Why did God condemn us to death?  A question that any thinking person is going to ask, likely way more than once in the course of their life.  And there is a straightforward answer.  Life is a gift.  Even we mortals recognize the right of a donor to put conditions on a gift.  God’s condition was adherence to one easily understood restriction.  If that condition was not met, the gift would be withdrawn.  In God’s case, this had the force of law, labeled later “the law of sin and death”.  God is entirely just in making, and enforcing, the law.

We know what happened:  law broken, death sentence pronounced.  But now comes the next question:  Why wasn’t the sentence immediately carried out?  There is also a straightforward answer to this one.  “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”  (2 Peter 3:9)  There could have been a lightening bolt, but instead there was an interview.  God asked the man and the woman what happened, and they told Him honestly how they had failed. They confessed.

And so before sentence was even given, a promise was given: a seed would defeat the snake and its offspring.  Then the sentence, which did include death, but not instantly.  There would be a grace period.  (A common phrase, but here very literally a period in which grace operated.)  Hope was provided, that sin and death would be conquered.

And now the next question arises.  Why the torment of a lifetime of painful toil, of frustration, sickness, grief, degradation and pain in mind and body until something finally comes along to kill us?  Some of us die a lot sooner than others, some have a lot more pain than others.

I think that to answer this question, we have to be willing to be honest with ourselves about our nature.  Everyone has heard of “human nature” and no one thinks it’s good.  It is human nature to deny or evade responsibility.  It’s human nature to be self centered.  It’s human nature to ignore the long term for the sake of short term benefit or pleasure.  Etc.  Not news.  As a direct result, we act like we think we’ll live forever, even though we know better.

What can a God of grace do to help us not be so foolish?  He can provide reminders of our weakness, our mortality.  And he has.  It’s all there in the sentence.  Pain, frustration, eventually death—at an unknown time.  These things are around us, and in our own lives.  Some expected, some unexpected (which tend to get our immediate attention.)  These things are messages:  “Wake up!  You are alive by grace.  Don’t blow it!”

It is very, VERY hard for us to take the reminders of mortality as valued gifts.  But they are there because the Giver is not interested in us perishing, and very interested in our coming around to believing, repenting, entering into eternal life.  So interested He gave His only Son to beat the snake.  So interested He will not let us forget the precarious position we’re in.

OK, we’ve all been down this train of thought before, some of us many times.  I’m reminded of it because today I’m legally/officially a year older than I was yesterday…even though really I’m just a day older than I was yesterday.  It’s an artificial marker that nevertheless makes me think.  The more of these markers we accumulate, the more we also accumulate mental and physical lapses, weaknesses, pains, incapacities.  All of them things that are supposed to be reminders to make me think, wake me up.  Gifts, and I ought not to consider them unwelcome.  Because the stakes could not possibly be higher.

“Toil, frustration, pain and sickness, and then you die.”  Sounds awful.  But actually, what a gift that it isn’t just “You die”!  Because that period of grace means the ending can change.  It can be “All that trouble, then you die, then you rise to eternal life.”  Up to each of us, and what we do with the “all the trouble” phase.

Love, Paul

If you have any feedback, please contact me at: paul.zilmer@gmail.com