Immortality!

December 30th, 2017| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

The man wanted to live forever. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇 = “First Emperor of Qin”—the first dynasty of a unified China) (259–210 B.C.E.), who ruled from 220–210 B.C.E.

He didn’t want to die.

Supposedly, in 211 B.C.E. a meteor fell in the neighborhood, on which someone wrote:

The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided.”

The Emperor, of course, wasn’t pleased. Not being able to find out who had scribbled this bit of graffiti, the regent had everyone in the area put to death, and the stone burnt and smashed to smithereens.

Nope, he didn’t wat to die.

Recently discovered bamboo strips—the writing material of those days—have ancient calligraphy on them, all 36,000 of them. Zhang Chunlong, a researcher at the Hunan Institute of Archaeology, has been examining them and found that the emperor—our man Qin Shi Huang—had decreed that an elixir of immortality be created, and this diktat was published even in faraway villages and frontier regions. Said Zhang:

It required a highly efficient administration and strong executive force to pass down a government decree in ancient times, when transportation and communication facilities were undeveloped. The wooden slips even contained some responses from villages. One town called Duxiang reported back to the emperor that its inhabitants hadn’t yet found the elixir of life. Another place, Langya, in the modern-day Shandong Province in eastern China, suggested that an herb collected from an auspicious local mountain might do the job.”

It didn’t.

Nope, he didn’t want to die.

As part of his obsession, and his desire to continue his rule from the spirit world, he created an underground tomb for himself. Apparently, 700,000 men worked on the emperor’s tomb, constructing entire palaces, towers and scenic landscapes through which which the emperor’s spirit might roam. All of these and an entire army of life-size clay figures—the famed Terracotta Army. They comprise 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, along with a whole pile of acrobats, and musicians, and officials. And all of this work begun 36 years before he died!

Nope, he didn’t want to die.

But he did. The next year. Apparently after drinking mercury-laden cinnabar, mixed with honey and wine, believing it to be the elixir of life eternal.

There is only one way, Jesus says, to achieve what the Emperor searched for in vain.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 3:16

And …

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
John 14:6

Jesus, the Lifegiver:

“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:14

Here’s the challenge:

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25–26

Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as one’s only God and Savior from sin is the only way to eternal life.

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
John 17:3

Live forever! Happy New Year!