Eternal life? Or disease, decay and death?

The belief in the inevitability of death

Belief in the inevitability of death is ingrained in the human DNA and is therefore universal. However, death was not in God’s original DNA for man. (Throughout this meditation I am using the word “man” in its generic sense, as the Bible uses it, and not as referring to the male gender).

At His launch, God provided for man a DNA which included Eternal Life, Abundant Life, Victorious Life, Love, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Kindness, Mercy, Forgiveness, Sufficiency, Completeness and Perfection, and not least, freedom from pain, freedom from tears, freedom from disease, decay and death and even freedom from having to work with the sweat of his brow for his living. God supplied man’s every need according to His riches.

However, through man’s own fault, that original DNA got erased or corrupted. Whether we consider the Biblical narrative in the Garden of Eden as literal truth or as allegory, the underlying truth is that at some point in time man separated himself from his Source (God) and opted to go his own way. This fundamental spiritual truth is best captured in the two parables, the Prodigal Son and the “broken branch”. If one is to render these two parables in modern language one might say that man decided to unplug his connection to the main power source which never gets depleted and opt instead to run on battery power which has only a finite power resource.

As a consequence, disease, decay and death came into human experience. The moment he separated himself from God, man became a “broken branch”, and like any broken branch began to wither and die. Instead of eternal life, disease, decay and death came to be permanently engraved in his DNA. To translate this truth into scientific language, man came under the law of entropy.(Isaac Newton’s 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).

Jesus Christ came to erase man’s corrupted DNA and pass on to him a new inheritance through a new DNA, “in” and “through” Christ, and to restore him to his original God-ordained destiny of an eternal and abundant life.

Listen to what the scriptures say:

“God gave His only begotten Son so that those who believe in Him may never perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Whoever eats of the Bread that I give will live forever.”(John 6:55- 59). “I am come that they might have Life and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). “If a man keeps my sayings he shall never see death (John 8:51); "Whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:26).

In the second epistle to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said, “Our Saviour Jesus Christ … hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light” (2 Tim. 1:10).

From the Old Testament: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death” (Hosea 13:14).

It is important to note that Jesus did not come to fast-track man to heaven, but to establish His Father’s Kingdom here on earth, as in heaven, which was why He asked us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven” . He also commanded, “Seek ye first the Kingdom”, whereupon heaven will be unto us an “added thing”.

Therefore an eternal and abundant life, untouched by disease and decay, here on earth as in heaven, should be the true inheritance of all those who believe in Jesus Christ.

In that case, was Jesus a liar?

Sadly, however, over the millennia, that has not been the experience of those who have believed in Jesus. It is a fact that regardless of these biblical promises, every man or woman who has believed in Jesus for over two millennia has suffered disease, decay and death! So then! Was Jesus lying, or has the human race yet to REALISE and APPROPRIATE the promises that Jesus gave?

The suggestion that God can lie is not only contrary to faith, but equally, contrary to reason. When we postulate God we must also postulate that He must be perfect! Perfection must of necessity characterise God’s being, because if He is not perfect, there must be some factor that is making Him less than perfect, and that unknown factor must be more powerful than God! In that case, rather than worship a depleted God, we should be worshipping the power that depleted Him!!

So then, how can one explain rationally how a perfect God can lie? Furthermore, how can Jesus Christ (who is God manifesting in our midst) exercise such an awesome hold over the human race for over 2000 years and continue to do so even today? Surely, it is rational to suppose that if Jesus Christ had been a liar, far from exercising a hold on human consciousness for two millennia, He would have been found out and exposed within His own lifetime and banished to oblivion?

One must therefore conclude that if Jesus’ promises of an eternal and abundant life have yet to be fulfilled, the failure must not be with God the Father or with his Son Jesus, but with man!

We have yet to grasp in the depth of our consciousness, the deeper meaning of Jesus Christ’s promises and learn how to appropriate them.

