Why People die? Why it is universal?

Why People die?

Did you ponder the truth that death is universal with no exception?

Do you know the death statistics? 55.3 Million people die each year, 152, 000 people die each day, 6310 each hour and 105 each minute. The average life expectancy is only 67 years. If you can live up to 67 years that will be an achievement at the current life expectancy rate.
There is no cure discovered for death by medical professionals. The death rate is not 50%, not 75% but it is 100%. People always try to analyze the number one cause of death. However, the world’s number one cause of death is death itself.

While I was riding in a train from Richardson to downtown, Dallas, in 2003, our train hit a car at the railway cross and I witnessed the car flew up in the air and touched down and witnessed a middle-aged white man died instantaneously inside the car. His head was hanging down on the driver street – instantly faced with death.
I never thought my nephew, Ronald, who was only 21 years old would be a victim of a car accident and taken away from us in a matter of seconds in the middle of the road in Irving, Texas. He was driving back home after a group study with his college friends in the library.
Recently one of our dear sisters in the Lord who used to worship with us in our church went to be with the Lord due to brain cancer. Doctors tried to save her life, but it was her time to go home with the Lord. She was only 55.
I remember the day when our elder in our church who used to teach us the Bible went to be with the Lord. I was a young man just started college at that time. It was hard for me to cope with his death because he was a faithful servant of the Lord, who was touched by the love of God. He taught us about the love of God.
I vividly remember the good days of my life with my father. When he went to be with the Lord after suffering for many years with Parkinson’s disease, I remember I touched his body. It was warm for several minutes when he died. But when I touched his body on the days of funeral service, it was too cold. I didn’t know what to do. I knew he is not there in the coffin. He went to be with the Lord in heaven. I miss him every day- His love, his smile, his counsels, and advice.
One day, when I was a college student for my graduate program, I saw a dead body of a man lying on the road. People walked around his dead body in a busy street. It seemed nobody cared.

It dawned on my mind that it doesn’t matter who you are -you may be famous, or unknown to others, rich or poor, male or female, educated or uneducated, tall or short, Asian or African, White or dark, all people eventually die.

Death defeats science and medical professional all the time. They failed to find the cure when it comes to human death. Why?
Bible says in Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” Some people die very early in age. Others die at a very ripe age after seen their children and grandchildren. But the fact of the matter is all people die eventually. You and I will also die one day if the rapture doesn’t happen in our lifetime. Rapture is an imminent event when then living believers in Jesus Christ are caught up instantaneously from the earth into the clouds and given new resurrected and heavenly bodies. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 describes this glorified event. It says, “For the Lord, Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

The cause of death and why death is universal?

When it comes to the topic of death there is no other reliable book or source available in this world other than Bible. Bible gives us the answer for all our questions regarding life and death.
Romans 5:12 informs us why people die. It says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sinned.”
God says in this verse the complete answer to your question. Sin is the reason for death and this sin entered the world through one man – Adam. Then it says this way death came to all people because all sinned.
Now the question is whose sin causing the human death? Adam’s sin or individual sins of the people? Romans 5:13 and 14 apparently gives a clue to answer this question.
It says, ” To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.”
Mark, it says above, “Sin was in the world before the law was given”. The Law was given hundreds of years through Moses after the original sin of Adam and Eve. However, the passage clearly says sin was in the world before the law.
Then it says sin was not charged against anyone’s account because God’s law was given only later in the time of Moses.
It also says ‘nevertheless, death reigned even before the Law’. In other words, death occurred during the time between Adam and Moses though the law was not yet given.
Paul said in the previous chapter, in Romans 4:15, “And where there is no law there is no transgression.” What is this means? Even during the time when there was no law given and consequently no transgression can be cited, still, people died during this time. The death happened even during the period when there was no law given, still people died due to the presences of sin in the world. Because verse 13 above says, “Sin was in the world before the law was given.”
This verse connected the sin issue to the original sin of Adam and Eve. In other words, even people who did not violate the law (because the law was not there between Adam and Moses) died due to the fact that all people carry the corrupted sin nature of Adam and Eve when they are born into this world and they became guilty of the original sin. This is because Adam is humanity’s representative and all humanity shares the corrupted sinful nature of Adam and Eve. Apple begets apple, dog begets dog and Adam begets Adam’s nature. When God pronounced judgment on the original sin in Genesis 3:19, “By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust, you shall return.”
When God said ‘out of the ground you were taken until you return to the dust’, it points to the universal corrupted sinful nature of Adam and resultant universal physical death of all people.
This is the point – Death is worldwide and applicable to all because sin is worldwide and applicable to all because sin entered into the world through one man – Adam. The resultant universal sin resulted in universal death. Every single person born out of Adam and Eve has sinful nature and does sin because the original sin of Adam corrupted all people with a sinful nature.

Bible says, “the wages of sin is death.” Human death is caused not just by the independent sin of individuals. But there is a bigger picture Bible paints and this is the fact that all sin because of the corrupted sinful nature transferred to us from the fall of Adam.

Romans 3:9 shows this universal picture. It says, “What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin.” In other words, all – Jews and Gentiles -are under the power of sin inherited from Adam.

Now, did you notice the last portion of Romans 5:15 says Adam ‘is a type of one who is to come.’?
Now Adam is a type or representative of all humankind in their sinful nature. In other words, Adam is the federal head of our human race. In what sense? In the sense that he failed when God gave him free choice to choose God and obey Him or not choose God and disobey Him. Adam and Eve exercised their God-given free choice and led all human race into a sinful nature, God’s judgment, curse, and the resultant death.

If God left all people in this sad situation, we wouldn’t have any hope for future or any way to escape. But thanks be to God, in His love and mercy, He didn’t leave us in this horrible situation. God Himself paved a way for our rescue and salvation through another man – another federal head and representative. We will see this in the next article- The solution of death.