What happens when we die?
Dec 31, 2010
The Base for Grace - part twenty-three in a study of the book of Hebrews
By Mike Gaudet
What happens when we die?
Does God punish His children on the far side of the grave?
“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” Hebrews 9:13-14
Christianity was birthed from Judaism.
For many of us the rituals and practices of ancient Judaism feel strange and unfamiliar. This is especially true when it comes to animal sacrifice. Biblical commands to secure forgiveness by slaughtering lambs, goats or bulls seem backwards and barbaric.
The truth is that God never intended for animal sacrifice to be permanent. He determined in advance that His Son’s sacrifice would render prior sacrifices obsolete. Jesus’ sacrifice would “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death.” It would promote “heart-deep” rather than “skin deep” purity.
Although the Old Covenant sacrifices were temporary, they do help us to understand Christ’s death on the cross. It is against the backdrop of these rituals that we can understand divine forgiveness. “The blood of goats and bulls” and “the ashes of a heifer” help us to understand how Jesus Christ, the “Lamb of God” . . . “takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29
Jesus’ blood, like “the blood of goats and bulls” cleanses us from unintentional sins.
“The blood of goats and bulls” was used to atone for (wipe away) unintentional sin. When an Israelite unknowingly violated one of God’s laws, being “sprinkled” with the blood of a sacrificed animal sufficed to “sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.”
There are many that teach that Jesus’ blood is the means by which all of our sins, intentional and unintentional, are forgiven. The problem with this view is that God never accepted shed blood as a means to cleanse intentional sin.
Jesus’ body, like the “ashes of a heifer” also cleanses us from intentional sins.
In a prior study we saw how the High Priest’s treatment of the “scapegoat” on the Day of Atonement foreshadows how God deals with the intentional sins of His children. In the same way that the scapegoat took away the “wickedness and rebellion” of the people, Jesus Christ “takes away” our sin.
The “ashes of a heifer” provides yet another analogy for how God forgives our intentional sins.
Coming into contact with a dead body or even a grave was forbidden in ancient Judaism. The phrase, “whitewashed tombs” refers to the practice of cleansing grave markers in order to prevent an Israelite from unwittingly walking over a grave.
Old Covenant Law stipulated that the ashes of a sacrificed heifer, mixed with water, be used to “sprinkle anyone who has touched a human bone or a grave or someone who has been killed or someone who has died a natural death.” Numbers 19:18 The individual who “touches the dead body of anyone will be unclean for seven days. He must purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean.” Numbers 19:11-12
Paul, a former Pharisee, could well have been thinking of this ritual when he wrote, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Romans 7:21-24
Paul trusted God to rescue him from contact with his own “body of death.”
Paul believed that God made His spirit alive. He also understood that this side of the grave, his spirit, which delighted in God law, was entombed within a body that did not share the same delight. He was painfully aware of the war that raged within him and had to admit that, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” Paul realized that a part of him wanted to sin.
Despite being pulled in half by competing desires, Paul trusted Jesus to “rescue” him from his “body of death.” He understood that Jesus’ sacrifice functioned like the ashes of a heifer functioned . . . to purify him from contact with a dead body. He believed that God absolved his spirit of guilt resulting from contact with a dead body…his own!
God wants us to believe what Paul believed . . . that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
God wants us to believe that:
- He places the responsibility for our intentional sins upon our flesh and blood bodies.
- Because “the wages of sin is death” our mortal bodies are sentenced to die because the burden of intentional sin has been placed upon them.
- Through faith in Christ, our immortal spirits are cleansed from contact with our “body of death.”
- When we die our spirits rise to be with God. Our mortal bodies are left behind.
- When Jesus returns a second time to Earth, our mortal bodies will be resurrected, become immortal bodies and we will exist eternally as immortal spirits within immortal bodies . . . just like Jesus.