Death & Dying: “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” Psalms 89:48. The psalmist’s question is not merely rhetorical; it is universal and absolute. “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?” NONE. Death levels everything and strips every illusion bare. The driving principle that rules this perishing world, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” I John 2:16, is exposed at last to be the desperate pursuit of man to grasp life in a realm ruled by death. Death is the great equalizer, the moment when all illusions dissolve. It strips away the robes of power and the garments of pride, until king and beggar, scholar and fool, lie side by side in the same dust. The wisdom of one who once commanded nations, and the power of such as held the world in fear, are now forever silenced beside the fool who could not even rule his own spirit. The learned and the ignorant, the powerful and the poor, meet together in the same silence. All titles fade, all distinctions perish, and man is seen for what he is – dust before his Maker. Genesis 18:27.
Death exposes the lie of human autonomy. Every philosophy, religion, and culture built on that same assumption, that man can live, think, or reason independently from the LORD stands upon the same delusion, and death is God’s unanswerable rebuttal to that lie. It is the divine reminder written into the fabric of existence that man is nothing. “Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee, verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.” Psalm 39:5. No matter how high his knowledge climbs, how vast his empire grows, or how loudly his philosophies claim self-sufficiency, death brings him to silence. It ends every argument of human pride and autonomy in the dust from which man was taken. For the unbeliever, death unmasks the futility of his system; he cannot reason himself out of the grave, nor redeem his soul from corruption. All is silenced, every theory ends, religion crumbles, and philosophy yields to the one reality it cannot explain – GOD. The grave is the great refutation of autonomy, the final contradiction to every thought not captive to Christ. For the believer, death has been reinterpreted through Christ, its curse transformed into blessing, its darkness dispelled by resurrection light. In that final moment, all philosophy yields to this truth, life is found in Christ alone. II Timothy 1:10.
We are so dull when it comes to eternal realities! We can talk endlessly about the Bible, dutifully attend to all that the Lord has orchestrated for us, and “live” Christ, Colossians 3:4, according to the Scriptures, and yet when the thought of dying draws near, our composure falters and our ‘faith’ seems to lose its voice. The truths we profess with confidence in life often seem to crumble when faced with death. Faith gives way to feeling, and the eternal we once spoke of with some hopeful assurance suddenly seems distant and unreal. The voice that once proclaimed, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory,” I Corinthians 15:55, now grows strangely quiet, and the heart that rejoiced in Christ’s risen life trembles as it nears that final moment. We confess that to depart and be with Christ is far better, Philippians 1:23, yet the approach of death clouds the certainty of glory. Our reluctance reveals how easily we mistake familiarity for safety, how the known, though fading, seems dearer to us than the unseen glories of Christ.
We say that we desire Christ above all, yet tremble at the door that opens to Him. Our nature shrinks from that threshold, for it is the one doorway that cannot be crossed without leaving everything else behind. In an almost desperate attempt we build our lives around keeping it closed, clinging to that which we naturally understand, even when what awaits us is infinitely better. We are so busy fortifying our tents in the wilderness that we forget our real home is a city whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10. We repair, improve, and adorn our temporary dwellings as though they were eternal, forgetting that they will soon be taken down and replaced with “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” II Corinthians 5:1. Christ has gone before us to prepare a place, and every loosened stake and fraying cord only reminds us that the city is near.
We know this is the Lord’s will for each and every one of us, and yet, for some reason, we want no part of it, at least not at this moment, nor anytime in the near future. It is a blessing certainly not prayed for, and in a unique sense, the only blessing that ushers us immediately into the presence of Christ, and that will at last bring every promise of God to its consummation.
When believers consider death apart from Christ, they either shrink from it in fear or grow callous in indifference. Yet even such weakness cannot undo “the hope set before us.” Hebrews 6:18. Faith, though trembling, still clings to the anchor of Christ’s finished work, and the very frailty that makes us fear death drives us nearer to the One who has conquered it. I Peter 1:5. When death is viewed through Christ, conquered, destroyed, and abolished, it stands transformed, II Corinthians 4:14, as the Spirit teaches the saints to look away from death as surely as from sin, fixing their eyes wholly upon Christ, who has abolished it. Yet within, I sense the lingering reality of unbelief, painfully knowledgeable of the fact that in myself I am too weak to face what only Christ has conquered, and only grace can subdue. I can only entrust myself to the mercy of Him who began the work, that He may finish it even in the shadow of death. I Thessalonians 5:24. In that hour, I shall need what He alone can give, grace to look away from death, and to see only Christ.
I want to conclude with something a faithful brother from Florida once said, words that bring our hope into sharp and living focus: Brother Curtis just turned 95. He still gets around pretty good, but he’s limited in some ways, of course. But his mind is still sharp and his heart is fixed on Christ. Curtis knows that his time here on the earth is growing very short. But he said, “if you hear that I have died, don’t believe it, because he said, I’ll will be more alive then than I am now.” What a blessed hope for the children of God! “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” John 11:25-26. MPJ