Psalm 49-Why Die?

No one can redeem the life of another
    or give to God a ransom for them—
⁸ the ransom for a life is costly,
    no payment is ever enough—
⁹ so that they should live on forever
    and not see decay. Psalm 49:7-9

I once talked to a man who had just done a 23 hour flight from Eastern Europe. He had not slept a wink throughout the long journey. He said that he could never sleep in a plane. When I asked him why, I saw a momentary flash of fear cross his face before admitting that for all his military training, he had never been able to shake off his fear of flying. His fear was premised upon the possibility of death from a plane crash. It didn’t make sense at all to me. I sleep deeply and enjoy movies on long flights because I figured a long time ago that in the event of an accident there is very little I could do. It is a bit like sitting inside an egg which accidentally rolls off a roof-top and falls to the ground. What can one do to reduce their chances of dying in such circumstances? Stay awake? I sympathized with the man. I later learnt it is a medically recognized phobia called aviophobia. And I didn’t need to look very far for I learnt that my complete distaste for closed places like caves is called claustrophobia. I also learnt that those men we  see on T.V. being forcefully bathed in public have ablutophobia-fear of washing or bathing. In my younger days I had Caligynephobia (look up the meaning yourself J). But now I digress.

The psalm above speaks to a universal fear that all humans have to varying degrees-the fear of death. However it has some word-meanings which have been lost in our generation. Words such as redeem are now only understood in the context of redeeming shopping loyalty points (like bonga points). A simpler rendition of the above scripture puts it this way;
 … yet not one of them, though rich as kings, can ransom his own brother from the penalty of sin! For God’s forgiveness does not come that way. For a soul is far too precious to be ransomed by mere earthly wealth. There is not enough of it in all the earth to buy eternal life for just one soul, to keep it out of hell.

This scripture points to an ancient practice instituted by God among the Israelites but which still has a bearing on our lives today. For those familiar with the ten plagues that God unleashed on Egypt, you will recall that the final one was the most devastating. God commanded the Israelites to slaughter a lamb and smear its blood on their door-posts before nightfall. That night the angel of death visited the land of Egypt and where he did not find blood on the doorpost he killed the firstborn child.

From then on God required the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb to ‘redeem’ every firstborn. He also instituted a system of animal sacrifices to symbolically cleanse the people from their confessed sins (Heb. 9.22). Essentially the sacrifices were meant to temporarily stay the hand of judgement and thus temporarily save people from the penalty of sin which is death (Rom. 6:23). However there were major problems with the sacrificial system. First the effect of the sacrifice was not permanent and secondly the sacrificed animals were not perfect. A perfect and eternal God could not make do with temporary and imperfect solutions. (Heb. 10:4). Thirdly no one could truly redeem another’s life or even their own life because the premium placed on the human soul by God (and Satan) was too high for human standards. Fourth, man’s death is caused by the effects of sin (Rom. 6:23). Sin causes both physical death and eternal damnation. Its consequences are eternal.

 To wipe out sins eternal consequences, a lamb with the power to exert its redeeming capabilities over eternity was required. To meet the full cost of redeeming a human soul, an infinitely costly sacrifice was needed. To satisfy God’s perfect attributes a 100% perfect lamb would be required. Such a lamb would be able to not only stay the hand of judgement but completely save God’s people from death.

The Bible teaches us that no such lamb could be found but after looking around God turned to His Son and said, ‘You are perfect and you are eternal. Would you be the lamb that saves my people?’ (Heb. 10:5-7). In the last book of the bible Jesus is revealed as the Lamb of God that was slain (Rev. 5:6-7).

Therefore the men killing Jesus on the cross did not know that they were unwittingly carrying out the ultimate sacrifice that would open the doors of eternal, sinless life to anyone in the world who would believe in Jesus ( John 5:24).

Man has always dreamt of immortality. However instead of following God’s prescribed way of

acquiring eternal life (1 John 5.13) many men are busy trying to find a way to either slow or stop the aging process that is stamped into our biology. Movies like ‘Transformers’ where conscious machine-beings battle on either side of good and evil are just a clever expression of man’s aspiration to discard of this weak bodies for more durable and possibly immortal bodies. The bible states that the only way for man to overcome death is for him to go back to his manufacturer; his creator (Phil. 3:21).
Jesus Christ is the ultimate redeemer. He is the ‘way’ (John 14:6) that God gave men to access eternal life. It would do mankind well to quit searching for another escape route and simply go back to the Creator.  

Pictures courtesy of:

christianchat.com

www.daveburchett.com