This "immortal thingie" is the old American heresy having to do with what happens when we die.

In America and in our enculturized theology, we are not permitted to talk about death. We talk about a person's "passing" or "having left us". We can't say, "Old Ralph finally died"! Even the morticians make us look more alive in the coffin than we were two days before we died. Often people will say, "My, doesn't he look good"! "So alive looking!" My God, we're DEAD! And this is right where the Bible begins our story. In the Garden, A. & E. are tempted by the serpent, purring to Eve, "You shall not surely die!" if you disobey the Creator. When they disobeyed about the first tree, God reports to the Heavenly Council, "Behold the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, AND LIVE FOREVER. . ." (That's immortality which God has specifically denied us!) and A. & E. are tossed out on their ears and, at the east of Eden, He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life (immortality). (Genesis 3:22-24) Quite apparently, immortality is not to be our bag. Here's where we have to make a choice - shall we be Greek or Jewish? The Greek philosophers divided an individual into three parts - body, mind, spirit. In America, we do the same, giving the body to medicine, the mind to our educational system, and the spirit to the church. And never the twain shall meet. Therefore, for us, we can attend church faithfully (or speak in tongues) without caring much about taking care of our body (the temple of God) or of our mind (so we can watch all the TV we want and read trash), and THE SPIRIT is taken care of. Likewise, we go to the doctor and tell him, "fix me", without discussing whether we are taking time to be with God or keeping up with the latest reports on how to care for the body. And, we are able to attend classes and get all kinds of degrees from institutes of higher learning without one wit of concern about our body's welfare or the well-being of our soul. In other words, this kind of Greek thinking would say that there is within each of us an IMMORTAL SPIRIT which is temporarily encased in human (and very fallible) flesh which, once destroyed by death, is set free from the body and soars off to be with God. The spirit is, hence, untouched by the reality of death. Indeed, it is now set free from its bondage. That is really what most American's (and perhaps most church folk) think. That's also Greek thinking. For the Jew, the individual is a UNITY, expressing itself in bodily, mental, and spiritual (and perhaps other) forms. But when we die ALL OF US DIES. Perhaps that's why our Jewish brothers and sisters do such a good job of accumulating things. There ain't no more after this life!

The difference between these two viewpoints is most clearly seen at the RESURRECTION of our Lord. That's why Easter is so important to us. If the Greeks are right, then the resurrection doesn't mean a thing because when our Lord died His spirit simply came free and He continued to live anyway. But if the Jew is right, when Jesus died on the Cross, ALL OF HIM DIED. Hence, their mourning and deep sorrow. . .and their profound surprise when He showed up in person. That says to me that God did something quite unexpected and FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME broke the stranglehold of death, bringing Jesus to life (even though perhaps with a different kind of existence than this earthy kind) and telling us that He has gone to prepare a place for us that where He is we might be also. So, when I die (God grant it not be too far away!), I am going to be TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY DEAD. But, by God's grace, I (in a form somehow identifiable but I haven't the slightest idea how) will be torn loose from death and brought explosively to life. By His power, I shall then PUT ON IMMORTALITY, now having received eternal life. The remaining question is WHEN? Do I stay in the crumbling earth until the Second Coming as Paul seems to suggest (perhaps 1 million years away!) or IMMEDIATELY ("TODAY thou shalt be with me in Paradise")? Who knows? One thing I do know is that TIME is our measurement, not God's. ("A thousand years in Thy sight are as yesterday. . .") We will then perhaps be in an existence which is timeless (whatever that means!) and really is beyond our comprehending. One other problem we have is that we can't get eager about the Beyond because it requires a great bit of change and we don't like that. We've got a good thing going here. We know how things work here; we know the language, the pitfalls, the emergency exits, and a host of other neat things. Heaven, life after death, is a totally unknown and we are tremendously uncomfortable with change of any kind! Yet, in one sense, we have already experienced such a dramatic change. We have already experience a kind of DYING. In our fetal state, we had a good thing going -quiet, dark, secure, safe, lulled by the heartbeat of a mother, fed without effort. Truly the good life! We wanted nothing more. Yet, outside of the womb there were a host of uncles and aunts and grandparents who wanted so badly to tell us what life would be like for us after birth (our first "death"?), but there is no way they could communicate that to the unborn - no way at all! Then comes the moment of birth - a major interruption of our neat existence - and we wanted no part of it! We fought to stay unborn and when we got thrown out into that life outside the womb it was a tremendous shock to us - bright lights, noise,

poking fingers, prodding and cutting instruments, the whole nine yards. And all we could do is SCREAM. That wasn't the cry of life. That was my raising hell because my very existence had been violated! Look what we would have missed had we had our way and stayed forever in the womb - Beethoven; Michelangelo; passionate love; horrendous laughter; glorious colors of sunrise and sunset; the pleasure of communicating with good friends; the creation of VIBES; e-mail! Thank God I wasn't given my way about being born. So with life after death. The cloud of witnesses are all there having a ball and wanting badly to tell us of the life THERE - and there is no way they can share their joy with us. So we think this life is all we've got and, by damn, we're going to hold on as long as we can, taking pills to keep us going, longing for the Fountain of Life, being tucked, tidied, snipped, and rebuilt just to keep us from thinking about death when that hideous enemy is going to ruin it all for us! Nope! The Christian is to think like a Jew but to enjoy the art of the Greek. Not think like a Greek and enjoy the history of the Jews. "Death, where is thy sting?" Thanks be to God and His Christ, that last enemy DEATH shall no longer disturb us. Death is not a cul de sac, it's a highway. It's a door that God has opened for us into LIFE as He has meant us to live it. I don't believe in IMMORTALITY (except as we are given it after our resurrection). I believe in ETERNAL LIFE which Jesus says we already have ("He who believes in me HAS eternal life"). So, I'm already living that life and death simply draws the curtain away so I can enjoy the whole show! So here's to better and happier dying and an eternity to wonder why I was so bothered by that door I had been given the key to! Sometime, somewhere, I need to write all this up in plain English. Please accept these scratchings as "first thoughts" that might amount to something some day! "IT'S ALL TRUE! AND WHOOPEE!" Ralph