Life in the Son (1 John 5:10-13)

Introduction

1. Turn in your Bible with me to 1 John, chapter 5.

2. Introduce my good friends

3. What do they have in common?

   • Cute - beautiful, fuzzy. Who doesn't like rabbits?
   • Rabbits - popular this time of year
   • Rabbit "flying" over our city of Stanwood

4. Why all these rabbits at Easter?

1. Spring: celebration of new life: flowers and newborn animals

2. Rightly celebrate and rejoice in newness of life

3. Reproductive blessings upon Israel

   “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-5)

4. If life in creation is wonderful, how much more Wonderful is the Life-Giver behind what we see!¹

Life is in God's Son (1 John 5:10b-13)

. . . he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.²

• God has given
• life is in His Son
• those who don't have the Son do not have life
• belief: the one requirement to obtain eternal life

The importance of eternal life in Jesus: underscored by a consideration of the stark reality of death.

• A subject which is repressed by our society
• Inexorable advance of infirmity
• Physical suffering
• Loss of loved ones (mother's health spiral)

1. The vanity of fame: the search for eternal significance in the face of death, the great equalizer.

   “Those who trust in their wealth And boast in the multitude of their riches, None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him-For the redemption of their souls is costly, . . . For he sees wise men die; Likewise the fool and the senseless person perish, And leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, Their dwelling places to all generations; They call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man, though in honor, does not remain; He is like the beasts that perish. . . . Like sheep they are laid in the grave; Death shall feed on them; . . . their beauty shall be consumed in the grave, far from their dwelling.” (Ps. 49:6-14)

2. Unpredictability

   “I returned and saw under the sun that—The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12)

3. Such a short time, then we are gone

   “Man who is born of woman Is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue.” (Job 14:1-2)

Man's response to death

1. The built-in desire for continued significance

   • What if there nothing more beyond the grave?
   • Growth in wisdom and knowledge that leads to a dead end
   • Ultimately, then, life would have no real goal, no purpose, no telos.
   • Life becomes some form of cruel joke.
   • The light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be the headlights of an approaching train.
   • No wonder the materialistic worldview yields the twin fruits of despair and suicide.

2. Attempts to redefine death, our great enemy, as a benefactor: "making the best of a bad situation"

   • Zen Buddhism: death is part of the circle of life, not to be feared
   • “As the serpent biting its tail, all is an endless loop of birth and death, creation and re-creation. Every scientist takes as a fundamental premise that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but merely transformed from one thing to another. Every mystic also knows this as a fundamental truth. And when it is known beyond words — beyond theory and beyond philosophy, in our hearts — then there is no fear of death because death is seen as just a change from one form of energy to another, death does not kill our self because our self does not fundamentally exist in the first place.”³
   • This detachment of mind and experience from the true harshness of death represents a denial of reality and embraces that which the Bible defines to be a curse.
   • Reincarnation, incremental refinement toward nirvana.
   • “Re-incarnate” means “to enter the flesh again”
   • After death, living again as a different person or animal
   • Position in the next life often determined by merits or demerits in the present life
   • The ultimate 'second chance' or 'death is not the end' philosophy
   • Scripture: “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)
   • Death as a positive agent
   • Contributing to natural selection
   • Driving evolution, especially the supposed “evolution of man”" to ever higher forms
   • A morbid benefactor in the process which is imaged to achieve the "ascent of man"
   • A desirable process by which the infirm and unfit are culled from society leaving the healthy ones unsaddled by the cost of carrying their burden.
   • Common theme
   • Such attempts to reinterpret death share several things:
   1. A denial of death as an unnatural situation—something which did not mar the original creation (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:12-15)
   2. A denial that man's rebellion against his Creator brought about the curse of death (Gen. 3:19)

The search for immortality

1. Eternal life apart from God?

   • The contrary faith of the humanist world-view⁴
   • Life arose, by chance, from non-life
   • Life, by chance, mutation, or self-organization eventually developed the means of replication: sexual reproduction
   • While we celebrate the resurrection and our life-giving God, the humanist and atheist views the amazing proliferation of life before us and attributes it to an inevitable accident which was certain given enough time and enough galaxies.
   • Involves faith: belief in that which cannot be seen or demonstrated