“Realisation” is the secret

The secret of appropriating the promises of Jesus is not merely knowing them through our rational minds or even knowing them through faith, but REALISING them in the depths of our consciousness and merging with the One giving the promises.

There is a huge difference between knowing a truth through the rational mind or even through faith, and REALISING the truth. In the case of the former, the dualistic relationship between the knower and the known object persists. However, when we REALISE the same truth, as opposed to merely knowing it through our minds or appropriating it through faith, we become one with the One expounding the truth, and one with the Truth itself. At that point, the subject-object relationship, i.e. the separation that was triggered at the Garden of Eden, is terminated.

“I and my Father are One. Thou seest me? Thou seest the Father who sent me! The Father is in me and I am in thee and we are ONE” (John 17 - summarised). Man has been talking about God endlessly, constructing elaborate theological systems for explaining Him, evolving awe-inspiring rituals and traditions for celebrating Him and composing breathtaking music for honouring Him. However, what he has not done is to devote time for actually REALISING Him directly through His Son Jesus Christ, as opposed to merely knowing about Him.

No amount of talking about the fragrance of a rose can ever communicate the actual experience of the fragrance. No amount of reading reviews of Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the 9th Symphony can ever substitute for actually seeing and hearing him conduct the symphony with a full orchestra. No amount of committing to memory every lane, street and alley in London’s A-Z can ever be a substitute for actually visiting London.

Fully to appropriate the promises of Jesus we must know Him directly without the mediation of ritual, liturgy, icons, music, or tradition, which by themselves can never be adequate substitutes for having an authentic experience of the Christ.

Theology, liturgy, ritual, music, icons, tradition, etc, all have their place in worship, but while they might inspire us to seek a deeper experience of God, they can also act as barriers to knowing Him. More often than not we end up thinking that road signs are the destination itself. It is as if a wayfarer pitched his tent at the signpost thinking that he has already reached his destination. Thereby we end up just knowing the substitutes and missing the real thing, rather like eating the foil-wrapping and throwing the chocolate away.

That is why our worship lacks vibrancy and power and many of our churches are more like tombs rather than like the dwelling place of God. The primary reason for this state of spiritual anaemia must rest with church leaders and theologians, who feed their congregations with “yesterday’s manna” or with platitudes which neither elevate nor nourish spiritually.

Fully to appropriate the promises of Jesus we must know him aright! (John 17:3).

However, REALISATION is not to be attained through self-effort, but to be received through Grace from above in response to the heart’s yearning for Him. That yearning is heard in heaven only after we have the humility to acknowledge that for however long we may have professed to be “Christian” we have yet to encounter Him and have an authentic experience of him.

On the other hand, not everyone who seeks is called, and not everyone who is called is chosen, and we don’t choose Him but He chooses us!

Another reason the human race has failed fully to manifest the promises of Jesus, here on earth, is that they believe that eternal life is to be inherited only after death. There is no basis whatsoever in the New Testament for such a supposition. Jesus did not say, “I am come so that you may have abundant and eternal life, but only after you have first died on earth and gone to heaven” No! Not at all! He said “I AM come that you may have Life” (John10:10), and He asked us to pray for the Kingdom to come and for His Father’s will to be done “here on earth, as in heaven”.

Let us consider some hard evidence to support the belief that we were not meant to die but to live eternally. Let us look at how “fearfully and wonderfully” (Ps.139:14) our bodies have been made.

Our bodies were made for eternal life and not for death!

Our bodies have 15 operating systems, any one of which is a marvel by itself and can only be the handiwork of an omniscient and omnipotent God. It was God who placed those systems in the human body to deliver His eternal and abundant life and to show forth, in a tangible visible form, what He is like.

“Know you not that ye are Gods?” (John 10:34). “Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and the Temple of the Holy Spirit”? (1 Cor. 6:19). “Be ye transformed into the likeness of the Son” (Rom.12:2).

