There is one truth about you that supersedes all others: you are immortal.
Have you ever had a moment where you were gripped by the keen desire for something more? It is an incomparable longing. It is a deep dissatisfaction, a restlessness in the secret places of your heart. Something inside recognizes that this life is not enough. There has to be something else, something that will make it all worth it in the end.
It is because you were designed for immortality. Suffering and death feel incomprehensibly unjust and wrong for a reason. Life is not meant to be this way. It is not supposed to be a series of mundane daily drudgeries and depressions culminating in the grave. You have lucid moments where you recognize this truth. You see a landscape that takes your breath away. You watch a toddler take his first steps. A stranger stops you in your tracks with an unexpected kindness. In these little moments, we get a sense of what eternity should feel like. It is utterly right and complete. God gives us these glimpses to remind us. In a way, that soul-deep restlessness, despite its discomfort, is a blessing. It is meant to help us keep our eyes on the prize. If we are Christ’s, we know we do not belong here. We are citizens of a better country.
“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
Philippians 3:20-21 (NIV)
For millennia, mankind has been obsessed with the concept of immortality. All one needs to do is look at the ancient myths and legends which abound in every culture to know this is true. Often however, immortality becomes a curse as the immortal person either loses those he loves to the ravages of time or turns into a monster. Early explorers fought and died searching for the famed fountain of youth. Alchemists searched vainly for a life-giving elixir. Even today, scientific research is conducted in the hopes of unlocking some way to prolong natural life.
Let us go back to the beginning. That’s right, the story of Adam and Eve. God created man and woman in His image. Their lives were perfect, and God walked with them in the cool of the day. Then, they sinned. They made an irrevocable choice. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, despite the fact that God commanded them not to eat of it. For their disobedience, God cast them out of Eden and cursed them to return to the dust from which they were made.
“And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”
Genesis 3:22-23 (NIV)
On the face of it, God’s actions here are a heinous cruelty. He stripped them of their home and immortality. But I challenge you to look deeper. Man, now KNEW evil. The fruit had done its work and now evil coursed like poison through his veins. Well, why did God even put the tree of knowledge of good and evil there in the first place? Why tempt them with it? Surely, He set Adam and Eve up for failure! They could not have known the stakes of their choice.
Yes, dear reader, they could. God told them from the outset that eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil would lead to death. Yet, the presence of the tree was necessary. It represented Adam and Eve’s opportunity to exercise true freedom of choice. Without it, Eden would have been little more than a gilded cage. It was the only thing prohibited to them in Eden, their garden of infinite wonder, beauty, and perfection. Right next to it stood the tree of life! Life was theirs for the taking!
Think about it. They already knew “good.” God walked with them in the cool of the day. They were abundantly blessed with everything they could ever need. However, their choice opened them up to suffering, pain, and darkness. To know evil, means to know all of these things and more. This was the real curse. How terrible would it have been had God allowed them to claim their immortality in that state! The introduction of evil tore a hole in the fabric of their souls. To live forever in that condition would have been hell.
By denying Adam and Eve the tree of life, it could be argued that God showed them the greatest possible mercy. Their experience of the poisonous evil would only be temporary. Yet, God did even more than that! He enacted a plan which would allow mankind a chance to reclaim immortality. This would be a RESURRECTED immortality, not one stained and marred by knowledge of evil.
“But now [as things really are] Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, [and He became] the first fruits [that is, the first to be resurrected with an incorruptible, immortal body, foreshadowing the resurrection] of those who have fallen asleep [in death].”
1 Corinthians 15:20 (AMP)
This immortality comes to you in two stages. First, you experience spiritual rebirth upon acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior. Second, you will have resurrected immortal life after death. You will have a new body, perfect, complete, lacking nothing. The curse of the knowledge of evil is obliterated. You will taste the fruit of the tree of life and it will be the sweetest thing you have ever known. That feeling of an unfulfilled longing just out of reach will be gone. Everything will be set aright with Jesus, our Lord and King, on the heavenly throne.
“Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Rev. 1:17b-18 (HCSB); John 3:16 (NIV)
I will say it again. You are immortal. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Prioritize what matters loved ones. We are on the shadow plane this side of the Jordan. What we do with our time here has everlasting consequences. Remember, we are just passing through. Our country, our home, our Eden is just ahead. Selah.
-A.A. Wordsmith
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Selah Vie! 