Question: In John 8:51 Jesus says: "... if anyone keeps my word, he will
never see death." Jesus must mean something other than death
literally, so why doesn’t He just say what He means, or else explain why He
uses “death” figuratively?
Jesus is
not using the word “death” figuratively. Rather, He redefines the word to help
us see what death really is, from God’s perspective, as opposed to the
distorted human understanding of death. To do so He still uses our common
vocabulary, yet reinterprets the term by applying it differently.
For
example, a carpenter points to an assortment of lumber stacked in piles
according to their relative size (2” X 4”, 1” X 3”, 4’ X 8’) and tells his
newbie apprentice to go get a full sheet. The apprentice does not know that a
“full sheet” refers to standard 4’ X 8’ plywood. Once the carpenter clears up
the confusion, the apprentice has a new frame of reference for the word
“sheet.”
From the
human point of view, “death” typically means that a living biological organism
as ceased to function. Since it no longer lives biologically, we say it has
died. Interestingly, we can also say that something non-biological has died,
such as a microwave oven or an automobile, and expect that others will understand.
The way we use the term changes the meaning without requiring further
explanation.
Jesus
frequently re-defined the meaning of death. Whereas we see biological death as
the cessation of life, Jesus treated death as a transitional stage of life, not
unlike transitioning from sleeping to waking—a transition he had control over:
Mark
5:39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this
commotion and wailing? The child is not dead
but asleep.”
We see death as a state from which there is no return,
once decay has set in. For Jesus, death
is not biologically defined. From God’s point of view, once human life has begun it exists eternally.
Biological death is an anomaly—an abnormality in God’s created universe brought
about by sin:
Rom. 5:12 …sin
entered the world through one man, and death
through sin, and in this way death
came to all people…
Sin not
only introduced death to the human experience, but it also traps humanity into
an eternal existence cut off from God, who is the author of life. To correct this, God entered the human race
as a sinless human being to rescue us and restore us to eternal life in His
presence. This is why Jesus said to Mary, Lazarus’ sister, outside the tomb of
her dead brother four days after his internment,
John
11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who
believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
And then—
John 11:43-46 …Jesus called in a loud
voice, “Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped
with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the
grave clothes and let him go.” Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit
Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