     All world-views have adopted certain "first principles" that cannot be proved scientifically. A naturalistic scientist cannot prove his first principles, for no scientist has ever seen life coming from nonliving matter. Life comes from living things. This fits well with the Christian set of first principles. Christians believe that life, namely, the living God, is the source of all life.⁵

   • The fruit of godless faith: seeking eternal life man's way rather than God's way
   • WARNING: dark topics ahead, in his rejection of God man is given up to depravity

2. Traffic in human organs.

1. Rich in first-world countries purchasing live organs from poor donors in third-world countries

2. Organs "harvested" from criminals and political dissidents (China)

3. Body parts and materials from the unborn

1. Not just tissue

   “. . . alongside the promise of fetal-tissue research there are uncomfortable realities. As recent ghoulish news reports have revealed, medical researchers at universities in British Columbia, Nebraska, Colorado and likely other institutions do not simply order “fetal tissue” from providers—they order leg bones, livers, spleens, whole eyes and other organs. And despite admonishment from the Canadian Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies and a U.S. congressional prohibition against a money-making marketplace for fetal tissue, there are clear indications that just such a marketplace has developed; human fetal parts are being sold for a profit. “In a civilized society there are things that should not be for sale,” Andrew Kimbrell, author of The Human Body Shop, said recently. “But right now we are in an ethical free fall.””⁶

2. Organs need to be developed

   “From an ethical perspective, even for those who do not recognize an individual human life as beginning at conception, the fetal transplant issue draws attention to certain scientific facts about early fetal development that should be more than a little unsettling. Most abortions take place in the latter part of the first trimester of pregnancy, from eight to 12 weeks. This is exactly the stage at which fetal brains are removed for potential transplant. Far from being an undifferentiated “blob” of tissue, the first trimester fetus not only has a brain but has also developed a fantastic level of specialization.”⁷

3. The compounding nature of sin

   “. . . a California woman called a medical ethics expert to ask whether she could be artificially inseminated with sperm from her father, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The woman wanted to abort the resulting fetus so that the brain tissue could be transplant into her father's brain.”⁹

4. Recent proposal for after-birth abortions.

   • Journal of medical ethics: “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”
   • Authored by two university professors¹⁰
   • “Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”¹¹
   • Rational logic: if children aren't "persons" prior to birth, what magical thing happens which makes them so the moment they exit the womb?
   • Nothing - after-birth abortion is as inevitable as night follows day.
   • The real problem: pre-birth abortion is logically flawed!
   • "Regular" abortion proponents can't bear to see their flawed logic now exposed by the after-birth proponents
   • Rational logic: why let these useful organs go to waste?
   • The motivation: curing illness, especially for patients with end-of-life issues (e.g., Parkinson's)

3. Cloning to produce needed organs

   • Generate an organ or tissue that is an exact match for the recipient: no risk of tissue rejection
   • The “promise” of cloning embryos for organs: “Scientists hope that one day therapeutic cloning can be used to generate tissues and organs for transplants. . . . If organs could be generated from cloned human embryos, the need for organ donation could be significantly reduced. Many challenges must be overcome before "cloned organ" transplants become reality. More effective technologies for creating human embryos, harvesting stem cells, and producing organs from stem cells would have to be developed.”¹²

4. Cryogenics - the production of very low temperatures (below -238F) and the study of materials at those temperatures.

1. Cryonics Institute

   • Services: “The Cryonics Institute offers cryopreservation services and information. As soon as possible after legal death, a member patient is infused with a substance to prevent ice formation, cooled to a temperature where physical decay essentially stops, and is then maintained indefinitely in cryostasis (that is, stored in liquid nitrogen). When and if future medical technology allows, our member patients hope to be healed, rejuvenated, revived, and awakened to a greatly extended life in youthful good health, free from disease or the aging process. With enough progress of medicine and molecular repair capability, cryonicists believe that all diseases should eventually be curable, including aging. Cryonicists also believe that medicine in the future should be able to restore and maintain people in a condition of youth and health. Cryonics could be a lifeboat (or "first aid") to future medicine. Over 100 patients are currently in storage at CI. Unlike other cryonics organizations, which cryopreserve human heads, the Cryonics Institute only allows its Members to arrange for whole body cryopreservation.”
   • Death or deanimation? On March 7, 2012, “The 109th patient of the Cryonics Institute [was] deanimated in Glasgow, Scotland.”

