Biblical Meditations on Death
Introduction
During this last week, I have
been meditating again on the reality of death, a habit I have fallen into since
the death of my first wife in 2019. Rather than reject death or live in denial
of its inevitable grip on us all, Scripture teaches that we must live in light
of the fact that we will die. Moses prayed, “teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). What is this wisdom that we
are to gain from meditating on death? I would like to posit five points about
death that we should consider often as believers.
Death Is a Deviation
When thinking on death, we do
well to remember that death is not the original pattern of humanity; Adam and
Eve were created free from death, coming under its power only when they chose
to sin (Gen. 2:16-17; Rom. 5:12-14). As people living under the Curse, we must remind
ourselves that death is not part of the original creation that God called “very
good” (Gen. 1:31); death is an encroachment upon God’s design, the result
of willful rebellion against his created order, with the ultimate consequence
of uncreation: “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen.
3:19). Death is a result of sin.
As a consequence, we must realize
that death is not good; death is evil. As believers living on the other side of
the cross, it is easy for us to gloss over the wrongness of death because it
has become the doorway to eternal life. Such biblical verses as “For to me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21) or “we are … willing
rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor.
5:8) may spring immediately to mind in objection. Remember, however, that in 1
Corinthians 15 – that great “resurrection chapter” which climaxes with “Death
is swallowed up in victory” (vv.54) – Paul states plainly “The last
enemy to be destroyed is death” (v.26). Contextually, this destruction of
death does not occur until the resurrection, for verse 54 in its entirety
states “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal
puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (v.54). The victory, though begun with
the resurrection of Christ, is not yet complete; death remains an enemy.
Death Is Indecent
Because it is not part of the
original creation, death is not meant to be seen; it is vile and disgusting, as
it physically manifests the evil of sin and its consequences on this world. In the
modern day, funeral homes have so perfected their art that the body in the
casket almost appears to be sleeping rather than dead, but once the soul has
departed from the body God’s design for a human being is horribly disfigured.
We are meant to live as holistic
beings consisting of both a material and immaterial component (Luke 1:46-47;
Matt. 10:28; 1 Cor. 7:34), and the division of soul and spirit is a violation
of that order. Though Paul states “to be absent from the body” is “to
be present with the Lord,” this should not be confused to mean that our
temporary residence in heaven before the glorification of the body is the
final, perfected state of mankind. We were created to live in physical bodies
on earth, and we will do so forever after the resurrection (1 Thess. 4:16-18);
the “putting off of [the] body” is temporary (1 Peter. 1:14).
The human body is created by God
and called “very good” (Gen. 1:31); it is not an accidental form brought
about through mindless evolutionary processes, but intimately sculpted and
shaped by the eternal creator for his good purposes (Ps. 139:13-16). This is
why the resurrection is a physical event. God will not only restore our hearts,
souls, and minds in eternity, but glorification extends to the whole person –
the body itself is restored (1 Cor. 15:35-58; Phil 3:20-21). Death leaves a
person looking like an empty shell because it separates a full human being into
its component parts and leaves the body to decay. Death is not beautiful but
ugly.
Death Is Undignified
God’s creation of human beings did
not consist only of forming them with his special care and giving them the “breath
of life,” since he did this for all “living creatures” (Gen. 1:20,
30; 2:7). Humans are set apart in God’s creation by the fact that they and no
other being – not even angels – are created in the image of God himself (Gen.
1:26-27). This means that, above and beyond all other creatures, human beings
are most like God, made in this way to fulfil God’s command of dominion (Gen.
1:27-28). While the image is marred in the Fall, it remains intact (Gen. 9:6;
Jas. 3:9) and is restored through salvation (2 Cor. 3:18). This image gives equal
value and dignity to all human beings.
Death is an affront to the image
of God. Because God's images were not designed to die, death is a mockery of
the original goodness of creation. Death takes what God designed to be eternal
and perfect, and subjects it to corruption and decay, because of which not only
we as his fallen images but also the whole creation groans in agony,
anticipating the restoration of all things (Rom. 8:20-23). When an image of God
dies, it shows just how broken this world is. In death, humanity as the
pinnacle of God’s creation – God “made him a little lower than the heavenly
beings and crowned him with glory and honor,” and has “given him
dominion over the works of [God’s] hands” and “put all things under his feet”
(Ps. 8:5-6) – is brought low. The inherent dignity that we have as God’s images
is affronted by death.
