stones, form an altar, make a fire and slay a fellow animal and offer this to its god. It is mankind that has done this. No matter how clever man becomes or his society becomes there is still a desire for things other than those that he can see, smell, taste, touch and hear. That is because there is a spirit in man as the book of Job chapter 32² lets us know. It is powerful men like Qin Shi Huang who have made elaborate preparation for the afterlife down through the years.

God says that there is an afterlife. He does not call it by that name for He speaks of eternity and eternal life. He is the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity³. It was His Son who said, 'I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish'⁴. God says that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord⁵. As a gift it is not the realm of the healthy, wealthy or wise alone. It is offered to anyone and everyone, as God is always fair and just⁶. It is not something that I can purchase, for which I can do the preparation and yet I am to be prepared for what lies beyond death.

It was the Lord Jesus who paid the price for sin when He died at Calvary. God was never satisfied with all those animal sacrifices that were offered in the Old Testament. And yet each one pointed to the time when His Son would offer the perfect sacrifice that satisfied and appeased God. He gave His life to ransom mine. Look at the nails and the crown of thorns for God has never forgotten them but look beyond them to see that men did not take His life but He laid it down⁷. I cannot plead for justice before God. My only plea is mercy for God to remove my sins⁸ and make me fit for the eternal life that He alone offers. I need that sacrifice. Then all that is to be done is to accept what the Lord Jesus has done and prepared for me and accept the gift of eternal life. Refusal to accept the gift for whatever reason means that there can be no home in heaven. There is no need for elaborate preparation. Everything that needs to be done to secure eternal life was done 2000 years ago at Calvary. All God asks of me is to believe and receive and eternal life is mine.

1. Job 14.14
2. Job 32.8
3. Isaiah 57.15
4. John 10.28
5. Acts 6.23
6. I Peter 3.18
7. John 10.18
8. Luke 18.13