Christian Reflections on Death
Introduction
Just because we ought not take ourselves too seriously doesn’t mean we ought not give serious reflection to the unconversable subject of death. Upon the occasion of his mother’s grave illness, Martin Luther wrote a letter encouraging her to confront death directly, “Let us therefore now rejoice with all assurance and gladness, and should any thought of sin or death frighten us, let us in opposition to this lift up our hearts and say, ‘Behold, dear soul, what are you doing? Dear death, dear sin, how is it that you are alive and terrify me? Do you not know that you have been overcome? Do you, death, not know that you are quite dead? Do you not know the One who says of you: ‘I have overcome the world?’”[1]
These are the perspectives from a different time. C.S. Lewis said, “The great Christians of the past…. Thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I’m inclined to think they were right.”[2] Luther and all those in the history of the world before him went to bed at night not knowing if they would awaken the next morning. Today, it takes 30,000 nights of sleep before people even begin to reflect on death. This is to ignore a fundamental aspect of the human condition. If your theology is complete, it must encompass death. The goal isn’t to merely check all the boxes and cover all the topics. A theology of death should help you live. Humans, among all the creatures, have foreknowledge of their death. When properly understood, this ought to lead to a deeper appreciation of life, virtue, and our relationship with the eternal. To that end, let us circle the valley of death (Ps. 23:4), as it were, and survey it from seven strategic heights.
First, The Definition of Death
Since death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), it’s appointed for all to die because all have sinned (Rom. 3:23). Christians are excepted from the sting of death, but not death itself (1 Cor. 15:55). For all people “in Christ,” death is the beginning of eschatological glory. In Philippians 1:21, Paul says that “to die is gain.” Why is it gain? Verse 23 says, “I am hard pressed between the two [living or dying]. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” So, when a Christian dies, what happens? Their spirit is instantly “with Christ.” Their body returns to dust and sees corruption, but the soul is immortal, and neither sleeps nor dies (1 Cor. 15:42-44). The spirit goes to be “with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). This is why Revelation 14:13 pronounces a blessing on “the dead who died in the Lord from now on.” The Westminster Larger Catechism 86 describes this condition as “the commencement of communion in glory with Christ.”
If a Christian is saved from sin, death, and the devil, why do their bodies still decay? The bodies of Christians break because the flesh can’t endure the unbearable light of holiness. The mortal, perishable flesh is sown in dishonor and weakness. But this is not the end of the story. The natural body that is from the earth—from the dust—will one day come to life again (1 Cor. 15:35-49). The mystery is that Christ transforms death so that it is no longer an attack on life itself (1 Cor. 15:50-58). But more on that in point seven.
Second, The Biblical Theology of Death
The foundational episode of death is when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden (Gen. 3:1-7). Death enters God’s creation as a consequence and a curse. Though Adam’s physical death is delayed, spiritual separation becomes a form of death that precedes physical dissolution. The first human death is fratricide, when Cain kills Abel and Abel’s blood “is crying to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Death has a voice, and the words are those of justice, the restoration of a disturbed moral order. Death becomes universal at the flood (Genesis 6-9). God’s cosmic judgment becomes the pathway to renewal. All flesh dies except the remnant preserved in the ark. Judgment and salvation travel through the same waters. Death becomes a test of faith when Abraham raises the knife over his beloved son, Isaac. But God provides a substitute, and the ram dies in Isaac’s place, establishing that death includes a sacrificial principle. The death of a substitute secures life for God’s chosen (Gen. 22).
The Passover presents death as the instrument of deliverance. The Lord passed through Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. Blood on the doorposts, substitutionary blood, prevents death from entering the house. This is the final plague that breaks Pharaoh’s oppression and leads to Israel’s liberation (Exodus 11-12). Many years later, an entire generation dies outside the Promised Land as a consequence of their unbelief. They are excluded from rest. Yet God’s redemptive plan advances as their children are permitted to enter (Numbers 14, 26). In Numbers 21, death comes by serpent bite, recalling Eden. But then death is halted by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up. The death-giving object becomes the instrument of life that must be received in faith. The death of Moses in Deuteronomy 34 marks the end of an era. He dies outside the Promised Land, yet still in communion with God, as the Lord “buried him” (Dt. 34:6).
The sin of Achan in Joshua 7 leads to his execution. Death is the wage of violating the covenant. One man’s sin brings defeat and death to Israel. In Judges 16, the strange story of Sampson ends by emphasizing how he killed more in his death than in his life (Judges 16:30). The death of Saul marks dynastic transition as the cost of disobedience (1 Sam. 31). The cost of David’s sin with Bathsheba was even worse, as Nathan said, “The child who is born to you shall die” (2 Sam. 12:14). David’s grief swells as another son, Absalom, dies (2 Sam. 18).
