Congratulations! You have just completed the reading of the first book of the Bible. Do you remember where Genesis begins? It begins in the Garden of Eden. Where does it end? It ends with a coffin in Egypt (50: 26). Genesis begins in a garden and ends in a graveyard. Can there be any more convincing proof of the death-dealing power of sin? I think not. The person who sins…will die (Ezek. 18: 4, 20).
We are all marching toward a six foot hole in the ground. Death is inevitable and inescapable apart from the return of Christ. It is so common that it is often referred to in Scripture as the way of our fathers. Everyone dies. God warned Adam that the one who ate the forbidden fruit would die (2: 17). Adam and Eve ate and the death march began. You don’t get past chapter four before you witness the first death. Chapter five is like an obituary page cataloguing deaths across ten generations. Chapter six tells of God’s plans to end the lives of almost the entire human population. Each of the Patriarchs dies, the last being Joseph.
Things haven’t changed. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned (Rom. 5: 12). [I]n Adam all die (1 Cor. 15: 22). The smell of death is heavy in even the priciest neighborhoods. The shadow of death falls across every household.
But there is good news. If you have peeked at the end of your Bible you have discovered there is coming a day when Death will exist no longer (Rev. 21: 4). The paradise lost in Genesis is regained in Revelation. Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22: 20).