1 September 2010
Psalm 38; Job 12:1,14:1-22; Acts 12:18-25; John 8:47-59

“Look, I only get one life, why do you have to make it miserable?” That is Job’s prayer/complaint. It is a painful thing to know that this is your one shot at this life and it is filled with misery and pain. This isn’t how it was supposed to be, but we brought sin into the world and now we have to live with it. Job says that even a tree that has been cut down to the stump still has a chance to produce new life, but we, once we are gone, have no other life. In Judaism, especially very early Judaism, there was no thought of life beyond this life, you simply went to Sheol, the place of the dead. We have the understanding that there is life after death and we have that understanding for two basic reasons, Jesus taught it and then showed it with the resurrection. It doesn’t explain pain and suffering, but it does allow us to understand justice in a different way because we can see the long view of eternity v. temporality. Suffering can be redemptive and purposeful if we allow God to have our suffering for His purposes (see Joni Eareckson Tada).

The conversation turns on the understanding and meaning of the word “death.” What does it mean to die? It was the promise made in the Garden in Genesis 2, “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Satan told Eve, you shall not surely die. Upon eating the fruit they did not die, so was Satan correct and God a liar? Death has a different meaning in God’s economy, it means something more like separation from Him. Life apart from Him is like death rather than life. In Jesus, we have the possibility of life restored to us, both now by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and then more perfectly in eternal life. The thing that must be dealt with in order to accomplish that is sin. If there is no sin then there is the possibility of life. Believing in Jesus as the only sinless man, the willing victim for sin, who takes on Himself all our sin, its shame and its punishment before God the Father, yields forgiveness of sins, imputed righteousness, and new life. Apart from that belief, there is only death, even if it seems like life to us because we have never truly tasted life.

Herod believed his own hype. He believed that he was able to receive the glory and honor that was accorded him. Here it seems Herod is willing to receive worship as one of the gods in mortal form. The people of Tyre and Sidon were willing to ascribe such to him in order to win his favor and break the blockade of food to their cities. Herod’s willingness to receive this worship was the cause of his demise. He had killed James the brother of John and imprisoned Peter but it was this sin of presumption that brought God’s judgment against Herod. At that point, there was no hope for the man if he thought he was God. His only hope was to be shown that he was not.

Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, do not be far from me;
make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation.