“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.”
~ I Thessalonians 4:13
Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
However, the death of the body is a fact of life. Almost every person who has ever lived is dead. For some, death will be many years from now. For others, it will be a much shorter time than they expect. Life does not come with an extended warranty. The next breath you or I take could be our last.
Why would a good God allow, much less ordain, death? To answer this question Biblically, there is something fundamental that we must know. If we do not start with this we will get seriously off-track. It is this: Death has not always existed. It was invited in by man. The Lord warned our first parents Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed Him they would bring death into the world:
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” —Genesis 2:16-17
There may have been many fruiting trees in the Garden of Eden. The Lord chose one tree. There was nothing special about it. Its fruit was as good as any of the other trees. His commandment was the simplest test of obedience.
They disobeyed anyway.
The serpent promised Eve that if she disobeyed God and ate the fruit of that tree, “in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” —Genesis 3:5.
Eve deliberately sought out that one tree that the Lord told her not to eat from (Gen. 2:17; 3:1-4). She picked fruit from it, ate it, gave some to Adam, and he ate it as well. They disobeyed God so they could become “wise” (Genesis 3:6) and to “be as gods, knowing good and evil.” They wanted to be independent of God and decide for themselves what is good and evil, right and wrong.
They went out of their way to disobey the Lord. They essentially gave the Lord their middle fingers.
The Lord then did what He had told them that He would do if they disobeyed Him. He brought death upon them and upon all of their descendants, which includes you and me.
The Bible holds Adam, as Eve's husband and the head of the household, primarily responsible: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” —Romans 5:12
“In Adam all die.” —I Corinthians 15:22
“The wages of sin is death.” —Romans 6:23
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” —Ezekiel 18:4
God had told Adam and Eve, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” When they sinned they did not drop dead that day. That is not what God meant. Before they sinned they did not get older, they had no diseases, and they were not going to die. When they sinned, on that day aging, disease, and death began to work in their bodies. They passed the “death DNA” onto their children who passed it down through the generations to us. We are all born with the “death DNA.”
Beyond this, their life was changed. No longer would they have fellowship with God. They became as unbelievers who have no fellowship with Him. Unbelievers are described in the Bible as dead even though their bodies may be alive. Their souls are dead.
We cannot blame the Lord for the fact of death. The blame is squarely upon our first parents. If Adam and Eve had not sinned there would be no death.
The Bible teaches that every one of a Christian’s sins have been paid for by Christ. Since that is so, why do Christians die?
We might as well ask, why do Christians get sick, have pain, have accidents, or have any problems at all? The answer is that salvation saves the soul but not the body: “though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” —II Corinthians 4:16. The “outward man” is our body. The “inward man” is our soul. The evils that befall Christians are not sent as punishment for sin in the punitive way they are to unbelievers. The Lord chastises his children for our sanctification, “that we might be partakers of his holiness.” —Hebrews 12:10.
“The pressures of life are the hands of the potter.” (Ray Steadman). “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” —Romans 5:3-5.
George Mueller wrote, “God delights to increase the faith of his children. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God's hand as a means. Trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith.” “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” —II Corinthians 4:17-18.
You may say, “I can understand how trials and tribulations make us better Christians, but how does death do that?” Dr. Robert Dabney wrote that there are at least four ways Christians are blessed by death—especially our own, when we realize that we may face death at any moment. He wrote that death:
humbles our proud soul
causes us to mortify our lusts
checks our pride, and
fosters spiritual mindedness
Regarding his fourth point, someone’s death often causes those who knew them to reflect upon their own mortality. People are unusually receptive to receiving the Gospel message at such times. Death is used by the Lord to produce spiritual life.
Dr. Dabney also wrote that the fact that everyone is a sinner makes death necessary: “Death is the only check potent enough to prevent depravity from breaking out with a power which would make the state of the world perfectly intolerable!” Think about all the most depraved murderers and monstrous rulers in history. Now think about what the world would be like if they all still lived!
When my dear sister in the Lord, Helena Einstein, was in hospice she had an aide who cared for her at night. This young woman admitted that she was not a Christian. Helena asked her to read the Bible to her, which she did each evening for several weeks. After Helena died, the aide told Helena’s bereaved husband that by reading the Bible to her every night that she was converted to belief in Christ as her Lord and Savior.
No matter who you are, where you are, what circumstances you are in – the Lord can use you to glorify Him. Always remember how the Lord used Helena on her deathbed!