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| Vol. 15 No. 8 August 2013 | Page 6 |
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| Vol. 15 No. 8 August 2013 | Page 6 |
Robert Johnson
According to an AP news report, archeologists have unearthed a 3,500 year old door to the afterlife. The door came from the tomb of User, the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut, a long ruling 15th century B.C. queen from the New Kingdom, with a famous mortuary temple near Luxor in southern Egypt. User was vizier for 20 years, acquiring the titles of prince and mayor of Luxor. He was in charge of running the day-to-day bureaucracy for the kingdom.
The door found in User’s tomb, actually a recessed niche, is something found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs. It was meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. It was covered with religious texts, which would aid one’s entry to and from the afterlife. For the ancient Egyptians, the tomb was not just a place to lay a corpse, but the home of the deceased, supplied with all the goods needed to exist after death. This door, then, allowed the souls of the deceased to travel in and out of the burial chamber.
Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end” (3:11). That every culture has some type of belief in life after death affirms humanity does indeed have eternity set within us. The problem is finding the correct way to life after death, to eternal life. Reading incantations on a false door is no stranger than what other civilizations have concocted from their imaginations to give them some meaning for life. However, as Solomon also pointed out, while we have eternity set within us, we are finite beings, and we are unable to ascertain the will of God on our own without His help in revealing it to us.
There is a door through which entry to eternity is available, but that door is Christ. Jesus said, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9). The way to Him as our door to eternal life is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14). The reason so few find it is so few are willing to truly listen to what He says in His Word. Jesus told His disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). We cannot dilute the message of salvation with our own ideas, for then we have created a different gospel, not the Gospel of life (Galatians 1:6-9). It is the words of our Lord that will judge us on the last day (John 12:48), so we must yield our will to His, conform our life to His, walk in His path and enter through Him to find life. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6).
Jesus wants us to find eternal life through Him. To the church in Laodicea He said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with Him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). The path is available, the way to the door open to everyone, and the promise of life is real. Eternity is set in our hearts, but only when we set our hearts on Christ will we find it.
Ernest S. Underwood
When Jesus drove the money changers out of the Temple, the Jewish leaders asked Him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus was not offended by their desire to know His source of authority.
In the religious world today, the need for biblical authority is scorned. Denominationalism does not seek or want biblical authority for its doctrines and actions. The only authority it seeks is if it makes one feel good or if it is something man wants to do. If a council votes it in, or if the multitudes are practicing it, then such is sufficient authority. Again, this is the only authority upon which denominationalism rests. Sectarianism has no biblical authority to exist. In fact, it is severely condemned.
Jesus stated that “All authority has been given to Me…” (Matthew 28:18). Paul further stated that Jesus is “the head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:22).
Friend, did you abide by the authority of Christ in becoming religiously what you are? If you are in any denomination you cannot give a “yes” to this question. What about the way you worship and how you live your moral and ethical life? Do you live by Christ’s law or by the code of the wicked world? If you do not live by His authority, then you are still in your sins and have the need to submit to Him and His authority.