But the overwhelming grief of death finds a flicker of hope in the Prophet Elijah, who first raises the widow’s son in 1 Kings 17, and then the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings 4. Death reversed by the prophetic word reminds people that Yahweh has power over death. So, when it’s prophesied that the Suffering Servant would die (Isaiah 53), resurrection hope endures, as Daniel 12:2 says, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
So, what is the meaning of death in the Old Testament? Death is not “natural.” It is an enemy, a curse, and a consequence of the Fall. It is judgment upon sin, both personal and corporate. It is a sacrifice that atones and delivers. It is an opportunity to test faith and obedience. And it is something that will be conquered because the dead can rise. All of this points to Jesus Christ, as we’ll see in points six and seven.
Third, The Futility of Worldliness
Psalm 49 teaches that death provides a clear view of the futility of worldliness (Ps. 49:12, 20). It’s absurd to live for what always fails (Ps. 49:6; Prov. 23:5). People can’t buy their way out of dying (Ps. 49:7f). Death is the common lot of all men, even the arrogant (Ps. 49:5f). Death climbs in at the window to carry off the living (Jer. 9:21). For those who die under wrath, alienated from God, there is no hope after death (Ps. 6:5; 30:9; 88:4-5). There is a death without hope (Ps. 49:13f) and there is a death with hope, as the Psalmist says, “But God” will be the Savior (Ps. 49:15). Even in the Old Testament, the resurrection morning is anticipated (Dt. 12:2) where the righteous will be fully satisfied (Ps. 17:15).
The futility of worldliness is to grasp for control in God’s world. The man who trusts in his riches cannot cheat death any more than the beast that perishes (Ps. 49:12). Man can die in “pomp,” without understanding (Ps. 49:12), or he can die with understanding (Ps. 49:20). What does a lack of understanding about death look like? First, it's the conceit that wealth can buy everything; it can even buy off death’s decree. It fails to see that earthly riches may buy a lasting tomb or commute a death penalty (Ex. 21:30), but it can do no more (Ps. 49:7-11). Second, it’s the mistaken notion that self-reliance can be carried to the grave. There are destinies beyond burial which require the ransom power of Another (Ps. 49:13-15).
For those who trust in wealth or themselves, there is no light (Ps. 49:17-19). To have light is to have “understanding” (Ps. 49:3), or discernment, that there is another realm of life beyond. The earthly notions of power and influence do not operate there. In the realm of divine redemption, the first are last, and the last are first. If you hear before you fear, you can gain understanding (Ps. 49:4f). The light makes you “upright” (Ps. 49:14) such that you can die right with God (Num. 23:10). This is when a life conforms to God’s way (1 Kgs. 15:5) and is acceptable to God (Job 1:1). The Lord saves the upright (Ps. 7:10) because Christ himself is the light (Jn. 8:12).[3]
It's this hope in another realm that overcomes a worldly view of death. If Christ defeated death, then Christians shouldn’t live as those defeated by the fear of death. Death is gain (Phi. 1:21; 2 Tim. 1:10). When a Christian dies, it is a homecoming; it is a fulfillment of his hope to know Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the Christian views death without fear because, “He has striven diligently to know him better and better. He knows Christ. He knows where he is going. He does not feel lonely as he is dying because Christ is with him….so the fear of death is gone—he does not object to going because he knows exactly where he is going, and to whom he is going.”[4]
When the Baptist preacher, Vance Havner (1901-1986), endured the passing of his wife, people would say, “I heard you lost your wife.” Havner responded, “No, when you lose someone, that implies you don’t know where they are. But I know exactly where my wife is.” Then Havner would quote the John Oxenham poem, “Death Hides But Does Not Divide.” “Death will hide but not divide / She is but on Christ’s other side / She with Christ and Christ with me / United still in Christ are we.”
Fourth, The Forgetting of Death
The move today is to minimize death, to forget that it’s inevitable. Everyone begins their life alive and ends their life dead. This is the inevitability of death, and most people regard it as bad news. So they evade it, forget it, run from it, shrink from it, and distract themselves from it. Elderly people are removed to facilities, natural aging is masked, and cemeteries are tucked away. People maximize pleasure in this earthly life, pursuing happiness in the mold of celebrities: money, luxury, fornication, and power. This makes some sense, of course, if earthly life is all you have. Pascal’s wager argues that it’s rational to believe in God because the potential infinite reward of salvation outweighs any finite cost of belief, while the potential infinite punishment of damnation makes disbelief too risky. But with the forgetting of death, the wager’s been flipped. When you begin with a bias of materialism, everlasting fire faces long odds. So, why not grab as much pleasure as you can?
The dread of death becomes the degradation of man. The entire effect is a sort of mellow nihilism that sees no need in eminent worry about the rancor of the potter’s field. This has significant implications, beginning with the removal of mystery. Death is the mother of mystery. Without Christ, death is a universal riddle (Ps. 49:1-4). What will happen when you die? What will be my fate? Will it be scary? What will God think of me? There is a trickledown effect when the ultimate mystery is wiped from possibility, namely, the suspension of mystery elsewhere, which also entails the suspension of imagination.
