THE PRINCESS’ OLD CLOTHES

Once there was a Chinese princess named Tou Wan who wanted to live forever. She lived about 100 years before Christ and thought of a way to be immortal. When Tou Wan died, she was buried in a suit made of jade and gold. Jade symbolized power to the nobles of her time and the gold used to sew the suit together symbolized physical incorruptibility. Over 2000 tiny plates of jade sewn together with gold wire were used to made this fabulous funeral shroud. Wearing this magical suit, Tou Wan believed she would achieve immortality.

We all want to live forever, however, there is only one way which has the assurance of our Creator. That way is through Jesus Christ. The apostle John wrote, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 NKJV). Not only is the way to eternal life through Jesus Christ, but it is exclusively through Jesus Christ. Notice again the inspired words of John, And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:11-13 NKJV).

This eternal life realized exclusively through Christ is a gift of God (Romans 6:23). However, this gift is conditioned upon our hearing and keeping Christ’s words (John 5:24; James 1:21-24), as well as coming to faith in Christ (John 8:24). Jesus called this a "labor." "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him. Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’" (John 6:27-29 NKJV). Even though this gift of eternal life is offered to all, it is sad that many will neither come to a faith in Christ nor hear and keep his words. They are like the disbelieving Jews of Antioch so many years ago who "judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life" when they rejected the message of Christ as taught by the apostle Paul (Acts 13:42-46).

Man has devised many ways in which to gain immortality, but, as the wise man penned, There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 16:25 NKJV). Jesus is still the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). By the way, when archaeologists discovered the jade and gold suit of Tou Wan it was intact. Her body, however, had crumbled to dust.