THE KEYS OF DEATH AND HELL
"But Jesus was saying, 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.' And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves." Luke 23:34.
The majority of people on earth today go about their daily lives without giving God a thought. Little do they realize that without moment-by-moment provision from God they would not be breathing and alive. They would not have a home, a family, a garden and yard, possessions galore, health, jobs, or the beauties of nature to enjoy and a natural, even social world that functions fairly smoothly.
Instead of appreciating all that is theirs as coming from God's hand, a larger and larger portion of today's population curses God, rejects Him, ignores His attempts to speak to them and guide their steps, and flaunts their sins in His face. In fact, their most frequent acquaintance with God is by their using His name as a curse word.
Just as Jesus prayed on the cross, if only they knew, really knew, what they are doing, they would repent immediately and seek to obey God's will in everything they do. They have no idea what they are forsaking by rejecting Jesus' sacrifice for them. They do not realize the severity of their suffering and abandonment in eternity that will be the consequence of their abandoning Jesus now.
Lightly, some folks jest about hell and its consequences. They say they're willing to take their chances on going there. They really do not fear hell at all, which interpreted means they don't believe hell exists. But it does!
It is worthy to note that in Revelation 1:17b-18, Jesus said of Himself that He holds the keys of death and hell:
"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."
He holds two keys, not just one. They bear significance and are not identical. They warrant our consideration.
In Genesis 3 Eve told the serpent that if they are of the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. While that warning surely pertained to the eventual demise of the pair's physical bodies, their sin also brought an immediate death: the separation from God spiritually. What is the evidence of that? Immediately, Adam and Eve hid from God's everyday visit with them in the Garden. They were ashamed because they were naked. They had always been unclothed but covered by righteousness, but after eating the forbidden fruit in disobedience they recognized their nakedness. Something in them had died.
The supernatural oneness they had had with God when they were innocent was gone. Once they disobeyed God and chose to eat what was not theirs to eat, innocence died for them and all their progeny. We inherit that same spiritual separation from God so many generations later because we are born sinners.
Think back to when Jesus hung on the cross for your sin and mine. He became our perfect substitute for our condemnation as sinners. God said that without the shedding of blood, there is no redemption from sin and its guilt. Jesus shed His blood so we don't have to be held responsible for sin by dying and being separated from God for ever.
Remember that Jesus agonized as He hung on the cruel cross:
"...My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46.
In the Greek language of the New Testament, the word 'forsaken' means to abandon, desert, leave helpless, totally abandon, utterly forsake. In other words, God utterly withdrew from Jesus as He hung on the cross. He experienced death in every sense of the word.
THREE FACETS OF DEATH
Again, citing the Greek for the meaning of the word 'death' in the New Testament as quoted by Jesus in the Revelation text, it means:
"In the widest sense, death comprising all the miseries arising from sin, as well physical death as the loss of a life consecrated to God and blessed in him on earth, to be followed by wretchedness in hell" (BlueLetterBible.com)
So, death has three facets: physical cessation of life, the miseries of sin's practice while on earth, and finally suffering in hell. When a person dies, two things occur as explained by the quoted passage: there is physical death and also severance of spiritual life from God plus suffering in hell through all eternity. Therefore, we must conclude that death and hell are not the same thing, but rather two distinct but related entities.
A check of the Merriam-Webster web site for a definition of 'death' gives 'cessation of all functions' as basically the meaning of the word. Nothing is mentioned to any degree about the soul that continues to exist somewhere forever. Nothing is discussed about the soul being separated from the body as being death. Noah Webster, who lived well over a century ago and compiled his original dictionary, encased his definitions within a Biblical framework. All that verbiage has been revised and expunged from the record. Now a reader will never be led to consider his soul's condition or future in either heaven or hell by reading the definition of death in a regular dictionary.
However, removing the eternal significance of 'death' from the definition does not alter or nullify what God says about death in His Word. While it is true that the cessation of all bodily functions brings death and is death at that moment of cessation, the soul of a person leaves mortality, but is still a person, a soul. Those who die knowing Jesus as their Savior from sin and the as the Life-giver of immortality go to heaven, never to experience physical death or separation from God, never to die again!
The story of the one who dies without Jesus' blood covering his sin is entirely different and frightening. When he or she dies, until the moment their last breath is taken, they still are surrounded by God's goodness to them, whether or not they acknowledge Him. Often their family is around them, perhaps in a hospital setting, where attempts are made to preserve their life or relieve the pain of their demise from disease. God is still very present and active in their life.
After all, doesn't the book of Ecclesiastes say that God sends rain on the just and the unjust? Life on this planet is orderly and designed so that each and all of us are recipients of the outpoured generosity and kindness of God. The organized universe is meant to make us totally aware of Him and His creative genius and omnipotence. That knowledge ought to bring every person in subjection to the feet of Jesus. However, while some people choose to recognize God, others opt to reject and resist Him in spite of all the evidence that testifies to His liberality
That being considered, what happens when a person's soul and spirit leave their physical body at death? Ask the question: Why did Jesus say He holds the keys to death AND hell? Are they not one and the same? The Bible gives us explanation in terms we can understand. So did the experience of the writer, as follows:
THE DEATH OF DEATHS
Soon after being baptized in the Holy Spirit, I was praying at my bedside. Suddenly, I felt myself 'sinking' down. all I said was, "I trust You, Holy Spirit." The next thing I knew I found myself seated on a gray stone bench in a gray stone cell. Ahead of me in the gray stone wall was a rectangular opening. Through it I could see beyond and all was gray, much like I envision the ash that covered the countryside when Mount St. Helens erupted.