Death Is Diabolical
Not only is death an enemy, but
it was brought about by our greatest enemy: Satan. Death exists because Satan
tempted Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden of Eden. After being cast out of
heaven for his pride, Satan sought to make as big a mockery of God as possible;
since he could not attack God directly, he attacked his images by subjecting
them to death through sin. He lied to Eve, twisting God’s own words to lead her
into distrust of God (Gen. 3:1-5), for which he was punished immediately by God
with a prophecy of his future destruction (Gen. 3:14-15).
Scripture is also clear that Christ
died to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”
(Heb. 2:14), meaning that death is part of the “works of the devil”
which Christ came to end (1 Jn. 3:8). In fact, Jesus himself calls Satan “a
murderer from the beginning” (Jn. 8:44), and those who do not love but
instead hate others are the devil’s children (1 Jn. 3:10) and murderers in
their own right, since “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1
Jn. 3:15; Mt. 5:21-22). Death is a work of the devil which must be destroyed. And
it will be destroyed.
Death Will Be Defeated
Nothing could be clearer in
Scripture than that Jesus Christ, in dying himself and rising again, has dealt
the death blow to death itself. Death, that great evil and affront against God
brought about by Satan, is no more the threat that it once was to believers,
since “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who
have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). He is the firstfruits in that, just as
a farmer’s first harvest of the year indicates the subsequent crop, so too
Christ’s resurrection with a glorified body guarantees our own future
resurrection (1 Cor. 15:21-22). In the new creation when we are glorified, “Just
as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of
the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49); that is, just as we were made from dust
like Adam, our ancestor, so too shall we be glorified like Christ, our Savior.
It is this process which makes true the claim “Death is swallowed up in
victory” (1 Cor. 15:54). Living in light of this coming restoration helps
us to avoid the error of lamenting the “waste” of a person who dies young,
since we understand that their best service is yet to come in their glorified
body as they perfectly serve their Lord forever, free from sin, the Flesh, and
the Curse.
Yet, though at some level the
sting of death has been reduced for the believer so that we can mourn in hope
of eternal life (1 Thess. 4:13), the sting is not yet fully removed as long as
death endures. We look forward to the eternal Kingdom of God on the new earth,
where “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no
more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the
former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). As we await the return of
Christ, we can be comforted in the fact that he also wept at the sight of death
(Jn. 11:35) and was greatly troubled by it (Jn. 11:38). We can confess the
wrongness of death, even as we know the resurrection will occur and death will
be finally defeated. This is how we can have joy – see this world from God’s
perspective – even as we sorrow over death in the pattern of the “man of
sorrows” who was “acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
Conclusion
All this truth can be summarized
into two simple points: death is evil, but it will be defeated. We must be
careful, therefore, in how we speak about death, for though it has become the
doorway to life through God’s glorious might, it remains an evil in itself, and
to call it good is to blaspheme God by making him its author – “Woe to those
who call evil good and good evil” (Isa. 5:20). Though we “give thanks in
all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18; Eph. 5:20), we do not thank God for
death itself, since that would again be to blaspheme God and accuse him of
creating evil. Rather, we give thanks for his character and goodness to us in
spite of and in the midst of our experience of the Curse as he brings about his
good plan for his people (Rom. 8:28). Sin and its effects are bad, but God is
good and sovereign.
We ought not seek death, long for
death, or attempt to bring death about, whether that of others or ourselves.
Rather, we should be reminded by death of our own finitude, which should lead
us to glory in God’s infinitude, recognizing that he is greater than us and
able to sustain us in all things. Rather than rejoicing at death, we rejoice in
the face of death since God will overturn its victory in eternity.
In the meantime, however, as we live under the Curse, we lament to God that sin and death still exist, crying out to him “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10). As we wrestle with God’s goodness in the midst of our experience of death, we fill the gap in our understanding with what we do know of God: he is good, he is love, he is faithful, he is just, he is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise. And as we pray in lament, we also remind ourselves of God’s attributes as we recall and tell others of his mighty works (Ps. 77). Most of all, we remember that casting our cares upon the Lord is how we submit ourselves to his sovereign plan (1 Pet. 5:6-7). Death is evil, but God will use it for our good if we respond to it by seeking him.
All Scripture verses come from the ESV.
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