A Christian Perspective on Death

Sometimes a death seems senseless and tragic. Such was the case of the young Southern Baptist pastor, John Powell, who was killed last Saturday evening while trying to help stranded motorists on a freeway north of Dallas. It brought back to my mind the death of Mary Gardner on March 23rd, 2011. Miss Gardner was a Wycliff Bible translator who had lived in Togo, West Africa, translating the New Testament into the Ife language. She was in Jerusalem for six months learning Hebrew so she could return to Togo and start on the translation of the Old Testament. She was at a bus station when a terrorist's suicide bomb took her life. John Powell left a wife and four young children, and although Mary was never married and had no children, she did have family and friends that were left to mourn her loss.

I was thinking about these two deaths, young Christians in the prime of their lives, zealous for the Lord and actively working for him, and also about the death of J I Packer last week. Jim Packer died at age  ninety three after a fruitful and prolific life for the Lord. The responses to their deaths were so much different. The responses to the deaths of Mary and John were focused on the tragedy of their deaths, while the responses to the death of Jim Packer were focused on his home going and eternal reward. Regardless of the age and the circumstances, there is a sense in which all deaths are tragic; and for every Christian our death is a home going in anticipation of that day when we will receive our eternal reward. Death is certain for us all. The mystery is in the Lord's timing and purpose of our death.

Death itself is the enemy of man and we have been dealing with its awful consequences since Adam and Eve. Death plays no favorites. It brings its suffering to us all. However, those of us who are Christians can look at death from a different perspective, God's perspective; and gain insight and comfort from how He views it, and how He works it for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).  Here are a few ways for a Christian to consider death.

1. We need to understand God's sovereignty over death.

Death is not a random event, as God is sovereign in the timing, circumstance, and purpose of our death. Psalm 103:19 tells us that His throne is established in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all. God is sovereign over all things, even the timing and circumstances of our death, whether it is young and in the prime of life, or after a long and fruitful life, whether tragic or peaceful. We tend to gloss over God's sovereignty in death; and death, in its timing and circumstance, falls within the bounds of His eternal purpose. The Lord has said this about our time here on earth:  

Psalm 139:16"...And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." 

Job 14:5 "Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass." 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2a "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven--A time to give birth and a time to die." 

So we see that before we were born, our time here on earth was already established.

We also need to consider Ephesians 1:11..".having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will." We need to understand, especially in light of the verses above that God has predestined our time here upon the earth, both its beginning and its end; and this very time is in accordance with His eternal purpose. So birth and death are not random events, but events that happen in the working out of the eternal purpose of God. This is a mystery, but one that we will understand on the day when God reveals all things to us. 

2. We need to look at the death of a Christian from God's perspective.

Psalm 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones (His saints)". Italics mine. 

This word for precious in the Hebrew is yaqar, and it means precious because of its value or its worth.  As saints our death is precious to God because of the price He paid for us in the death of His Son (I Peter 1:18-19). You always know the value or preciousness of an object by what a person is willing to pay for it. God has rescued us from death, through the death of His Son, so that we can spend eternity with Him and He with us (Ephesians 2:4-8, Revelation 21:3-4). Also, our death is precious and valuable to God, because we will be with Him from that moment on throughout eternity. We are no longer separated from Him, but are with Him forever, and our fellowship with Him is fully completed and will be forever unbroken.

3. We need to consider death from the perspective of Christians who have died.

Philippians 1:21,23 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better." 

II Corinthians 5:6,8 "Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord...we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." 

For the Christian death is the door that opens into the arms of Christ; and, for those who belong to Him, He is waiting to receive them to Himself. First of all, what joy it must be for Him to receive into His arms those for whom He died, to receive unto Himself those whom had been given to Him by the Father in eternity past; and to be with them and to receive their joy at their being with Him face to face. Secondly, for the saint, what a joy it will be to be face to face with the One whom we have loved, the One who has walked with us through the ups and downs of life, the One who gave His life for us to ransom us from the dominion of sin and death, and to finally see His face and hear His voice and experience Him fully; for then we shall know fully, just as we have been fully known (I Corinthians 13:12)

Isaiah 57:1-2 "The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil, He enters into peace; they rest in their beds, each one who walked in his upright way." 

When I read this verse, the verse about Lot's righteous soul being tormented day after day by the sin around him comes to mind. For the believer, death takes us away from all evil into the peace of righteousness; it takes us from being surrounded by evil on every side to the very presence of righteousness incarnate; it takes us out of this body of flesh, in which sin, filthiness, and wickedness remain, to a state of awaiting our glorified bodies; it takes us from a state of torment because of the overwhelming presence and dominion of sin and its evil and wickedness in this world to a state of bliss and blessedness because of the ubiquitous and all encompassing presence of righteousness. For the saint God turns the horrors of death into a blessing, and it is His way of taking us away from evil to experience it no more. It is the rest from the weariness of fighting against the sin that is in our own lives and the world around us. It liberates us from the oppressive presence of sin, and transports us into the freedom and joy of righteousness.

4. There is hope, comfort, and purpose for friends and family.

Since the Lord works all things according to His purpose through the counsel of His will, there is a purpose in the timing and circumstances of death for the surviving family and friends as well. Oh, that we could see it and understand it, but until that time when we know fully, we must rest in Him and His sovereignty. We know the promise in Romans 8:28 that He is able to work all things together for good for those that love Him, who are called according to His purpose. We must take Him up on His promise.

God is compassionate and merciful, and in the time of our distress and pain will provide His comfort to us. We see this in II Corinthians 1:3-5 "Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions....For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ." In Christ there is a special comfort and generous mercy for those who lose friends and loved ones; and the deeper the wound, the greater the comfort. This is there for those who throw themselves upon Christ, who call upon Him for the comfort that only He can give. He Himself has said that He would never desert us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), and that He would be a father to the fatherless and a support for the widows (Psalm 68:5, 146:9). 

Finally, in the gospel our hope is anchored. Our hope is a sure and confident expectation that our Christian loved one is in the arms of God, that their death is not a permanent separation, and that God has a purpose not only for the life they lived, but also for the death they died. Their life and death and our trial and suffering are not in vain, but have meaning and a place in the eternal purpose of God.    

Well done, Mary Gardner, John Powell, and Jim Packer, faithful to the end. You have entered into the joy of your Master, you have been received into the bosom of Your Savior. You have entered into the rest from your striving against sin, both yours and the world's. You have entered into the eternal peace of righteousness. Rest well precious saints.

Father, we come to you with a sober joy and a full heart. There are so many times when what we have in our heart and our spirit is unspeakable, and we are thankful that not only do You know all things, but You send Your Spirit to intercede for us with utterings and groanings too deep for words. Thank you for redeeming death for us through the death and resurrection of Your Son, and therefore denying sin and death their victory. Thank You for laying claim on us. Only You could do this, only You would do this. 

O how great a love you have bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. Bless Your name forever and ever.  Amen.