Our choice

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

OUR CHOICE

Prov 21:16

16 A man who strays from the path of understanding comes to rest in the company of the dead.

NIV

Again this is surely a look into the free will of man, rather than the predestination of God. Here we see someone, in this case a man, however that is in the sense mankind, who was once enlightened. This is a person who has been saved. A person who knows salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and then walks away. This is not the occasional failing to live upright. This is not the falling short of the glory of God. This is not a person who desires to please God, but commits an act of unrighteousness in the body. When we are in union with Christ, as one man puts it, we are in Christ and he is living in us within our inner being, our spirit. But our flesh, our thoughts and sometimes our behavior is less than perfect. This is not straying from the path of understanding because we understand God and we understand our failings and also understand the forgiveness of God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. But there are people who have had that understanding and decide to forgo all they understand and leave it behind to live a life of complete self-satisfaction. They decide to either denounce or ignore the truth of God. They push God out of their lives, they throw out the Spirit and make their own self the leader of their lives. In doing so they will come to rest in the company of the dead. This has been defined also in the New Testament.

Heb 6: 4

4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

NIV

If they fall away, he has strayed from understanding, it is impossible to come back. They will be among the company of the dead. In the Hebrew the language implies they shall remain in the congregation of the dead. This means not coming back from the dead. There will be no resurrection of these dead. Now that does not mean they will not still stand before the judgment seat of God, but they will not be resurrected in the sense of being resurrected as Christ was, into a glorified state. We believers will experience this resurrection as Christ was. We will be in a glorified state, in fact, in the reality of God we already are because we are in Christ. But those who walk away from Christ, who kick him out, will not experience the glorified state of eternal life. They will experience death, not just the first death of the body, but the second death of the Spirit, the lake of burning sulfur and therefor they will remain in the congregation of the dead. It is possible for a believer to become a non-believer. God has given us the choice as to which destiny we will have. He invites all, but he does not force any. He will not ever forsake us, but he allows us to forsake him. From the very beginning he gave Adam that choice. Adam could not eat from both trees, it was one or the other, but he had the choice and he choose poorly. Because of Adam we all die, but because of Christ we all can live. We still have the choice to live after Adam or after Christ. Death or life, the choice us ours. We choose life.