Since we were made in His image and likeness, we should witness to His perfect image and likeness in the world, not only in Spirit, but through our minds and bodies as well. That means that, at the very least, while constantly manifesting love in our consciousness and never manifesting hate and bitterness, we must also not be subject to disease, decay and death in our bodies!

The purpose of manifesting eternal and abundant lives through our bodies is not to have a good time on earth but to fulfil the promises given to us by Jesus – “Those who believe in me will never die”(John 11:17-27). “I am come that you may have Life and that you may have Life abundantly”(John 10:10) etc – and thereby bring glory to His name. HE also said, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts1:8).

What is the responsibility of a witness in court but to present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? What truth? The truth about Jesus Christ! At the very least, presenting the truth about Jesus Christ must include a demonstration that His promises are true!

Before we enumerate the 15 systems that comprise the infrastructure for eternal life let us have a definition of a “system”. A system is a collection of components that work together for achieving a stated goal. Broadly there are two types of systems. There are inanimate systems like a motor car, or a computer, or a robot, which require an initial human initiative to get them going. There are also animate systems, called organisms which, unlike the inanimate systems, are driven by life. The human being is the highest and most complex animate system known to man and it is rational to conclude that if any inanimate system requires a human agency to get it moving, the human system that is incomparably more complex than any inanimate system must have an infinitely complex external agency to get it going. We call that infinitely complex initiative from outside “God” or “Spirit”.

If the parts that comprise a motor car will never come together on their own to constitute the car unless put together by an engineer or some external agent, how much less would the incomparably more complex components that comprise a human organism come together on their own to constitute human life!

Let me enumerate the 15 operating systems through which God intended our bodies to work in complete harmony and to manifest eternal life.

1. The cerebral system – the brain (comprised of over 100 billion neurons, or electrically-charged cells, and hardwired by over 85,000 miles of connections called dendrites, dentritic ribs and synapses) was intended by God to demonstrate His omniscience and “the same mind that was in Jesus”. However, even the most intelligent of men, say Isaac Newton or Einstein, did not use more 40% of that cellular capacity!

2. The central nervous system (coordinated by the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex in the brain) comprised of over 45 miles of nerve fibres which radiate from the brain and spinal canal to enable us to gather information through the five senses, feel sensation and move our limbs.

3. The sensorial system (the five senses – ears, eyes, nose, tongue and sense of touch) which enable us to know the world around us.

4. The respiratory system (the nostrils, the trachea and the lungs) which enable us to breathe in oxygen, expel carbon dioxide and detoxify our bodies. The lungs of an average adult are comprised of over 480 million cells or alveoli.

5. The cardiovascular system (the heart, arteries, arterioles, capillaries and veins, and the liver) The cardiovascular system pumps 4-5 litres of blood and keeps it flowing through 60,000 miles of arteries, etc, completing the entire circuit in under one minute, and 75% of that blood is plasma or water!

6. The digestive system (the mouth, oesophagus, stomach, the duodenum, and small intestines) to take in and break down food and supply nutrients to the body. The small intestines are 24-25 feet in length of which 2-3 feet are surplus to requirements and can be cut away if found diseased.

7. The excretory system (the kidneys, the bladder, the large bowels and colon) to evacuate toxins and waste from the body – the body’s own sewerage and plumbing system. The large bowel is 5-6 feet in length, but one foot is surplus to requirements and can be cut away if diseased.

8. The reproductive system (the sex organs, the womb, ovaries, prostate and testes) for reproducing the race.

9. The muscular system (there are 646 muscles in our bodies) enabling us to move our limbs and do work. As we age muscles lose their fibres and that is why we cannot carry at 70 the loads we carried when we were 30.

10. The skeletal system (the vertebral column, the cartilages, joints and all the hard structures that comprise our body) enabling us to stand erect, run and move about. There are 24 vertebral links, 23 vertebral discs, 360 joints and 255 bones in the skeletal system, with ligaments and tendons to support them.