Fifth, The Culture of Death
Yet, the absurd pull of ideas is that, at the very same time people try to forget death, there is the desire to restrict the right to life and expand the right to death. The “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul II called it, favors abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Life is intolerable. Death is preferred for the sole reason that it ends the unbearable burden of living. The culture of death assumes that people, especially medical doctors, should have power over who lives and who dies. It assumes that humans rise to the task of being gods who don’t just create or destroy meaning, they generate or terminate life.
It also carries a certain assumption about what it means to be human: Life is worth living because of the potential for pleasure.[5] This is then translated into a social policy of intolerance of anyone who turns out to be inconvenient for fleshly gratification. Only in the culture of death could the British House of Commons approve bills allowing for assisted suicide and late-term abortions. The logic is deadly. Those who go on living drain the resources of the others, so it’s merciful to kill.[6]
The culture of death is the result of modern ideas, modern art, modern literature, and modern technology.[7] Each facet of secularism is full of pessimism and despair, the twin characteristics of the post-Christian West. There is no wonder. There is no joy in the gift of life. Instead, people invent reasons to kill their children, which turns out to be their own suicide. These various forms of death aren’t freedom, and neither is the destruction of the family. The secular milieu isn’t freedom to live but freedom from life. It’s not freedom to love but freedom from love. The reason the church has the resources to snatch life from the jaws of death is that Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10).[8]
Sixth, The Proclamation of Death
When others have died, and we are left behind, a flood of well-meaning sentiments elbows its way to the front. “Hang on to the happy memories.” “Remember them without regret.” “One day you won’t feel the pain of their absence.” “They are in a better place.” Of course, there is some comforting effect to these words. But, as common as death is, it is not just another event in the journey. Death reveals and reduces. It reveals what that person meant to us. And if they meant anything significant, then it reduces us because we just lost a friend. The living are reminded of the beauty, power, and depth of love and friendship. The feeling of loss is the terrible price we pay for having been given the gift of love. The cost of death and the loss therein provide a profound understanding of human nature and the deep capacity of relationships and remembrances.
Paul says that the Lord’s Supper proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). But this “proclaiming” wasn’t automatic. Because of the Corinthians' factions, they went through the motions of the Lord’s Supper without actually taking the Supper (1 Cor. 11:20), which means they were not proclaiming the Lord’s death. This reveals exactly how the Supper proclaims the Lord’s death. Because of their factions, their Supper-taking proclaimed something false about Christ. But taking the communal meal together, eating and drinking in unity and peace, communing by deferring to the needs of others, this proclaims the Lord’s death because it accurately represents the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ’s death. In the Eucharist, the church receives with thanksgiving the benefits of redemption through Jesus Christ. When they partake in love and unity, they manifest the covenant connection of Christ. When they go on from the meal to deny themselves in humility, live with moral courage, and have joy in suffering, they are living the meaning of the Lord’s death.
If you are feeling audacious, then consider a parallel: the Church's remembrance of Christ's death may well teach us the proper manner of remembering our beloved loved ones who have passed beyond the veil. Think of it this way. Saint Paul warns that those who fail to discern the unity of the body of Christ eat and drink unworthily at the Lord's Table. They fail to proclaim the Lord’s death because they miss the very thing Christ’s sacrificial death proclaims. Is there not the potential for an analogous failure when we gather to remember our departed loved ones? If we fail to perceive the Lord's handiwork woven through their earthly life, if we see only loss and not gift, only absence and not eternal presence, do we not likewise eat and drink unworthily of their memory? Christians must grieve and weep, but not like those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Feel the full weight of loss. But faithful remembrance requires something more costly: the imitation of their virtues (1 Cor. 11:1), gratitude for love received, and recognition that love itself is a divine gift. Without these, we proclaim not their life, but only our loss.
Seventh, The Conquering of Death
Primitive societies didn’t think of death as a natural phenomenon. It was something to be interpreted. There were spectral agents afoot, poisoning, or making magic, or wielding weapons to end the life of another.[9] The Bible explains the cause of death differently. Paul said the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). This means that physical death is the result of spiritual death. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, the entire race of man obtained the condition of spiritual death. Adam’s physical death years later was a consequence of that spiritual death. The same is true for all those descended from Adam.
Death prevents sin from being a secret. When someone dies, it overturns any attempted ruse of sinlessness (1 Jn. 1:8-10). Spiritual superciliousness is reduced to nothing when you follow Christ, who laid himself down for the rest of the world. Christ’s death calls death what it is: death. Christ does not explain away death, or dismiss death, or deny death. He faces death, which requires us to admit our death and confess the wage for death’s cause, our sin. Christ made himself responsible for defending humanity from its worst foes: sin, death, and the Devil. Neither the sheriff, the surgeon, nor the psychologist is adequate to defend against these devouring monsters. Those who don’t face death with Christ are destroyed by it. Those who do face death with Christ are more than conquerors.
