“Is the death of the will any less painful than the death of the body? Call it figurative if it makes you comfortable, but in reality the death of the will is far more traumatic than the death of the body.”
“Yes. Yes, you are right. In the death of the body the nerve endings soon stop feeling. In the death of the will the heart doesn’t stop its bleeding so quickly. Those were my own words.”
from “When Heaven Weeps: Newly Repackaged Novel from The Martyr’s Song Series (The Heaven Trilogy Book 2)” by Ted Dekker
It’s so hard to know the truth.
Many (most?) would think the death of the body would be worse than anything.
Many (most?) would also look at the image at the top left and think “He who does the will of God abides forever” means giving up our free will. That it means the death of our will.
Somehow – both thoughts just seem to make sense.
Like what’s worse than death – the end of our lives?
And how can we do the will of God without giving up our own free will?
The first problem
Generally, when there’s an incorrect conclusion from a very short logic sequence – like the one that says death / the end of our life is the worst thing that can happen – that incorrect conclusion comes from a wrong assumption at the very beginning.
In this case – the wrong assumption is that death is the end of our lives.
Yes – death is the end of life here – on this planet – in this carbon based body.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something after death.
The hope of all Christians is resurrection and then eternity with Jesus.
In that case – death isn’t the end.
Death is a necessary step to the next portion of our lives. Eternity.
The second problem
The second problem is also based on a wrong assumption.
God wants us to have free will.
One thing we learn from Adam & Eve is just how important our free will is. God wants us to love Him – but He still gives us the opportunity to choose whether or not to do that. As I’ve pointed out many times – love without free will isn’t really love.
Free will also extends to the quote in the image, which is from the verses in 1 John 2 that the NIV subtitles Do Not Love the World –
Do Not Love the World
1Jn 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
I know – it seems weird. Doing what someone else wants isn’t necessarily giving up our own will.
But – it’s true. Just look at what Paul wrote about his own struggles with doing what God wanted –
Struggling With Sin
Ro 7:7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Ro 7:13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Ro 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Ro 7:21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 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. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
In this fallen world, giving up our will isn’t so easy. It’s nothing like just saying I want to do God’s will instead of mine. Everything in this world where Satan is the Prince of the earth, for a time – is a struggle. Everything we decide is a struggle – between doing what God wants and doing what Satan wants. Choosing to do what God wants isn’t easy – and isn’t a one time thing. It’s an on going thing. One opportunity after another to exercise our own free will as we decide whether to follow God or not (in other words – do what Satan wants)..
The thing is, as Paul wrote earlier in Romans – if we continually choose to not do God’s will – we eventually reach the point where there isn’t a struggle anymore. We are so blinded to God’s will that we just go down the road to Hell without even thinking about it –
Ro 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Ro 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Ro 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Conclusion
So what we have is that, first of all, death is not the end. Death is the way we pass from this life to the next.
Second, we have our free will – our choice of whether we want to abide forever with God, as the verse says – or not. Eternal life – or eternal death.
And the realization that the only time we really give up our free will – when our free will dies – is when we abandon God and give ourselves over to the world of Satan.
So now – which one sounds better?
Death of the body? Or death of the will?
the quote and information of the book are available at amazon.com — http://amzn.to/29DR7d6