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God Cannot Die! There are so many wrong ideas about God, it is hard to know where
to begin. However, the title of this website article: "God Cannot Die!" is a good
place to start. In fact, it is the basis for an introduction to primitive Christianity.
Jesus once said to a woman who was not a Jew:
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because
salvation originates with the Jews. (John 4:22)
Himself a Jew, Jesus knew that the Jewish understanding of God was the
correct one. So, what, exactly, did the Jews who lived at the time of Jesus believe about
God? Really, what did Jesus believe about God? Finding the answer to this question
will help us to "worship what we know" as Jesus did and this
information can only be found in the Bible.
We can begin with a simple statement made by the prophet Habakkuk over 600 years before
Jesus lived on earth.
Are you not from long ago, O Jehovah? O my God, my Holy One, you do
not die. (Habakkuk 1:12)
This means that the God of the Jews existed before all times, He has
always existed and will always exist. He never dies!
Other Scriptures that Jesus and the Jews believed about this basic understanding about God
can be found in the following verses:
Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel from time indefinite to time
indefinite. (1 Chronicles 16:36)
Blessed may you be, O Jehovah the God of Israel our father, from time indefinite even
to time indefinite. (1 Chronicles 29:10)
Rise, bless Jehovah your God from time indefinite to time indefinite. (Nehemiah
9:5)
Remember your mercies, O Jehovah, and your loving-kindnesses, for they are from time
indefinite. (Psalm 25:6)
Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel from time indefinite even to time indefinite.
Amen and Amen. (Psalm 41:13)
Before the mountains themselves were born, or you proceeded to bring forth as with
labor pains the earth and the productive land, even from time indefinite to time
indefinite you are God. (Psalm 90:2)
Your throne is firmly established from long ago; You are from time indefinite.
(Psalm 93:2)
But the loving-kindness of Jehovah is from time indefinite even to time indefinite.
(Psalm 103:17)
Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel From time indefinite even to time indefinite.
(Psalm 106:48)
Let the name of God become blessed from time indefinite even to time indefinite, for
wisdom and mightiness—for they belong to him. (Daniel 2:20)
When the Bible states that God is "from time indefinite even
to time indefinite" it is really saying that God has forever existed in the
past, He always exists in the present, and He will always exist in the future. Again, the
basic thought about God is that He never dies!
This is very important to understand. Why is this? Because the apostle Paul, guided by
God's holy spirit tells us:
Moreover, without faith it is impossible to please Him well, for he
that approaches God must believe that he is and that he becomes the rewarder of those
earnestly seeking him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Exactly who is this God that we must believe "is", that is to
say that He exists, has always existed and will always exist?
When we find out something about a person and we want to know who that person is, What do
we ask for? Is it not true that we ask for that person's name? This brings us to
the basic wrong idea that most people have about God. Most people who worship God have
given him the wrong name. If we want to "worship what we know" as Jesus
and the Jews did, we must give God the right name. Let us examine the
following Scriptures to see what they are teaching us:
That with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:6)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of tender mercies
and the God of all comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in union with Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of
wisdom and of revelation in the accurate knowledge of him. (Ephesians 1:17)
We thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ always when we pray for you. (Colossians
1:3)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for according to his great
mercy he gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)
In each of the Scriptures you have just finished reading speaks, not of
Jesus, but instead, of the God of Jesus. Remember that Jesus told the
non-Jewish woman: "We worship what we know". Therefore, Jesus
worships the same God that we are supposed to worship. There is no place in the
Bible that shows that Jesus worshiped himself.
The wrong idea that most people have about God is that his name is
Jesus. Jesus is not the God of the Jews and he is not the God we are told we
should worship. Instead we are told to worship the God of Jesus. Who, then
is "the God of the Jews" (Romans 3:29), "the God of Israel"
(Luke 1:68), and "the God of our Lord Jesus" (Ephesians 1:17)? The name
of this God is very important, for Jesus taught us to pray:
Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.
(Matthew 6:9)
The first and most important thing we should all pray for is for God's name
to be made holy. That name was made holy in the Bible some seven thousand
times. So important is that name that, if your Bible does not use it you should seriously
consider changing to a Bible that does. Open your Bible to the very first book called
Genesis, chapter 2 and verse 4. Does it read as follows?
This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their
being created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.