Death is the instrument of personal salvation. Your death, in and by Jesus’ death, is salvation. Put again, you must die first before you can be saved. You must die to sin before you can be righteous. How does one die to sin? There is only one way, and it isn’t your physical death. When you die physically, it is because of your sin. Apart from Christ, your sin would be punished eternally. So, you can’t die to sin through physical death. In physical death, you continue in the consequences of your sin. You need a death that is higher than death. You must die to sin before you can be righteous.
How so? The only way someone can truly die to sin is through Christ’s death. When someone puts trusting faith in Jesus Christ as the substitute for their sins, then Christ’s death becomes their death, death to sin. With nails through his hands and feet, at three o’clock on that dark afternoon, Jesus received in his body the guilt of the punishment of the sins of all those who believe in him. Do you believe? If you do, then you are dead to sin. And when one is dead to sin, they are alive with Christ, having received the full righteousness of Christ. And with the righteousness of Christ, you are restored to the original condition of Adam.
There will be a physical resurrection when Christ returns. Christ’s resurrection body will be the prototype, and Christ’s cosmic restoration will provide the habitation, the New Heavens and Earth, where all those resurrected to new life will live. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of life from death. All you can do, or need to do, is trust Christ who triumphed over the grave.[10]
Just like Christians have two births, the physical birth and the spiritual one, so too Christians have two deaths, the death to sin and then the physical one. Christians can live fully for the Lord because they have died so completely to themselves before they die physically. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the reconciliation of death, but the revelation of death. What is revealed? That death is no mystery, but a destroyed enemy. The largest fear now cowers because Christ is Life.[11] Your resurrection, in and by the silence of Jesus’ tomb, will be your justification (Rom. 4:24; 6:1-5).
Martyn Lloyd-Jones argued that the ultimate proof of a Christians profession of faith comes when they are face to face with death. It tests your doctrine, your morality, and your experience. “Orthodoxy is not enough, morality is not enough, experiences are not enough. The one question for each of us is this: do we know something about this glory? Do we set our affections upon it? Do we live for it? Do we live in the light of it? Do we seek to know more about it? That is the secret of the Christian.”[12]
The great Christians of the past had a clear view of death that was connected with eternal glory. This is why the early church faced death with the note of victory. Athanasius wrote that Christians trampled upon death because Christ was raised.[13] Eusebius was an eyewitness to the martyrdom of many Christians and observed how they were indifferent to the tortures and received the sentence of death with exultation, singing hymns to their dying breath.[14] Ignatius, who was sent to the beasts, pleaded that the church would not seek his release because he was so eager to see Christ, who died on his behalf.[15]
Conclusion
Death is not the balm and nectar of oblivion, as Damian Michael Bentley’s “Society of Death Our Friend” put it. John Donne’s poem, “Death Be Not Proud,” written in 1609, explains how it is and why it is that Christians need not fear death. Donne’s sonnet presents a personification of Death, arguing that death is not as powerful as it appears because it is ultimately conquered through eternal life.
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the books The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
[1] Luther’s Works, 50:18-19.
[2] C.S. Lewis, “Learning in Wartime” in The Weight of Glory (HarpersOne, 2001 edition), 61.
[3] Motyer, J. A. (1994). The Psalms. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 517). Inter-Varsity Press.
[4] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Expository Sermons on 2 Peter (Banner of Truth, 1983), 50f.
[5] The logic of Scripture is something different. Since life is a mist (James 4:14), it is foolish to pursue earthly satisfaction and self-indulgence. Better to submit yourself to the will of God (James 4:15). Better to live in fear of the Lord, which is the point of Ecclesiastes.
[6] Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture (Crossway, 1990), 82.
[7] Transhumanism, the attempt to upload people’s minds into computers, is the attempt to overcome death via technology, thereby granting immortality. https://www.businessinsider.com/futurist-presidential-candidate-zoltan-istvan-is-driving-a-giant-coffin-across-america-to-defeat-death-and-win-the-white-house-2015-7
[8] Dale Ahlquist, Common Sense 101: Lessons From G.K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press, 2006), 192.
[9] Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. La Mentalité Primitive. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1922
[10] Robert Farrar Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel Against the Wisdom of the World (Eerdmans, 1998), 19.
[11] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 99-100.
[12] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Setting Our Affections Upon Glory: Nine Sermons on the Gospel and the Church (Crossway, 2013), 13-24.
[13] St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, translated by Penelope Lawson (Macmillan Publishing, 1981), 42-43.
[14] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, translated by Christian Frederick (Baker, 1955), 328.
[15] St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans, iv-vi, translated by J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (Baker, 1956), 76-77.
