What Would You Give To Be Immortal?

...God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:15-16 NIV

Just recently, I was in a devotional and heard the comment made that we were going to live forever and so we needed to be with God. The basis for this plea comes from the belief we possess an immortal soul which will either spend all of eternity with God in heaven or spend all of eternity without God being tormented in hell.

There are still a few people I know who are surprised to discover I am not party to the belief of the wicked spending all eternity being tortured. In fact, I would guess the majority of those I am around believe differently than myself. In my reasoning, I have little problem with those having this belief but I think there may be a problem with not wanting to examine what the bible says on this topic.

I come from a heritage where many are still fighting the bondage caused by simply agreeing with the belief system formulated and held coming out of the reformation. We have had those in the past who, without thinking for themselves would turn to a commentary in order to form their belief and the commentary turned to for the "proper" belief had to come from one of the primary leaders in the Church of Christ heritage so the "correct" information would be learned.

When I started questioning some of the concepts I have been taught in my youth growing up in the churches of Christ, the idea concerning the wicked not being tortured for all of eternity was foreign to me and I was sure I would find no person within my own faith heritage believing such nonsense. Oddly, the curiosity following my thoughts led me to discover this topic is far from being decided within our own group and there are many on each side of the subject.

I mentioned earlier how I did not have a problem with someone believing differently from me and yet, I think there may be a problem with not wanting to examine the issue. I am not sure reformation is a process ever meant to cease and yet the attitude towards learning is often one of having arrived. In other words, I know about God and I know what the bible says and so there is nothing new I can learn seems to be a dangerous mentality. As I read, discuss and consider various topics, I find the eternal nature of God and all He has given to be exciting and I wonder what happens to us when the excitement of learning comes to an end.

I told my preacher this morning how I appreciated him because he stimulated my mind to think on God and all He has done for His creation. I would hope all of us would desire to stimulate the thinking of others toward God and I hope we all believe God is thrilled when we find success in this area.

As I consider the verse above, I am amazed, first of all, how anyone can consider themselves to possess immortality. The passage seems to read how only God is immortal. In fact, I think most of us have grown up wishing to have immortality or supernatural power. We find in the first temptation of Adam and Eve the lie of them being like God if they eat of the fruit.

We learn in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." When discussing the topic of our end being one of eternity with God or eternity being tortured, I like to turn this verse around and remind people they are saying the wages of sin is eternal life. I find it very comforting to know the hope we have for eternity is that we will receive eternal life. We will receive immortality! The wicked get no eternal life but they get DEATH!

I don't have all of the answers and I promise I will never get to the point where I have any more than a belief or opinion based upon where I am in my path to eternity right now. There are two passages in the bible giving me some trouble with this concept but most have only read far enough to come back with one challenge to this idea of the wicked being destroyed in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Yes, even with my understanding of this passage, I still have some problem with the wording (I would also like to know what was going through the minds of those making translation which causes me problem).

Without going into great detail, I'll mention some of the teachings from the parable in Luke 16. Yes, I believe it to be a parable or teaching tool used by Christ and not a true story depicting torture for all of eternity. This passage teaches 1. a judgment of the wicked and righteous prior to the final judgment (two judgments instead of one. 2. angels carried the righteous to Abraham's side and the wicked are buried (no burial for the righteous). 3. we are taught that communication will existed between the righteous and wicked. 4. we are taught that Abraham is in control (not God). 5. we are taught that the judgment is based upon whether we have good things now or bad things now (no love or grace from God and not even merit earned salvation or loss. and 6. we are taught that the wicked and righteous continue to live in the presence of each other for all eternity.

I didn't refer back to the various writers I have read on this topic, but in my current reasoning, I find it hard to accept eternal torment of the wicked from this passage and not accept all of the other teachings and yet I think I would be eternally barred from speaking in class if I claimed all of the teachings in this text to be the word of God.

I hope to get the chance to open this topic up for study in an adult class some time soon but first we have to get past the tradition of our heritage to only repeat from what has happened before. Our tradition is one of being reminded of that we know and not one of being challenged to learn something new!

After all, if you bring a "new" message you must be an apostate because there is nothing new for me to learn.

Hopefully one of the topics to be written about in the near future will have something to do with our knowledge that instrumental music was added to our worship some time between 300 and 500 AD. I didn't look up those dates from our official church doctrine writings and so the date range is used. I was surprised this past week or so to discover congregational singing was added to the church at the time of Martin Luther! Now you also know that instruments have been with us for over 1500 years and congregational singing has only been with us a mere 500 years!