Understanding Our True Condition Apart from Christ
One reason “life” does not make sense to us is because we fail to understand our true condition. We speak of being “alive” at this present moment and those who have passed away as “dead”. This would be the proper and true perspective if this was all there is and the only reality. However, as every person knows in their heart, there is more to life than just this physical reality. This is affirmed in Ecclesiastes:
“…He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV
Since we know there is more to reality than just our physical life, we understand that the greater, more permanent reality exists outside this current life we are experiencing at this moment. Physical death proves our existence in this current reality is temporary. Therefore a proper question is what is the nature of our current reality and of the reality outside of this physical dimension in which we currently “live”.
We know the nature of life in this world
- war
- famine
- disease
And what of ourselves? What is our experience in this world? Each person knows there is right and wrong, a moral law, but we want to deny this reality because though we know what we should do, we act contrary to this knowledge. Paul wrote of this experience:
21 So I find this law at work: Although 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 me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
Romans 7:21-23 NIV
Even the word mortal speaks of death since mortal originally meant “death doomed”.
If we look at our experience and knowledge of the world, it looks a lot more like death than life. Perhaps we need to reevaluate our underlying assumptions (or presuppositions) about life and this world.
A “living death”
Could it be that the reason this “life” is so hard is because in reality it is death, not life? Would not this better explain the reality we confront on a daily basis?
When God told Adam and Eve what the consequences of eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was death, the literal meaning of what His said was “in dying you shall die”.
Are we actually “living” in death? Jesus made an interesting statement when one is born again:
24 “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
John 5:24
The apostle John affirms the same fact:
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
1 John 3:14 NIV
Other statements about our condition be for the new birth.
- You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
- Cut off from life of God.