Just because we ought not take ourselves too seriously doesn’t mean we ought not give serious reflection to the unconversable subject of death. Upon the occasion of his mother’s grave illness, Martin Luther wrote a letter encouraging her to confront death directly, “Let us therefore now rejoice with all assurance and gladness, and should any thought of sin or death frighten us, let us in opposition to this lift up our hearts and say, ‘Behold, dear soul, what are you doing? Dear death, dear sin, how is it that you are alive and terrify me? Do you not know that you have been overcome? Do you, death, not know that you are quite dead? Do you not know the One who says of you: ‘I have overcome the world?’”[1]
These are the perspectives from a different time. C.S. Lewis said, “The great Christians of the past…. Thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I’m inclined to think they were right.”[2] Luther and all those in the history of the world before him went to bed at night not knowing if they would awaken the next morning. Today, it takes 30,000 nights of sleep before people even begin to reflect on death. This is to ignore a fundamental aspect of the human condition. If your theology is complete, it must encompass death. The goal isn’t to merely check all the boxes and cover all the topics. A theology of death should help you live. Humans, among all the creatures, have foreknowledge of their death. When properly understood, this ought to lead to a deeper appreciation of life, virtue, and our relationship with the eternal. To that end, let us circle the valley of death (Ps. 23:4), as it were, and survey it from seven strategic heights.
First, The Definition of Death
Since death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), it’s appointed for all to die because all have sinned (Rom. 3:23). Christians are excepted from the sting of death, but not death itself (1 Cor. 15:55). For all people “in Christ,” death is the beginning of eschatological glory. In Philippians 1:21, Paul says that “to die is gain.” Why is it gain? Verse 23 says, “I am hard pressed between the two [living or dying]. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” So, when a Christian dies, what happens? Their spirit is instantly “with Christ.” Their body returns to dust and sees corruption, but the soul is immortal, and neither sleeps nor dies (1 Cor. 15:42-44). The spirit goes to be “with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). This is why Revelation 14:13 pronounces a blessing on “the dead who died in the Lord from now on.” The Westminster Larger Catechism 86 describes this condition as “the commencement of communion in glory with Christ.”
If a Christian is saved from sin, death, and the devil, why do their bodies still decay? The bodies of Christians break because the flesh can’t endure the unbearable light of holiness. The mortal, perishable flesh is sown in dishonor and weakness. But this is not the end of the story. The natural body that is from the earth—from the dust—will one day come to life again (1 Cor. 15:35-49). The mystery is that Christ transforms death so that it is no longer an attack on life itself (1 Cor. 15:50-58). But more on that in point seven.
Second, The Biblical Theology of Death
The foundational episode of death is when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden (Gen. 3:1-7). Death enters God’s creation as a consequence and a curse. Though Adam’s physical death is delayed, spiritual separation becomes a form of death that precedes physical dissolution. The first human death is fratricide, when Cain kills Abel and Abel’s blood “is crying to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Death has a voice, and the words are those of justice, the restoration of a disturbed moral order. Death becomes universal at the flood (Genesis 6-9). God’s cosmic judgment becomes the pathway to renewal. All flesh dies except the remnant preserved in the ark. Judgment and salvation travel through the same waters. Death becomes a test of faith when Abraham raises the knife over his beloved son, Isaac. But God provides a substitute, and the ram dies in Isaac’s place, establishing that death includes a sacrificial principle. The death of a substitute secures life for God’s chosen (Gen. 22).
The Passover presents death as the instrument of deliverance. The Lord passed through Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. Blood on the doorposts, substitutionary blood, prevents death from entering the house. This is the final plague that breaks Pharaoh’s oppression and leads to Israel’s liberation (Exodus 11-12). Many years later, an entire generation dies outside the Promised Land as a consequence of their unbelief. They are excluded from rest. Yet God’s redemptive plan advances as their children are permitted to enter (Numbers 14, 26). In Numbers 21, death comes by serpent bite, recalling Eden. But then death is halted by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up. The death-giving object becomes the instrument of life that must be received in faith. The death of Moses in Deuteronomy 34 marks the end of an era. He dies outside the Promised Land, yet still in communion with God, as the Lord “buried him” (Dt. 34:6).
The sin of Achan in Joshua 7 leads to his execution. Death is the wage of violating the covenant. One man’s sin brings defeat and death to Israel. In Judges 16, the strange story of Sampson ends by emphasizing how he killed more in his death than in his life (Judges 16:30). The death of Saul marks dynastic transition as the cost of disobedience (1 Sam. 31). The cost of David’s sin with Bathsheba was even worse, as Nathan said, “The child who is born to you shall die” (2 Sam. 12:14). David’s grief swells as another son, Absalom, dies (2 Sam. 18).