11. The immune system (the white corpuscles and platelets in our blood) to fight off bacteria and virus and keep us free from disease.

     12.  The peripheral nervous system (comprised of the autonomic and somatic nervous systems) enabling us

            to react to threat or pain automatically without any conscious effort on our part.

13. The glandular or endocrine system (the thyroid, the pituitary, the adrenals, the gonads, the mammary) to co-ordinate all the above systems and ensure they function properly and in harmony with one another. They are the policemen of the body.

14. The lymphatic system. The primary function of the lymphatic system is to transport lymph, a clear, colourless fluid containing white blood cells that help rid the body of toxins, waste and other unwanted materials.

15. The skin (all 5 square metres of it) which holds all of the above together as a sack would hold potatoes.

It should be evident that this body of ours, so "fearfully and wonderfully made”, could only have been made by an omnipotent God for eternal life and not to last for a mere 70 or 80 years.

The organising Intelligence on earth

These 15 systems cannot interact amongst themselves to produce a harmoniously functioning human being unless there is an Intelligence coordinating them. In the absence of such a coordinating mechanism, the 15 systems would be like marbles in a jar, subsisting by themselves and only for themselves, but not for each other or interacting with each other, to produce the good of the whole organism. They would be working either at cross-purposes or on parallel lines and the “whole” of which they are only parts, would be without a pilot and lack unity and an identity.

The mechanism that imparts unity and coherence to the human being is Intelligence. By the word “Intelligence”, I do not mean intelligence as in IQ, but Intelligence as Consciousness, or as Pure Awareness or as Soul. There is no physical brain structure in the human being where that Intelligence or Soul is located, but it is an invisible and all-pervasive spiritual presence, whose responsibility is to coordinate the 15 systems and impart to the human being his unique personality and identity.

That all-pervasive Soul not only coordinates all the 15 tangible systems, but also acts as the human being’s Conscience and as the point of linkage to Divine Intelligence or Supreme Consciousness or God.

However, among the non-human organisms, i.e. among the lower creatures, the coordinating intelligence acts only as a reflex system and has no capacity or responsibility for conceptual thinking, nor a capacity for self-consciousness. The lower creatures react to the world either through a bundle of reflexes, sometimes called instincts, with which they were born, or through reflexes that have been conditioned or taught. Simply put, the lower creatures have no “i” consciousness and cannot entertain concepts of who they are or what their environment is, except as the latter relate to their basic drives – to eating and procreating – and they cannot envision a past, a present or a future.

By contrast, the Intelligence that coordinates the material functions in the human being imparts to him a sense of “self” and a “conscience” which is a point of linkage to God. The coordinating Intelligence of human beings is also referred to as the Soul.

The Fall

As to whether human beings will suffer disease decay and death or live an abundant and eternal life will depend on the character of that Soul. At creation, God embedded in man’s Soul all of His nature and man’s body was immune to disease, decay and death and was perfect, but when, yielding to temptation, man sought his own way and experienced the “Fall” it was as if a virus had been injected into the Soul resulting in his experiencing not an eternal and abundant life but a life characterised by disease decay and death.

Yielding to temptation resulted in the Fall! At the Fall, man’s God-given Soul was transformed into a Satan-driven Ego. Once Ego replaced the Soul, it (the Ego) has served as the vehicle through which Satan has worked his evil purposes on earth, not only in the lives of individuals but equally in the lives of churches and nations as well. Ego has been Satan’s chosen vehicle for perpetuating disease, decay and death, conflict, violence and war, throughout planet earth.

However, through the Christ’s Incarnation, His Death on the cross, His Resurrection, His Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the infected Soul was replaced by the Spirit of the Risen Christ, who “fills all things, (Eph. 1:23) and “is in all” (Col. 1:17) , and is “All in all”(1 Cor. 15:28) – and the effects of the Fall were reversed.

