Second Death part 1
This is kind of a big subject, and I debated whether or not to even attempt to tackle any part of it. But then I figured, why not? It's pretty important. And if I need to I can go further than part 5. This is MY blog after all. I make the rules. So, having said that, let's just right into it. I think we can all agree that there was a rather monumental shift that took place around 2000 years ago. It happened when Jesus died on the cross. When He gave His life both for us, and to us. But here's the thing: That right there was the second death. So anybody looking forward to that is looking in the wrong direction. Let's track this: The first death was when Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death). On that day (or IN that day) he surely died. A Spiritual death. Physically he went on to live until he was like 930 years old or some such. But what happened with the first death is that he--and we "in" him--became the walking dead. In a sense cut off from the Spirit of God. God was still there--He swore He would never leave us nor forsake us--but we were hiding from His presence. Because we thought He was mad at us and wanted to punish us. Unfortunately, that's how a lot of us still act. Our relationship with God is still based on trying to stay out of trouble. Getting away with as much as we can. Or completely giving up because we think we're on the "highway to hell" anyway, so we might as well not even try. Which, to me, is tragic. Running FROM God instead of running TO Him. But God knew that in order to experience life--and Jesus said it Himself, He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly--we needed a second death. Look at Revelation 20:14 (NLT) just so we can be absolutely sure about what we're talking about here, "Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death." So, a few things here. First off--if the grave, or what some other translations say as "hell" was thrown INTO the lake of fire... then hell can't BE a lake of fire, right? And we know that GOD is a consuming fire. But He doesn't burn people up, He purifies them. So. You know. There is some pretty rotten "afterlife" stuff out there. What I want to focus on today, and going forward, is that death was thrown into the lake of fire. The death OF DEATH is the second death. Which makes sense if you look at the gift of God which is eternal life. If you have eternal life... there is no death. And let me just throw this in here too: If you have eternal life... how can you have an "afterlife"? I did a whole podcast episode about the afterlife so I don't want to beat it into the ground here, but it bothers me that we have our focus so messed up so much of the time. Jesus didn't come to give us an afterlife. He came to give us LIFE. HIS life. His very own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! And that word "resurrection" is so important. Because in order to experience this new life... you need the second death. Again--the death OF death. Jesus didn't come to make "bad" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. And He did that by being lifted up from the earth on the cross, drawing us all into Himself, dying, and rising again so that WE could now walk in NEWNESS of life! The death of death means we don't have to fear death anymore. Which makes sense according to 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." To live is to love and to love is to live. In order to truly experience life we must fully experience God's love. Because they are one and the same. He brought us out of death and into life. He brought us out of fear and into love!