Who Owns Death? (Part II)

I left off this topic in part I with Satan having stolen the spiritual life of humanity from God.

¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. ¹⁵ Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, (Ephesians 1:13-15 KJV)

Ephesians 1:13-15

The redemption of the purchased possession is our spiritual life. And why would our spiritual life need to be purchased? Paul tells us for the praise of His glory. God’s entire plan from the outset was for His glory and His honor. He could not have redeemed us, nor would we be a purchased possession, unless He had first lost us, or allowed us to be stolen away by Satan. This was God’s opportunity to demonstrate how far He would go for His creation not our opportunity to demonstrate some loyalty to the creator.

⁹ In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. ¹⁰ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (I John 4:9-11 KJV)

1 John 4:9-11

In God’s plan, there was nothing we could do on our own to keep our spiritual life. It was His love towards us and His action of sending His only begotten Son into the world that we then have the opportunity to live through him. Otherwise, we are dead in sin:

²⁴ Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (I Peter 2:24 KJV)

1 Peter 2:24

God clearly had to take physical action on the part of His creation, in order for us to regain our spiritual lives. And that would not have been necessary if we were not already spiritually dead. And we are spiritually dead because we chose the lie of Satan over the truth of God, and through those actions God allowed Satan to steal away our spiritual life.

But what about our physical life? Who owns that? And we are going to physically die, right? It should be pretty evident that everyone that has lived, has died. Even Jesus Christ, God incarnate in the flesh, who was born into this world as a man, and lived as a man, died on the cross. Did Satan steal away Jesus’s physical life on the cross? And if Satan had dominion over the physical life, why wouldn’t he have just stopped Jesus from coming into the world in the first place?

The plausible answer is that Satan does not own our physical death. He has no control over it, nor can he influence it, nor does he know the time, the place, or the method by which we depart this physical world.

Consider Satan’s discussion with God concerning the servant Job:

³ And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. ⁴ And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. ⁵ But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. ⁶ And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. (Job 2:3-6 KJV)

Job 2:3-6

Note that Satan first suggests that God put forth His hand and touch the bone and flesh of Job so that he would curse God to His face. And this was after making the argument that Job’s integrity was due to God preserving his physical life. If Satan had control over that physical life, why wouldn’t he have just taken action on his own? And then note that God gives Job over to Satan but does not allow him to take his physical life? How could God have protected Job’s physical life unless he first owned it?

Obviously, He could not have. And yet He did because God owns our physical lives and our physical death. The Angel of death is an emissary of God. Likewise, God owns physical life as He demonstrated in raising Lazarus from the dead and more than 500 when Jesus Himself walked out of the tomb. When Jesus Christ prayed in the garden to not have to drink of the cup, it was not the death of the cross that burdened His soul, rather it was the impending spiritual death He would take on when He was separated, for the first time ever, from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

But why is all of this important to us today? And who cares if Satan owns our Spiritual death while God owns our physical death? Well, I believe it is important because we tend to get the two mixed up and place the emphasis in the wrong place. And I have even heard this preached incorrectly at times, or at least with great confusion. There is one passage that confounds the atheist:

³ And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. ²⁴ For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. ²⁵ For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? (Luke 9:23-25 KJV)

Luke 9:23-25

Jesus was saying if you strive to save your physical life, you will lose your spiritual life, but if you lose your physical life for His sake, you gain spiritual life.

There are some things that I can absolutely guarantee you today. And one of those is that you will physically live forever. Oh sure, you will physically die in this world because of the sin curse and God keeping us from partaking of the Tree of Life, however, God will raise you from that death, all of us, believers and unbelievers alike, in order to stand in judgement before Him. And if you are still spiritually dead in that day, your physical life will be lost in Hell forever, however if you are spiritually alive in that day, your physical life will be spent as part of God’s family for all of eternity.

Don’t lose your spiritual life over this physical life, nor lose your eternal physical life by not gaining your spiritual life in this physical life. You simply need to believe on the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who died on the cross for the sins of the world and sits at the right hand of God the Father today.