It should say "that Jehovah God made earth and heaven."
Jehovah is the English translation for the name of God, which is the letters Y
or J, H, W or V, H
(YHWH or JHVH) in the Hebrew language of old. Some modern Bibles have
translated this name as Yehoweh, also a good translation, but Jehovah is the most
common translation in English and so it is the form we will use throughout this book.
For a Bible to translate the name of God as Lord or God is simply wrong. It would
not be sanctifying that name which Jesus told us to do as the first and most important
thing to pray for, would it? Just using the title of Lord for God confuses people into
thinking that the Lord Jesus is God.
So, if you go to a congregation that uses a Bible that does not
sanctify
God's name, you should ask your religious leader why and maybe even show him this book.
See if he respects God's name or if he wrongly believes that God's name is Jesus and that
maybe is the real reason he avoids using the correct name of God.
God's name Jehovah has special meaning. It means that God exists and
becomes what He needs to become so as to finish what he has promised. Is that not a
wonderful name? Again we understand from this that God cannot die!
But Jehovah is in truth God. He is the living God and the King
to time indefinite. (Jeremiah 10:10)
Jehovah, "the living God", is spoken of many times
in the Bible.
May you have undeserved kindness and peace from “The One who
is and who was and who is coming,” and from the seven spirits that are before his
throne, and from Jesus Christ, “the Faithful Witness,” “The firstborn from
the dead,” and “The Ruler of the kings of the earth.” (Revelation
1:4-5)
"The God of our Lord Jesus" is spoken of as being
the "the One who is and who was and who is coming" because He has
always existed and will always exist. However, Jesus Christ is mentioned as the one who is
"the firstborn from the dead."
What does it mean that Jesus was "the firstborn from the dead"?
No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in
the bosom position with the Father is the one that has explained him. (John 1:18)
The mission Jesus had was to "explain God" which he did and
which is recorded for us the Bible. The enemies of God did not like the way that Jesus
explained God, so they killed him. The Scriptures tell us the following about "the
first things", yes, the very basic things about primitive Christianity:
For I handed on to you, among the first things, that which I also
received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was
buried, yes, that he has been raised up the third day according to the Scriptures. (1
Corinthians 15:3-4)
Remember, the basis of understanding "the God of our Lord
Jesus" is that He cannot die; yet, Jesus did die and was
dead for three days before "the God of our Lord Jesus" raised
him up. Therefore, Jesus cannot be God.
What makes the death and resurrection of Jesus so outstanding is that the Bible says he is
"the firstborn from the dead". That means that no one before him
was resurrected like he was; he was the very first.
This brings us to another wrong idea about God and the way he created us. Most people
believe that God made us humans in a way that we, like God, never die. They say we have
something that continues living after death, called a spirit or a soul. If this were true,
then the death and resurrection of Jesus would not have been all that special, would it?
The Bible tells us this fact about Jesus after his resurrection.
The one alone having immortality, who dwells in unapproachable
light, whom not one of men has seen or can see. (1 Timothy 6:16)
"The God of our Lord Jesus" gave immortality to
Jesus, something he did not have before coming to earth, and he was the first to have ever
received it. That is why at the time Paul wrote to Timothy he said that Jesus was "the
one alone having immortality" who was then and still is now the
one "who dwells in unapproachable light, whom not one of men has seen or can see."
What does this tell us about Jesus?
For the death that he died, he died with reference to sin once for
all time; but the life that he lives, he lives with reference to God. (Romans 6:10)
He entered, no, not with the blood of goats and of young bulls, but with his own
blood, once for all time into the holy place and obtained an everlasting deliverance for
us. (Hebrews 9:12)
We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all
time. (Hebrews 10:10)
Why, even Christ died once for all time concerning sins, a righteous person for
unrighteous ones, that he might lead you to God, he being put to death in the flesh, but
being made alive in the spirit. (1 Peter 3:18)
God, who does not die, sent His Son to die. His body, his flesh, was
sacrificed as a ransom in exchange for our salvation from death. At his last supper Jesus
instructed:
Also, he took a loaf, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them,
saying: “This means my body which is to be given in you behalf. Keep doing this in
remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19)
Jesus said: "My body is to be given in your behalf"
and that means the body that died was not the same body that was resurrected. 1
Peter 3:18 says that Jesus was "put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
spirit."
