A Memorial to the Living Dead
Life is a battle. We all live as warriors for a cause. We all die in the ranks of our company. Here is the course of natural man. It is appointed for a man once to die, and then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27). All must give an account for their works done in the flesh, on the day of judgment (2 Cor 5:10).
On Memorial Day, in the United States, we honor those soldiers and sailors and airmen who died in service to our country’s cause. We hear the accounts of those who sacrificed their lives, as a final good work. Memorials are erected to honor the dead. We are encouraged to remember.
In Christianity, we honor the living One…who was dead. All honor belongs to Jesus Christ, the God-man, who laid down His life for His church (Eph 5:25). Jesus’ death on the cross was an act of war against the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4), Satan. With the power of death at his disposal, the devil was defeated at the cross. The cross meant the death of death because death’s power over the souls of the saints was vanquished at Calvary.
We remember Christ’s death until He comes again to judge the living and the dead (Acts 17:31; 1 Cor 11:25–26; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5). We also remember we were conceived with a death sentence (Ps 51:5). Children are born with a living body and a dead soul (Eph 2:1–3). When the person’s life in the body is expired, death is complete. Dead bodies conjoined with dead souls, will be raised to face judgment in the resurrection on the last day (Jn 5:28–29).
Death is a sure thing, but the natural man cannot be convinced that he is a sinner (Rom 3:23; 5:12; 1 Cor 2:14), let alone that he is condemned by God, already (Jn 3:18). Every living person inherits sin at conception. With inherited sin, and a sin nature (Eph 2:3), the sinner practices sinning in a myriad of ways (Rom 3:23). The natural man’s baneful existence is denied by him, despite the destruction and death around him. He imagines he is like everyone else, fabricating an endless future, and secretly, he fantasizes superiority over his neighbor (Eccl 4:4).
The death of men proves the vanity of their brief stay upon the earth. Most people champion a cause or two that is recorded in their fleeting obituary. Futility is the lot for the impious. Everything is ultimately meaningless, apart from the cause of Jesus Christ (Eccl 1:2).
The cavil naysayer is incensed at the proposition of his ignominy. Impenitent, he denies his reprehensible status before God. With frenetic vehemence, he scoffs at the claim of his extirpation from among the living. Jesus does separate His sheep from the goats (Mt 25:32); and hell is filling with the souls of the spiritually dead, who died in the flesh (Mt 25:41, 46; Lk 16:23; Jude 7; Rev 20:14–15).
Who will build a memorial for the living dead? Who remembers those who died in Adam? Dead men walking, fill their human shells, but a unilateral sentiment is heard among them, “We are all in this together.” May I suggest an anomaly to this rampant universalism?
The Son of the living God came into the world (Jn 3:16). He was enfleshed (Jn 1:14), yet He was without sin (Heb 4:15). His soul was alive at conception, and in His human body, He grew in wisdom and stature among men (Lk 2:52). His body was given to Him by God, albeit a body prepared to die (Heb 10:15). In His death, He has dealt with all the sins that held His people captive to death (Rom 6:7, 18, 22).
This is freedom in Christ (Gal 5:1). Sin and death no longer reign over the Christian (Rom 5:17, 21), who has been raised from the dead with Christ (Rom 6:4; Eph 2:6; Col 3:1). The resurrection of Jesus Christ was a bodily resurrection. The resurrection of the Christian is the resurrection of the soul (Jn 3:1–8; 1 Pet 1:3), to be followed by the resurrection of the body on the last day (Jn 5:28–29; 1 Cor 15:22).
These two resurrections are life from the dead. Because Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life, we live because He lives. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, bodily, is the One who regenerated each believer. He made us alive, spiritually (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), causing us to be born again of God (Jn 3:1–8; 1 Pet 1:3).
The obdurate remain dead, but those grafted into the living Vine have His living Spirit working life in them (Jn 6:63; 15). It is the grace of God that gives faith (Eph 2:8–9; Phil 1:29), which is the new principle in men made new. Christians live by faith (Gal 2:20), in the One who gave them life, as a free gift, according to His free will (Mt 11:27; Jn 1:13; Rom 9:15–16).
When the Christian is adopted into God’s family (Eph 1:4–5; Rom 8:15, 23), he or she is given a token (2 Cor 5:5), a pledge of a better life to come (Rom 8:18). In the remaining days of her body of death, she is renewed in her soul by the indwelling Spirit of God (2 Cor 4:16), who is the token. Thus, it is the Holy Spirit who serves as the Memorial to the living dead.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
June 23, 2022
