Me with my lovely wife, Kathy:

Saturday, June 22, 2013

More on Death

As is often the case, I found much more for tomorrow's message than I'll have time for.

Here are some quotations that speak to the subject of death:

Christ conquered death. He took upon himself our nature ‘so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil’ (Heb. 2:14). The devil’s power is subject to God’s overruling (Jb. 2:6; Lk. 12:5, etc.). Satan is no absolute disposer of death. Nevertheless death, the negation of life, is his proper sphere. And Christ came to put an end to death. It was through death, as the Hebrews passage indicates, that he defeated Satan. It was through death that he put away our sin: ‘The death he died he died to sin, once for all’ (Rom. 6:10). For those who are apart from Christ, death is the supreme enemy, the symbol of our alienation from God, the ultimate horror. But Christ has used death to deliver people from death. He died that believers may live. It is significant that the NT speaks of believers as ‘sleeping’ rather than as ‘dying’ (e.g. 1 Thes. 4:14). Jesus bore the full horror of death. Therefore, for those who are ‘in Christ’, death has been transformed so that it is no more than sleep. ‘If a man keeps my word,’ Jesus said,‘he will never see death’ (Jn. 8:51).[1]
Scripture closely associates death with the malevolent activity of Satan, whom Jesus labeled a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44 HCSB). The entrance of death into the creation came through the cunning temptation of the Serpent (Gen. 3:1–6). The writer of Hebrews ascribes to the evil one the “power of death,” namely a paralyzing and universal fear of death, from which believers are liberated by the atonement of Christ (Heb. 2:14–15).[2]
We should understand death as something that involves the whole person. We die, not as so many bodies, but as people, in the totality of our being. And the Bible does not put a sharp line of demarcation between the two aspects. Physical death, then, is a fit symbol and expression of, and unity with, the more serious death that sin inevitably brings.[3]

The biblical portrait of death is not that of a normal outworking of natural processes. Instead, the Bible presents human death as a reaffirmation that something has gone awry in God’s created order. The Scriptures do not, however, picture death as a hopeless termination of human consciousness but instead brim with the hope of resurrection. [4]

Although physical death is sometimes compared to sleep (Deut. 31:16; John 11:11; 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 Thess. 4:15), Scripture does not teach that one’s consciousness lapses after death to reawaken at the day of resurrection and judgment. Jesus promised the repentant thief on the cross that He would see paradise the very day of his death (Luke 23:43). Paul teaches that, for believers, being absent from the body means being present with Christ (2 Cor. 5:8).[5]

Paul, having established death as the consequence of a universal human depravity, heralds the resurrection of Jesus as pronouncing the death knell for death itself (2 Tim. 1:10). Proclaiming that the end times have come in Christ as the “last enemy” is destroyed in the resurrection of the Messiah (1 Cor. 15:26), Paul mocks the power of death in light of the victory of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:55). He assures believers on the basis of God’s resurrection of Jesus that the same bodies buried in the graves will be raised to life in the new creation (1 

Cor. 15:35–49). Believers, therefore, have no reason for despair in the face of death (1 Thess. 4:13–18).[6]

(Paradise, Luke 23:43, 2Cor. 12:4, Rev. 2:7)
Acts 7:59, Stephen dying.
Paul’s expectation, Phil 1:21-24, 2 Cor 5



[1] L.M. (1996). Death. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer & D. J. Wiseman, Ed.) (3rd ed.) (267). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[2] Moore, R. D. (2003). Death. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler, Ed.) (406). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[3] L.M. (1996). Death. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer & D. J. Wiseman, Ed.) (3rd ed.) (265). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[4] Moore, R. D. (2003). Death. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler, Ed.) (405). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[5] Moore, R. D. (2003). Death. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler, Ed.) (406). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[6] Moore, R. D. (2003). Death. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen & T. C. Butler, Ed.) (406–407). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

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