Jesus' flesh body was given in sacrifice and "the God of our Lord Jesus" removed
it before it saw corruption as foretold in the Scriptures at Acts 13:35, Psalms 16:10 and
Act 2:31.
After Jesus' resurrection, his immortal spirit-body could appear and
disappear and take on forms like the one he had before, with holes in his hands and feet
(John 20:24-29), or as a gardener (John 20:15) or a stranger walking on the road (Luke
24:15-31).
Understanding who God is and who Jesus is helps us to understand that we humans are not
immortal like them. When someone tries to teach you that you are immortal, that you have an
immortal soul or spirit, you should ask him to show you in the Bible where such a teaching
is found. There is, in fact, no place in the Bible that gives us that idea. That
idea did not came from the Jews and remember that Jesus said that "salvation
originates with the Jews."
The Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says:
“The Bible does not state a doctrine of the immortality of the
soul, nor does this clearly emerge in early Jewish rabbinical literature. . . .
Eventually the belief that some part of the human personality is eternal and
indestructible became part of the rabbinical creed and was almost universally accepted in later
Judaism.”
Neither Jesus nor the Jews living at that time believed humans had
immortal souls; that belief came many years later. The thought of people possessing
an immortal soul or spirit is neither an original Jewish nor Christian belief.
Some preacher may show you a Scripture such as Matthew 10:28 and say to
you that it teaches that the soul never dies, but you should ask him to read the whole
verse from beginning to end. It actually teaches that God destroys the soul at death! This
shows us that it is important to allow the Bible to explain itself and not let those with
wrong ideas about God explain it for us.
The Bible tells us what death is and it is not hard to understand. Understanding what
death is helps us to understand God and why the teaching of the resurrection of the dead
is so important for our salvation.
Think about this for a moment: If we all have immortal spirits or souls that continue
living after we die, why would God have needed to send His Son to die for us? Most people
who do not understand God would answer saying it was to keep us from going to a place of
torment called hell. But does that not go against God's love?
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son,
in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting
life. (John 3:16)
The Bible shows there is only the destruction at the time of death or
everlasting life through the resurrection. God does not give everlasting life or
immortality to a person as a form of punishment so has to torment that person forever and
ever.
Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the
road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas
narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones
finding it. (Matthew 7:13-14)
So, what do you think? Most people have the wrong idea about God
and about death. You, by having the right idea about God and death, can understand
what real Christianity is all about.
There are Christians today who do sanctify God's name Jehovah and
believe that He cannot die. They teach that His Son did die but that "the God
of our Lord Jesus" resurrected him with an immortal spirit body and he is now in
heaven with the God that resurrected him. These Christians understand what death is,
and because they do, they also understand what the resurrection is. Although Jesus
was the very first one to be resurrected, he is not the only one. God resurrected
him and gave him a very important assignment. The Apostle Paul stated the following:
I have hope toward God, which hope these men themselves also
entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the
unrighteous. (Acts 24:15)
Jesus himself promised:
Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all
those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out. (John 5:28-29)
Yes, "there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous
and the unrighteous", "all those in the memorial tombs will hear his (Jesus')
voice and come out." This resurrection will not be in heaven, but on a paradise
earth.
Why will the unrighteous be resurrected? Well, what did the
unrighteous man who died alongside of Jesus ask for?
And he went on to say: “Jesus, remember me when you get into
your kingdom.” And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me
in Paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)
Was that unrighteous man not asking Jesus for another
opportunity? Unrighteous ones are given another opportunity to change under Christ's
rulership here on earth; "when (Jesus) gets into his kingdom".
This is all part of the "good news of the kingdom" that primitive
Christians are preaching today and the work it was told they would be doing before the end
of this system of things. You can read about this in your Bible at Matthew 24:14.
When Christians come to your home to help you understand your Bible,
Why not be like the man who did the following:
So the spirit said to Philip: “Approach and join yourself to
this chariot.” Philip ran alongside and heard him reading aloud Isaiah the prophet,
and he said: “Do you actually know what you are reading?” He said: “Really,
how could I ever do so, unless someone guided me?” And he entreated Philip to get on
and sit down with him. (Acts 8:29-31)
Yes, ask them to sit down with you and help you understand the
Scriptures. They will be more than happy to help you and they will NEVER
charge you money for this service.
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