Booleans and shades of grey
How to be immortal, and why fearing death is stupid
I sincerely believe that I have died—and that I will never die again (if you want to rid your screen of nonsense like this, press alt+F4). In other words, I believe I’m alive and most people are dead.
The odd thing is that I still succumb to the ways of death. I still forget what it is to live and act like I’m not dead. And among the many few I know who also live, I see equally forgetful habits, equal reluctance to relinquish the meaningless cravings of the dead.
Some of you reading this probably know where I’m coming from, but I’ll back up: to become a follower of Jesus, in one sense, is a binary event. You go from a dead slave to a free prince(ss).
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
— John 8:31-371
From dead and enslaved to free and an heir of the greatest promise ever given. It’d be hard to get confused which category someone was in if they were one or other, wouldn’t it? There’s not a lot of grey area. It’s the difference between a 0 and a 1; no matter what factors you apply to 0, you never get to 1. To become a free child of God takes more a change of clothes—wait, no, that’s exactly what it takes.
But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
— Galatians 3:22-292
All who are baptized—in other words, who have died, been buried, and resurrected—are clothed with the cornerstone, with heaven.3 You’re clothed with the heavenly dwelling or not. Free or a slave. A conduit of the river of life4 or a gangrenous extension of the blind masses. Dead in failure or alive in Christ. No shades of grey. We’re like Paul in Romans:
…just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
…For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 5-6
Or again like Paul in Romans 8:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death…
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
…you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8
He draws a pretty fine line, doesn’t he? Except I skipped an entire chapter, and if we only eat the bread in this Paul-sandwich and skip the meat we’re wasting our time.5
In a way, we have to scrap everything I’ve said so far. To be alive or dead isn’t binary at all, it’s a blurred gradient.
now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin… For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! …For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand… Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
— Romans 7
Pretty depressing, and familiar! When I want to do right, evil lies close at hand… Sometimes even when I try to do right, I still do wrong. It is said the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I agree. But don’t forget where Paul ends this treatise on life and death: if you have died in the way that matters, you are alive in the realm of the Spirit.
In this lifetime, our flesh gets in the way—but not in a Gnostic sense, because our flesh is actually redeemed or is at least in the process. It’s a paradox that can only be resolved by embracing it: we died and will never die again, and we have never died and still need to die to be brought back to life.
It can be partially resolved systematically although I’m skeptical of such methods. Put simply: our souls have died in baptism, but our bodies have yet to be buried. Biblically, we are our souls and our bodies, so it makes sense that this already-but-not-yet existence in the liminal kingdom of God puts us in an uncomfortable position.
I have faith in a physical existence of the kingdom of God. But I’m no stranger to the reality that a grain of wheat must fall to the earth and die to become something complete.6 The perishable sack of dust that is my body must die to become immortal.7
Is there anything more stupid than the fear of death?8
The more our society “progresses,” the more terrified of death it becomes. Almost every way in which we even measure “progress” is quantified in terms of delaying the moment our heart stops for good. How ironic, then, that our world is so full of people already the walking dead, incapable of anything resembling life in their thoughts or words or deeds.
I once heard of a rural region in some South American country known for exceptionally long lifespans and that people in wealthier countries were attempting to move there for retirement for that reason specifically. Even heard of a couple Christians doing it—I can’t think of a single act more asinine or idiotic.
If this world can defeat you, you’re already dead. In the words of the priest in Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, “Stones themselves are made of air. What they have power to crush never lived.”
I am content to believe that part of me has died and part of me has to continue wading through the paradox of life on earth. I’m not afraid of its inevitable ending.
You know what I’m afraid of? Lapsing back into death, into zero-ness, into unbelief. I have seen it preached by liars and wolves in sheep’s clothing. The people that preach earthly freedom the most zealously are the most enslaved:
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you… And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
…These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
— 2 Peter 2
I’ll stick to life. I’ll stick to faith with deeds, no matter how entangled in Romans 7-esque internal strife and sin I become. I’ll try to imitate Paul as he imitated Christ and make my body my slave, putting it to death every day and shouting9
“Where, O death, is thy victory?
Where, O death, is thy sting?”
Biblical quotations are in ESV unless otherwise noted.
NIV, emphasis added.
Cf. 2 Cor 5:1-3.
John 7:37-38.
If you wanna make the best use of your time, just read all the bits of Bible passages excluded to make this post shorter and skip all of my commentary.
John 12:23-26.
1 Cor 15.
Cf. Matt 10:28, Luke 12:4-5.
Cf. 1 Cor 11:1, 9:27, 15:31, 15:55.
This one is important. A key sermon.
"It’s a paradox that can only be resolved by embracing it: we died and will never die again, and we have never died and still need to die to be brought back to life."
Also I finally got the McCarthy quote.