It is important to realise that reversing the effects of the Fall require that faith in the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Pentecost should work together in a synergistic way, and not be treated as separate items of spiritual truth. They are aspects of the one underlying truth about the one and only Omnipresent and Omnipotent God.

The organising intelligence in heaven

Jesus obliterated the satanic-infected Adamic Soul and replaced it with His own Spirit, which links the believer directly back to God, the Divine Intelligence in heaven, who ultimately coordinates not only the 15 systems that comprise our bodies, but also the 100 billion galaxies that comprise the universe! The Intelligence that coordinates and drives individuals is the microcosm of the Divine Intelligence who drives the whole universe. “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and “All that the Father has is mine” (John15:16).

Believers who place their faith in the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Pentecost, to rid them of the corrupted Soul, will inherit Christs’ own Spirit and will be “born again”, and through Him, inherit heaven.

“If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall restore life to your mortal bodies” (Rom. 8:11).

What this scripture is telling us is that the secret of transiting from mortality to immortality is the coming of the Spirit of the Risen Christ to indwell us. “For this corruptible body must put on incorruption, and this mortal body must put on immortality and the perishable will inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor.15:53).

When the Spirit of Christ comes to indwell us, and we are “born again”, as Jesus commanded Nicodemus, all the 15 systems referred to above, will begin to fall into sync again, as they did at the point of creation, rather like iron filings scattered randomly on a piece of paper rearrange themselves into a pattern when a magnet is held under the paper. The magnet held under the paper is the Spirit of the Risen Christ who has come to indwell us.

The reunified 15 systems will be restored to fellowship with God and it will be as if Jesus had picked up the “broken branch” and grafted it back onto the parent tree.

Perhaps the best way to explain how having an authentic encounter with the Spirit of the Risen Christ can reverse the experience of disease, decay and death, is to think of ourselves as a radio receiver that can work either on battery power or on the mains. Man is born working on battery power by default, but as he advances from childhood, through adolescence, to middle age he finds that the radio begins to crackle and fade. However, at any time during his life if he switches to mains power (i.e. has an authentic experience of the Spirit of the Risen Christ) he will find that the flow of power (LIFE) becomes constant, is unaffected by the passage of time and is eternal. That is the RESURRECTION that the Risen Christ is waiting to impart to those who plug into Him. That is the Prodigal Son returning home, to receive from the Father the fatted calf, the mantle of sonship, a ring on his finger and sandals for his feet.

The puppy dog’s tail

On the other hand, for the vast majority of us, the "reality" of disease, decay and death is so ingrained in our subconscious minds, handed down to us through untold generations and imbibed by us from the moment we were conceived, that nothing, not even the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, seem able to convince us to the contrary. In this respect our minds are like the puppy dog’s tail. For however long we may insert a puppy dog’s tail in a bamboo it will curl back immediately the bamboo is withdrawn.

Likewise, despite what Jesus has done for the human race through His Death and Resurrection, the moment we stop reading the Word of God or stop meditating or praying, our human mind curls back to the belief implanted by Satan, that death is inevitable.

Therefore, despite the Redemption affected through the Death and Resurrection, man’s subconscious mind, ingrained with belief in death continues to replicate disease, decay and death in his experience.

Although the whole thrust of the New Testament (NT) is the all-sufficiency of His Death and Resurrection to put an end to "death", many believers scour the NT to prove that death is inevitable. That is the devil still hard at work.

Therefore, disease, decay and death (entropy) will continue to work their deadly purpose amongst us until we finally REALISE the truth that Jesus really put away our corrupted Souls and that it is His eternal Spirit that now drives our lives: “It is no longer “i” that lives but the Christ” (Gal. 2:20), and the Risen Christ, who now lives in those who have experienced Him and who have overcome the world in Him, “will not taste the second death” (Rev. 2:11).

