Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Are there contradictions in the Bible? Some people think so. I don't think there are, but sometimes what appears to be a contradiction opens up a vast field of Good News truth that warms the heart. One such apparent contradiction is found in 2 Timothy 1:10 where "our beloved brother Paul" says something that sounds absurd. He says that "our Savior Jesus Christ ... has abolished death." Past tense, not future tense. At the same time, Paul says, Christ has "brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Also past tense, not future tense.
What can he mean, "Christ has abolished death"? Look at the cemeteries full of people who have died. It is obvious that Paul doesn't mean the first death, which the Bible calls "sleep." Therefore we have to conclude that what Paul is talking about is the real thing, death itself, the second death. But how could Paul say that Christ has abolished the second death when Revelation 2:11 tells of the "second death" coming in the future for those people who are lost, and Revelation 20 tells how it's going to happen--in a lake of fire? "This is the second death," says John (vs. 14).
So, here's our apparent contradiction, a whopper! How can there be a "second death" in the lake of fire if Jesus has "abolished" it? Here's where the reality of the Good News of the gospel shines bright: When "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," He sent Him to die every man's second death (John 3:16-19). Hebrews 2:9 says, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death [obviously, the second], ... that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone."
That is how He abolished the second death. You and I don't have to die that second death! Jesus died it! Only if you resist and reject and choose to disbelieve, only then will it be necessary for you to die that death! Don't you want to tell somebody? What a load that News will lift from someone's discouraged heart!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 23, 1998.
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