It was gray, all right, but not the color gray. Everything was the hue of death: drab, bleak, ugly, lifeless. Void of life. Void of color. It was awful.
As I sat there, I didn't wonder at all about where I was. I didn't question why I was there. I didn't even reason that I was saved and therefore ought not be there. No questions came to mind at all.
I had not been there very long when suddenly I felt myself shift to the right. I had moved, yet, I had not changed my position at all. I wondered at that. I knew there had been movement of some sort. As I thought about my situation, I realized that I was changed. Something in me was different!
Then I knew. The image of God with which I was conceived and born and that had been an integral part of my personhood all my years on earth was gone! I wasn't the same person I had been during my lifetime! I was incomplete. As I contemplated myself, I could see the absence of the image like a hole or vacancy in my being. That had been the shift to the right!
God had removed the vital connection between Him and me! I was gone forever. He would not let anything holy and sacred remain in hell. While I had lived on earth, I was spiritually dead because of sin. Sin had separated me from God. But, because of God's image within me that was my vital link to Him. I could have repented of my sins and given my heart and life to Jesus. My separation from Him on earth because of sin was not final and eternal until I decided to clinch it by not repenting of my sins and coming to Him in humility for His salvation while I was alive.
Now God had removed that supernatural life-line within me. I would no longer hear His voice. I would never feel His presence or His conviction if I did something wrong. I could never play fast and loose with God again, deciding if and when I would obey Him, if I did at all. I could never be convicted of my sins, never repent, or do life over again to obtain God's mercy one more time! All communication with God and from God was gone forever! I was separated from Him eternally. That was DEATH! That is the death to which Jesus holds the key,
Despair hit me! All my life I had taken God, His goodness and His warnings for granted. I had pushed Him aside, saying I would call on Him another day. Now that day had passed. My opportunity to bow before Him was gone. Through all eternity, forever, I would never know kindness and mercy, love or graciousness. God was gone permanently! And that, dear reader, is hopelessness at its worst.
Being separated from God without recourse was the most awful judgment imaginable brought on myself because I did not turn to Jesus for forgiveness of my sins and make Him my substitute. The spiritual separation from God because of sin while on earth became true spiritual death forever. The spiritual death I knew on earth became permanent separation from God for all eternity. Paul describes it this way:
"These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power..." II Thessalonians 1:9.
That's why, when Jesus hung on the cross, He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Though it's totally unexplainable and incomprehensible, Jesus, though God, experienced eternal separation from God because of the weight of my sin and your sin. It all was laid on Him, the Perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
He suffered, my friend. He suffered rejection, abuse, torture and beatings, insult, and the list goes on and on, all the while keeping the law of God perfectly in obedience. Then He died physically That was brutal enough. Yet, He suffered eternal death, too. The short taste the writer had of being separated from God forever was horrific beyond words, and God the Father and God the Son experienced that separation at the cross in depths we can never comprehend. They did that so you and I could be set free from the condemnation and bondage of sin.
On the cross, Jesus suffered that awful separation from God so that we don't have to. His suffering was the most extreme in the universe. There is none worse. Jesus chose to suffer in order to reconcile us to His Father...and remember, the Father suffered at that separation, too. Yet, both did it for you and me.
HELL IS INSUFFERABLE!
When Jesus rose from the dead on Resurrection Day we otherwise call Easter, He was victor over eternal death and separation from God and also over eternal punishment in an insufferable hell void of one shred of God's comfort or soothing of His respite from suffering or easing of pain. Jesus holds the key of hell, the torment that follows eternal death, where the flame does not die. Isaiah 66:24 describes it poignantly:
“Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”
Those in hell will be abhorrent to everything and everyone else in hell. No one will offer sympathy...or cold water to ease thirst...or a fan to cool their burning souls. Most noticeably absent will be God and all the mercies and blessings He pours out to us in our earthly life. There is no comradeship in hell, no 'team' spirit. Lone-ness prevails. Jesus warned those who heard Him:
"If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire." Mark 9:43.
The keys of death and hell are in Jesus' hand and under His control. He is able and will save from that condemnation those who will submit themselves to Him and His cleansing atonement for their sins, utterly following Him from that day forward in obedience and submission to His direction. Death and hell will no longer hold power over anyone who makes Jesus his or her holy sacrifice for their sins.
Dear reader, if you have continued to walk and live as a sinner, turn around now and look at Jesus, your sacrifice for sin. Fall at His feet in repentance. Follow Him. His gifts to you are eternal LIFE, not death; HEAVEN, not hell forever. Make Jesus your Savior and Lord today!