But the overwhelming grief of death finds a flicker of hope in the Prophet Elijah, who first raises the widow’s son in 1 Kings 17, and then the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings 4. Death reversed by the prophetic word reminds people that Yahweh has power over death. So, when it’s prophesied that the Suffering Servant would die (Isaiah 53), resurrection hope endures, as Daniel 12:2 says, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
So, what is the meaning of death in the Old Testament? Death is not “natural.” It is an enemy, a curse, and a consequence of the Fall. It is judgment upon sin, both personal and corporate. It is a sacrifice that atones and delivers. It is an opportunity to test faith and obedience. And it is something that will be conquered because the dead can rise. All of this points to Jesus Christ, as we’ll see in points six and seven.
Third, The Futility of Worldliness
Psalm 49 teaches that death provides a clear view of the futility of worldliness (Ps. 49:12, 20). It’s absurd to live for what always fails (Ps. 49:6; Prov. 23:5). People can’t buy their way out of dying (Ps. 49:7f). Death is the common lot of all men, even the arrogant (Ps. 49:5f). Death climbs in at the window to carry off the living (Jer. 9:21). For those who die under wrath, alienated from God, there is no hope after death (Ps. 6:5; 30:9; 88:4-5). There is a death without hope (Ps. 49:13f) and there is a death with hope, as the Psalmist says, “But God” will be the Savior (Ps. 49:15). Even in the Old Testament, the resurrection morning is anticipated (Dt. 12:2) where the righteous will be fully satisfied (Ps. 17:15).
The futility of worldliness is to grasp for control in God’s world. The man who trusts in his riches cannot cheat death any more than the beast that perishes (Ps. 49:12). Man can die in “pomp,” without understanding (Ps. 49:12), or he can die with understanding (Ps. 49:20). What does a lack of understanding about death look like? First, it's the conceit that wealth can buy everything; it can even buy off death’s decree. It fails to see that earthly riches may buy a lasting tomb or commute a death penalty (Ex. 21:30), but it can do no more (Ps. 49:7-11). Second, it’s the mistaken notion that self-reliance can be carried to the grave. There are destinies beyond burial which require the ransom power of Another (Ps. 49:13-15).
For those who trust in wealth or themselves, there is no light (Ps. 49:17-19). To have light is to have “understanding” (Ps. 49:3), or discernment, that there is another realm of life beyond. The earthly notions of power and influence do not operate there. In the realm of divine redemption, the first are last, and the last are first. If you hear before you fear, you can gain understanding (Ps. 49:4f). The light makes you “upright” (Ps. 49:14) such that you can die right with God (Num. 23:10). This is when a life conforms to God’s way (1 Kgs. 15:5) and is acceptable to God (Job 1:1). The Lord saves the upright (Ps. 7:10) because Christ himself is the light (Jn. 8:12).[3]
It's this hope in another realm that overcomes a worldly view of death. If Christ defeated death, then Christians shouldn’t live as those defeated by the fear of death. Death is gain (Phi. 1:21; 2 Tim. 1:10). When a Christian dies, it is a homecoming; it is a fulfillment of his hope to know Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the Christian views death without fear because, “He has striven diligently to know him better and better. He knows Christ. He knows where he is going. He does not feel lonely as he is dying because Christ is with him….so the fear of death is gone—he does not object to going because he knows exactly where he is going, and to whom he is going.”[4]
When the Baptist preacher, Vance Havner (1901-1986), endured the passing of his wife, people would say, “I heard you lost your wife.” Havner responded, “No, when you lose someone, that implies you don’t know where they are. But I know exactly where my wife is.” Then Havner would quote the John Oxenham poem, “Death Hides But Does Not Divide.” “Death will hide but not divide / She is but on Christ’s other side / She with Christ and Christ with me / United still in Christ are we.”
Fourth, The Forgetting of Death
The move today is to minimize death, to forget that it’s inevitable. Everyone begins their life alive and ends their life dead. This is the inevitability of death, and most people regard it as bad news. So they evade it, forget it, run from it, shrink from it, and distract themselves from it. Elderly people are removed to facilities, natural aging is masked, and cemeteries are tucked away. People maximize pleasure in this earthly life, pursuing happiness in the mold of celebrities: money, luxury, fornication, and power. This makes some sense, of course, if earthly life is all you have. Pascal’s wager argues that it’s rational to believe in God because the potential infinite reward of salvation outweighs any finite cost of belief, while the potential infinite punishment of damnation makes disbelief too risky. But with the forgetting of death, the wager’s been flipped. When you begin with a bias of materialism, everlasting fire faces long odds. So, why not grab as much pleasure as you can?
The dread of death becomes the degradation of man. The entire effect is a sort of mellow nihilism that sees no need in eminent worry about the rancor of the potter’s field. This has significant implications, beginning with the removal of mystery. Death is the mother of mystery. Without Christ, death is a universal riddle (Ps. 49:1-4). What will happen when you die? What will be my fate? Will it be scary? What will God think of me? There is a trickledown effect when the ultimate mystery is wiped from possibility, namely, the suspension of mystery elsewhere, which also entails the suspension of imagination.