2. Alcor Life Extension Foundation

   • “The spiritual status of cryonics patients is the same as frozen human embryos, or unconscious medical patients.”
   • Notice the repeated deflection of ethical questions by referencing existing practice with embryos.
   • “Neuropatients”, brains in containers: “Following vitrification, neuropatients are placed in individual aluminum containers. Containers are finally immersed in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196°C for long-term care.”
   • Death is merely a shortcoming of our existing technology: “Calling someone "dead" is merely medicine's way of excusing itself from resuscitation problems it cannot fix today. This makes people feel better about abandoning the patient and making the unwarranted assumption that nobody could ever fix the problem. Cryonics, in contrast, is conservative care that acknowledges that the real line between life and death is unclear and not currently known.”

5. Transhumanism (H+ - "Humanism Plus")

   • “Transhumanism, abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Transhumanist thinkers . . . predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".”
   • A technological extension of Humanism to the next God-rejecting stage
   • “Transhumanism can be viewed as an extension of humanism, from which it is partially derived. Humanists believe that . . . we can make things better by promoting rational thinking, freedom, tolerance, democracy, and concern for our fellow human beings. Transhumanists agree with this but also emphasize what we have the potential to become. . . . we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods, such as education and cultural development. We can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as “human”.”
   • Terminology is very disturbing
   • What is a "transhuman"? “In its contemporary usage, “transhuman” refers to an intermediary form between the human and the posthuman.”
   • What is a "posthuman"? “Many transhumanists wish to follow life paths which would, sooner or later, require growing into posthuman persons: they yearn to reach intellectual heights as far above any current human genius as humans are above other primates; to be resistant to disease and impervious to aging; to have unlimited youth and vigor; to exercise control over their own desires, moods, and mental states; to be able to avoid feeling tired, hateful, or irritated about petty things; to have an increased capacity for pleasure, love, artistic appreciation, and serenity; to experience novel states of consciousness that current human brains cannot access. It seems likely that the simple fact of living an indefinitely long, healthy, active life would take anyone to posthumanity if they went on accumulating memories, skills, and intelligence.”
   • Non-biological life form: “I remember clearly the moment it hit me –“ during a break at the Summit looking out the hotel window –“ realizing the seeming inevitability of the human race being superseded, and life continuing on a non-biological substrate.”

1. Common theme: the independent attempt to obtain that which only God can give spawns incredibly dark and perverse sin!

   • Not only do we fail to attain what God freely offers
   • The rejection of His provision seals our doom as proactive purveyors of perversion within creation
   • “. . . he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.” (1 John 5:10)

Jesus: the only Source of life

1. The Father has life, so does the Son

   “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” (John 5:24-26)

2. Jesus as source of Creation, all living

   “ He [Jesus, the Word] was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:2-4)

3. The Prince of Life

   “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” (Acts 3:13)

4. Only Jesus has the keys of Hades and Death

   “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Rev. 1:18)

5. I AM the bread of life (John 6:33,35,48,51)

6. I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

7. Jesus, the God-Man, is the gatekeeper to eternal life

   • An ambiguous faith in "God made in your image" is insufficient: Jesus is the gatekeeper, the One Who raises the dead to eternal life.
   • “Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."” (John 17:1)
   • Chain of life-giving: Father —> Son —> those who believe
   • Disbelief - disconnected from the Prince of Life
   • Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Eternal existence is not the issue!

• All people ever born will continue to exist eternally
• The issue is not eternal existence, but eternal separation from God
• There is an eternal death more fearful than physical death which the Bible refers to as the “second death”¹³, eternal separation from God¹⁴
• Described as:
• “everlasting destruction from the presence of the LORD and from the glory of His power” (1Th. 1:9)
• “everlasting punishment” (Mat. 25:41)
• “everlasting fire” (Mat. 25:46)
• “shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2)
• a place where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mar. 9:44,46,48)
• a place where those who reject Christ will be “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10)
• D. Martyn Lloyd Jones: “Our education may teach us that Hell does not exist, but death is a surer and sterner master. How much will our degrees and diplomas avail us then? My friends, do let us return to the stern realities of life before it is to late.”¹⁵

Eternal life - God's way

• “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11-12)
• If you love newness of life
• If you seek eternal purpose and significance
• If you desire to glorify God
• Accept the free gift of eternal life on His terms: by placing your trust in Jesus Who is risen from the dead!