Death

Holy Scripture must seem incredibly strange to those who study it and do not accept it.

What one man sees as paradoxical, the other sees that only an all-intelligent being could conceive the design. What one man thinks disconnected, another sees as a masterpiece, woven together through the ages by different cultures and different ages, that could only be coordinated by the Master. What some see as contradictions amuck, those in the know see as poetry from the pen, infinitely more detailed and complex and detailed than Shakespeare or Homer or Whitman. When one sees fable and tradition and mythology, the believer sees love defined, only unlocked through wisdom imparted. What is seemingly incomplete and mystical, others see as proof of the limitations of the physical dimension, or sometimes, wondrously simple. What one sees as nonsense and childish, the other sees as the path to understanding God, life, and fulfillment, and enough to ponder over 1,000 lifetimes.

When one sees a book, the other sees the definition of beauty.

Perhaps there is no concept that quite punctuates this as Romans 8:13. "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

In a recent article in my monthly devotional, Burk Parsons makes a bold assessment of this passage. "In truth, every Christian, who has not been seduced by the superficial tactics and magical pixie dust of Childish Christian gurus from evangelical Neverland, knows full well that there is more to living the Christian life than reading the latest Christian self-help book...How strange to think that the path to life is through death - the death of our sin and the denial of ourselves (Luke 9:23). In fact, the very foundation of our justification is in the death of death itself in the death of Jesus Christ, and the foundation of Christian living and sanctification is in the death of self in the death of our sin. Therein lies the simplicity of the Christian's abundant life in Christ (John 10:10).

Parsons: "While many Christians suppose their spiritual life is monitored on some sort of heavenly growth-chart, we only grow as we become more and more convinced of God's holiness and the absence of true holiness in our own lives, mortifying sin and living obediently coram Deo, before the face of God."

Another paradox to some, incoherent? The closer I get to God, the more I'm dying, and living. The closer I get to God, the lower I see self. Isaiah and Paul, New Testament and Old, understood this as they rat self out and admit how low they are. I submit this was probably during moments of particular closeness to God, of living in the Spirit and shedding an uncommon, holy light on self and sin.

Life and death. Opposites. One comes before the other. A and Z. One starts and one finishes. Yet with the stroke of Holy pen, they are transposed, and our understanding is challenged.

In his famous The Mortification of Sin, (well, famous in certain circles) Puritan John Owen writes, "That mortification and holiness may be promoted in my heart and in the hearts and lives of others, to the glory of God; and that in this way the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things."

Death and beauty. Not linked, perhaps antonymous. Yet, there it is. Because never has anything been so beautiful as one death. And never has anything been so fulfilling as seeing the death in me, the only way I will ever achieve anything beautiful in God's eyes.