Fifth, The Culture of Death
Yet, the absurd pull of ideas is that, at the very same time people try to forget death, there is the desire to restrict the right to life and expand the right to death. The “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul II called it, favors abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Life is intolerable. Death is preferred for the sole reason that it ends the unbearable burden of living. The culture of death assumes that people, especially medical doctors, should have power over who lives and who dies. It assumes that humans rise to the task of being gods who don’t just create or destroy meaning, they generate or terminate life.
It also carries a certain assumption about what it means to be human: Life is worth living because of the potential for pleasure.[5] This is then translated into a social policy of intolerance of anyone who turns out to be inconvenient for fleshly gratification. Only in the culture of death could the British House of Commons approve bills allowing for assisted suicide and late-term abortions. The logic is deadly. Those who go on living drain the resources of the others, so it’s merciful to kill.[6]
The culture of death is the result of modern ideas, modern art, modern literature, and modern technology.[7] Each facet of secularism is full of pessimism and despair, the twin characteristics of the post-Christian West. There is no wonder. There is no joy in the gift of life. Instead, people invent reasons to kill their children, which turns out to be their own suicide. These various forms of death aren’t freedom, and neither is the destruction of the family. The secular milieu isn’t freedom to live but freedom from life. It’s not freedom to love but freedom from love. The reason the church has the resources to snatch life from the jaws of death is that Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10).[8]
Sixth, The Proclamation of Death
When others have died, and we are left behind, a flood of well-meaning sentiments elbows its way to the front. “Hang on to the happy memories.” “Remember them without regret.” “One day you won’t feel the pain of their absence.” “They are in a better place.” Of course, there is some comforting effect to these words. But, as common as death is, it is not just another event in the journey. Death reveals and reduces. It reveals what that person meant to us. And if they meant anything significant, then it reduces us because we just lost a friend. The living are reminded of the beauty, power, and depth of love and friendship. The feeling of loss is the terrible price we pay for having been given the gift of love. The cost of death and the loss therein provide a profound understanding of human nature and the deep capacity of relationships and remembrances.
Paul says that the Lord’s Supper proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). But this “proclaiming” wasn’t automatic. Because of the Corinthians' factions, they went through the motions of the Lord’s Supper without actually taking the Supper (1 Cor. 11:20), which means they were not proclaiming the Lord’s death. This reveals exactly how the Supper proclaims the Lord’s death. Because of their factions, their Supper-taking proclaimed something false about Christ. But taking the communal meal together, eating and drinking in unity and peace, communing by deferring to the needs of others, this proclaims the Lord’s death because it accurately represents the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ’s death. In the Eucharist, the church receives with thanksgiving the benefits of redemption through Jesus Christ. When they partake in love and unity, they manifest the covenant connection of Christ. When they go on from the meal to deny themselves in humility, live with moral courage, and have joy in suffering, they are living the meaning of the Lord’s death.
If you are feeling audacious, then consider a parallel: the Church's remembrance of Christ's death may well teach us the proper manner of remembering our beloved loved ones who have passed beyond the veil. Think of it this way. Saint Paul warns that those who fail to discern the unity of the body of Christ eat and drink unworthily at the Lord's Table. They fail to proclaim the Lord’s death because they miss the very thing Christ’s sacrificial death proclaims. Is there not the potential for an analogous failure when we gather to remember our departed loved ones? If we fail to perceive the Lord's handiwork woven through their earthly life, if we see only loss and not gift, only absence and not eternal presence, do we not likewise eat and drink unworthily of their memory? Christians must grieve and weep, but not like those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Feel the full weight of loss. But faithful remembrance requires something more costly: the imitation of their virtues (1 Cor. 11:1), gratitude for love received, and recognition that love itself is a divine gift. Without these, we proclaim not their life, but only our loss.
Seventh, The Conquering of Death
Primitive societies didn’t think of death as a natural phenomenon. It was something to be interpreted. There were spectral agents afoot, poisoning, or making magic, or wielding weapons to end the life of another.[9] The Bible explains the cause of death differently. Paul said the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). This means that physical death is the result of spiritual death. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, the entire race of man obtained the condition of spiritual death. Adam’s physical death years later was a consequence of that spiritual death. The same is true for all those descended from Adam.
Death prevents sin from being a secret. When someone dies, it overturns any attempted ruse of sinlessness (1 Jn. 1:8-10). Spiritual superciliousness is reduced to nothing when you follow Christ, who laid himself down for the rest of the world. Christ’s death calls death what it is: death. Christ does not explain away death, or dismiss death, or deny death. He faces death, which requires us to admit our death and confess the wage for death’s cause, our sin. Christ made himself responsible for defending humanity from its worst foes: sin, death, and the Devil. Neither the sheriff, the surgeon, nor the psychologist is adequate to defend against these devouring monsters. Those who don’t face death with Christ are destroyed by it. Those who do face death with Christ are more than conquerors.