Strangely, in this regard, "Christians" are better followers of the Buddha than they are followers of Jesus! It was really the Buddha who preached the inevitability of disease, decay and death (he called it anicca, dhukka, anatta) and this doctrine is at the heart of Buddhism. The Buddha was right for his time, because up to the time he lived and preached, Jesus had not incarnated and no one had conquered death! So, he had no way of knowing that disease, decay and death can, and will be conquered someday, here on earth, now, rather than in Nirvana.

Jesus offers LIFE

However, 600 years after the Buddha had taught the inevitability of decay and death, God appeared in our midst as Jesus, preaching Salvation, Redemption and Life, and not disease, decay and death! He said," I AM the LIFE" - "I am come that you may have Life" – eternal Life, abundant Life, resurrected Life, overcoming Life, victorious Life! He preached Life, in all its glory, in all its beauty, in all its multi-faceted splendour, not merely in heaven, but here on earth, (as in heaven). “Behold I stand at the door and knock” (Rev.3:20).

 The Spirit of the Risen Christ is still waiting for His disciples to demonstrate His truth to the world, not by preaching, nor by winning "converts" but by witnessing to eternal life, through their own individual lives. Those who have placed their trust in the Crucified and Risen Christ have been hardwired by the Spirit for eternal and abundant life but it is up to them to believe in Him, to REALISE the truth, and show the world! That is what it means to bear witness to Him! That is what it means to testify to Him!

I hope that as we meditate on what the Lord has done in us and for us, we will be able truly to REALISE and appropriate His truth and not merely preach it. There is no lack of preaching in the world but very little demonstration. That was what He meant when He said that the harvest is ripe but the gatherers are few. He sowed the seeds of eternal life but there are none to bring in the harvest. Counting numbers of converts is not what he meant by bringing in the "harvest". Converts will come by the million when we start demonstrating the Truth in our own lives!

Meditate on what the Lord meant when He said, "Fear not, I have overcome the world" or "Whoever believes in me shall never die" or "If you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall never die" or "I make all things new" or "The enemy comes but to steal and kill, but I have come to give you Life".

Let our meditations course through all 15 systems of our bodies and let them penetrate all their constituent cells. The cells that comprise us are "intelligent" and they respond to the Divine Intelligence or Consciousness. It was Consciousness (GOD) that created reality. Speak the Word to the cells and the systems of our bodies and let us tell them that they are now directly connected to God’s life through the life of the Son, who has overcome the world.

After His Resurrection, Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father in order to "fill all things" and so that He may be "All in all". That means that now, He is in all the 100 trillion cells that comprise our bodies, in all the 646 muscles, in all the 360 joints, in all the 255 bones, in all the 78 organs and in the 5 litres of blood that circulate through our arteries every minute of the day.

These truths have a profound spiritual meaning.

Let us meditate on those spiritual meanings by day and by night. “Blessed is he who … meditates on His Word by day and by night. He shall be like a tree planted by a river”(Ps. 1:1- 41). Above everything, believe! “All things are possible to them that believe!” (Mark 9:23). Let us ask the Holy Spirit to unfold that Word and make it flesh in our experience.

There is only the Risen Lord! If the Risen Lord “fills all things”, “is in all”, and is “All in all” where is the space for the “Fallen Adam”, for the “ego”, for denominations and denominational churches? Through the combined might of the Death, the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Pentecost, every “born-again” believer is now the Risen Christ appearing “as”, and in His presence there can be none else.

“We are baptised by one Spirit into one Body” (1 Cor.12:13) “The Lord thy God is One, and there is none other” (Isa. 43:11).

There is only the Risen Lord, “in all” and “through all”, and He is All in all”. That Risen Lord is appearing through an infinity of perfect bodies such as yours! It was to serve as a vehicle for the Risen Lord, who is eternal and perfect, that your body was made.

Our bodies were made for eternal life and not for death!