“there shall be no more death” (Rev. 21:4, NKJV)
We concluded the previous teaching with the wondrous promise of 2 Cor. 5:4: “that mortality may be swallowed up by life”. And then we asked: Can this still happen in this life we’re living now?
There are believers who have a very strong belief that we will still be privy to a period in the future when people will no longer be sick, grow old or even die. Such a grouping, for instance SpiritWord, argue the following on their website: “Mortality which is the reason for death, mortality which means ‘liable to die,’ the possibility or probability to die is swallowed up by life. Therefore God gave us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that mortality will be swallowed up by life. It is written, ‘For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.’ Rom. 8:3. The life you have now in Christ Jesus attracts the Spirit. And by the law of the Spirit, the life of Christ in you has set you free from the power of sin and death. Anything that could lead to the death of your mortal body can be swallowed up by the life of Christ in you, through the Holy Spirit. Therefore your body should never be subject to sickness and diseases, or any other negative influences. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus elevates your body above mortality.”
(https://spiritworddevotional.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/mortality-swallowed-up-by-life/.) Is what these believers believe and proclaim true? Is there a prophetic promise that the dispensation in which man has been constrained ever since Adam, the dispensation of illness until death (John 11:4), will be alleviated, and that we will be able to triumphantly sing, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55). When the end of the first things starts to take place, when Rev. 21:4 becomes manifest: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
To answer this question it is necessary to first consider Rom. 8:2, as it pertinently points out the link between sickness and death on the one hand, and the unconquerable life WITHIN us on the other. This amazing Scripture reads as follows: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
The topic we’ve been delving into over the course of the last couple of teachings, the imperishable and unconquerable life, is founded on, according to this Scripture, a regulating law. Thus we would be able to extend Rom. 8:2: the law of the Spirit of the incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus.
The law of sin and death is best explained by Rom. 3:23, which spells out: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, with Rom. 6:23 that goes along with it: “For the wages of sin is death.”
This law of the Spirit of the incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus frees me from the law of sin and death that came into being with Adam’s fall in paradise, and is applicable to all people until today.
The next necessary question is then, since when is this law of the Spirit of the incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus in operation? Clearly it is in operation since Jesus, as “a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45) started living within people, and this does indeed occur when one becomes born-again. They are, according to 1 Pet. 1:23, “born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible [seed] through the [living LOGOS]-word of God which lives and abides forever …” Right after, in the following verse, Peter notes the consequences of the law of sin and death: “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away …” (verse 24), and then he juxtaposes this with the consequences of the law of the Spirit of the incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus: “But the [living] [RHEMA] word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the [RHEMA] word which by the gospel was preached to you” (verse 25).
We can now understand that the life in CHRIST Jesus is presupposed in this law, as the rhema identities contain this life.
Now – despite the fact that all believers have received this incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus when they became born again, they are still subjected to the law of sin and death. Rom. 8:10 maps out this state very clearly: “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Thus this very important conclusion: the law of sin and death still remains in my physical body, soul and spirit (= breath) after “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death”.
The term “set free” used here is very important. In Greek it is eleutheroō, which according to Strong means “to liberate, that is, (figuratively) to exempt … deliver, make free”. The one law does not REPLACE the other law! The law of life sets me free from the law of death. The incorruptible life sets me free from death, not the other way around. It is not doing away with death that allows me to live! Only eternal life can free you from eternal death. The death that operates within someone is not killed in order to let him live; you offer him incorruptible life in order to devour death. Because of the Christ-in-me the Adam-in-me is killed, but I remain alive! Despite the Christ-in-me I will however still fade like grass, and my metaphoric flower will fall away, as THAT DISPENSATION THAT IS LINKED TO THE OLD MAN AND THAT LIVES AND EXISTS IN FLESH, MUST COME TO AN END. Heb. 9:27 (NLV) still stands: “It is in the plan that all men die once.” The Amplified-translation frames it as such: “it is appointed for [all] men once to die”. This death occurs in all three facets of the natural man: when your breath/spirit is taken away, the soul and body also necessarily die. Or: as the body is necessarily subject to the demands of sin, illness and time in a broken world, it will culminate in death. Despite the fact that some Spirit-filled person has understood the knowledge of the truth of this incorruptible life, his intellect (part of his natural soul) will for instance be destroyed by Alzheimer’s, but his part in the corporate soul in Christ will still be part of the law of the spirit of the incorruptible and unconquerable life in Christ Jesus in his spiritual man! Selah!
Remember – because of the law of sin and death you and I have been living in the realm of the dead ever since we were born – we’ve just been calling it the world, even though death reigns within it (Rom. 5:17). [Read the teachings of Day 1304-1307 again.] Once we are born again we still live in this physical realm, but our born-again spiritual man lives in another realm where life reigns.
- Selah: Explain these two laws to someone.
- Read: 3-5 & Ezek. 1-3
- Memorise: 3:23