Death is the instrument of personal salvation. Your death, in and by Jesus’ death, is salvation. Put again, you must die first before you can be saved. You must die to sin before you can be righteous. How does one die to sin? There is only one way, and it isn’t your physical death. When you die physically, it is because of your sin. Apart from Christ, your sin would be punished eternally. So, you can’t die to sin through physical death. In physical death, you continue in the consequences of your sin. You need a death that is higher than death. You must die to sin before you can be righteous.
How so? The only way someone can truly die to sin is through Christ’s death. When someone puts trusting faith in Jesus Christ as the substitute for their sins, then Christ’s death becomes their death, death to sin. With nails through his hands and feet, at three o’clock on that dark afternoon, Jesus received in his body the guilt of the punishment of the sins of all those who believe in him. Do you believe? If you do, then you are dead to sin. And when one is dead to sin, they are alive with Christ, having received the full righteousness of Christ. And with the righteousness of Christ, you are restored to the original condition of Adam.
There will be a physical resurrection when Christ returns. Christ’s resurrection body will be the prototype, and Christ’s cosmic restoration will provide the habitation, the New Heavens and Earth, where all those resurrected to new life will live. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of life from death. All you can do, or need to do, is trust Christ who triumphed over the grave.[10]
Just like Christians have two births, the physical birth and the spiritual one, so too Christians have two deaths, the death to sin and then the physical one. Christians can live fully for the Lord because they have died so completely to themselves before they die physically. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the reconciliation of death, but the revelation of death. What is revealed? That death is no mystery, but a destroyed enemy. The largest fear now cowers because Christ is Life.[11] Your resurrection, in and by the silence of Jesus’ tomb, will be your justification (Rom. 4:24; 6:1-5).
Martyn Lloyd-Jones argued that the ultimate proof of a Christians profession of faith comes when they are face to face with death. It tests your doctrine, your morality, and your experience. “Orthodoxy is not enough, morality is not enough, experiences are not enough. The one question for each of us is this: do we know something about this glory? Do we set our affections upon it? Do we live for it? Do we live in the light of it? Do we seek to know more about it? That is the secret of the Christian.”[12]
The great Christians of the past had a clear view of death that was connected with eternal glory. This is why the early church faced death with the note of victory. Athanasius wrote that Christians trampled upon death because Christ was raised.[13] Eusebius was an eyewitness to the martyrdom of many Christians and observed how they were indifferent to the tortures and received the sentence of death with exultation, singing hymns to their dying breath.[14] Ignatius, who was sent to the beasts, pleaded that the church would not seek his release because he was so eager to see Christ, who died on his behalf.[15]
Conclusion
Death is not the balm and nectar of oblivion, as Damian Michael Bentley’s “Society of Death Our Friend” put it. John Donne’s poem, “Death Be Not Proud,” written in 1609, explains how it is and why it is that Christians need not fear death. Donne’s sonnet presents a personification of Death, arguing that death is not as powerful as it appears because it is ultimately conquered through eternal life.
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the books The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
[1] Luther’s Works, 50:18-19.
[2] C.S. Lewis, “Learning in Wartime” in The Weight of Glory (HarpersOne, 2001 edition), 61.
[3] Motyer, J. A. (1994). The Psalms. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 517). Inter-Varsity Press.
[4] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Expository Sermons on 2 Peter (Banner of Truth, 1983), 50f.
[5] The logic of Scripture is something different. Since life is a mist (James 4:14), it is foolish to pursue earthly satisfaction and self-indulgence. Better to submit yourself to the will of God (James 4:15). Better to live in fear of the Lord, which is the point of Ecclesiastes.
[6] Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture (Crossway, 1990), 82.
[7] Transhumanism, the attempt to upload people’s minds into computers, is the attempt to overcome death via technology, thereby granting immortality. https://www.businessinsider.com/futurist-presidential-candidate-zoltan-istvan-is-driving-a-giant-coffin-across-america-to-defeat-death-and-win-the-white-house-2015-7
[8] Dale Ahlquist, Common Sense 101: Lessons From G.K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press, 2006), 192.
[9] Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. La Mentalité Primitive. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1922
[10] Robert Farrar Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel Against the Wisdom of the World (Eerdmans, 1998), 19.
[11] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 99-100.
[12] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Setting Our Affections Upon Glory: Nine Sermons on the Gospel and the Church (Crossway, 2013), 13-24.
[13] St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, translated by Penelope Lawson (Macmillan Publishing, 1981), 42-43.
[14] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, translated by Christian Frederick (Baker, 1955), 328.
[15] St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans, iv-vi, translated by J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (Baker, 1956), 76-77.
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