I’m Not Afraid to Die

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about a person’s attitude when death comes calling. She believed that everyone would cling to life in hopes that death could be avoided as long as possible. She had recently lost a loved one, so her thoughts were deeply personal and based on her own ideas about death and the afterlife. When I told her that I would welcome death because it is the door to a better life, she told me I might think differently if I were the one facing a terminal diagnosis.

I think she is wrong; I hope she is wrong. I haven’t heard the grim reaper’s steps in the hall, but I have a deep, abiding faith in what Scripture teaches about life after death. I think it is an expression of that faith that allows me the confidence to say that I will welcome it when it comes knocking. This position touches a subject I have covered previously: Confidence versus Arrogance. When I express absolute confidence (aka faith) in the Word of God, it sounds arrogant to unbelievers and believers who have not yet accomplished the renewal of their minds recommended by Paul.

What are the Scriptures that should renew our mortal fear of death? The first that comes to my mind is Paul’s poetic echo of the prophets in 1 Corinthians. “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Because I no longer bear the penalty for my sin which was taken by Christ on the cross, I have confidence that the sting of death is gone, and it is replaced by my joyous victory over it.

So then, death becomes a stage in life, a life everlasting with great expectations of continued joy. While I don’t pretend to know exactly what or how the transformation from this life to the next will be, I have numerous Scriptural clues about it. For one, Jesus told His disciples just before His death and resurrection that He was going away to prepare a place for them where they would join Him later. The place Jesus referred to (His Father’s house) is in that realm or dimension where God is said to dwell, often called Heaven.

This raises a question about exactly what Heaven is or where Heaven is. Curiously, in naming the disciples’ future destination, Jesus used a word that might well be translated “hotel.” This tempts us to think that the place Jesus referred to is not our permanent eternal dwelling, but rather a waystation between life on this earth and life on the new earth which will be created in God’s good time. Whatever or wherever the place is, we get a sense that we will have a consciousness that we will carry from this life to the next; otherwise, Jesus would not have suggested that His disciples would be joining Him there. His subsequent death and resurrection revealed a new body that bore recognizable marks of the old but with capabilities that were new.

Although many people believe that Christians go to Heaven when they die, this is not exactly what the Bible says. When the word heaven is used, especially by Jesus, it is in the context of the “Kingdom of Heaven.” In those instances, Jesus was not referring to a far distant place, but rather to a condition of God’s sovereign rule. The rule of Heaven is a metonymy much like the modern reference to the authority of the “White House.” What’s in view is a matter of control or reign; it’s what Jesus taught His disciples to pray for: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” We are to pray that “Heaven” would have complete control over the events of our earthly existence. Jesus repeatedly said that the Kingdom of Heaven, the sovereign rule of God had already burst onto the earthly scene with His incarnation. He never suggested it was the place we go when we die.

The fact is the Bible says very little about where we go when we die. One of the most encouraging passages is Paul’s declaration that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul does not elaborate on where that presence is, but he is confident that he will share a relationship with the Lord he serves. Jesus seems to have hinted at this reality when on the cross He told the penitent thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” No description or explanation is given as to what or where “Paradise” might be. Suffice it to say that it will be more than pleasant, particularly if that is where Jesus dwells.

Some of the most detailed hints we get about the afterlife are in Paul’s long dissertation on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. We learn there that at some point after death, we receive a different kind of body. We are not going to be resurrected with the same body we died with. Paul makes the point that when you bury a seed, the resulting growth is far different from the seed with characteristics and capabilities far surpassing the mere seed. That will be the case with our resurrection bodies.

We see hints of that in the body Jesus returned with after His death, resurrection, and ascension. He could pop in and out of rooms without bothering with doors; He could transit between the realm of God’s dwelling (Heaven?) and our earthly plane at will. He was recognized by His disciples even to the point of showing them the wounds caused by His crucifixion. The apostle John says that we don’t know precisely what form our bodies will take, but he says with confidence that we will be like Jesus because we will see Jesus as He is. We will have spiritual eyes enabled to see the spiritual bodies Paul says we get upon our resurrection.

This is not to suggest that our new bodies are not corporeal—physical in some sense. We are not to go the way of the Greek philosophers or the Gnostic Christians who believed flesh was evil, and our ultimate goal was to attain a spiritual existence devoid of the physical form in which we occupy space on earth. Paul assures us that we will be resurrected in a body; his point is that it will be a body of a different sort, though it will be recognizable as who we were.

When God created the earth and put humans on it, He declared that it was good. Sin stained that goodness, but God has promised to recreate it once again. That is why I am not afraid to die: I want to experience that Edenic perfection and intimate fellowship God intended for His children. The truth is I am looking forward to it. But I say with Paul that it is better that I remain on earth until my Lord is finished with me. The God who created everything and everyone has a family to gather; when it is complete, we are all going home. I am ready whenever He is.

To Know God’s Will

This is a sequel to “Why Do the Wicked Prosper?” If I was correct in my conclusion that material prosperity is not a sign of God’s approval or blessing, what measure can we use to ascertain God’s will? If we look at the record of Scripture, we cannot use pleasant circumstances as a clue. Daniel was apparently in God’s good graces when he was tossed into the lion’s den. Same for his three friends and the fiery furnace. Joseph spent several years in prison before being elevated to a position where he could save his family. Paul’s desire to preach the gospel in Rome was facilitated by an arrest and prison time. The record is clear; God sometimes uses unhappy times to accomplish His sovereign will.

Many Christians take comfort in the promise of Romans 8:27-28. As I have said before, the promise is often misunderstood. My translation of verse 28 reads like this: For we know that for those who love God and are being called to accomplish His purpose, all things work together for good. I put this unique twist on it because of the context. In verse 27, the Holy Spirit is said to intercede for believers “according to God.” Most translations add “the will of” God. The “will of” is drawn from the concept of God’s purpose, His will, found in verse 28. In other words, God’s will is the ultimate good toward which all things are working together. Daniel and Joseph and Paul went through some serious “not good” before the good purpose of God was realized. And yet, they were fully within the will of God.

So, if we cannot use material prosperity or pleasant circumstances to gauge whether we are within God’s will, what can we use? Are we doomed to wonder, perhaps until the next life whether we are pleasing God? I don’t believe so. Romans 12:2 assures us that we, “may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” In that context, Paul recommended a renewed mind and resistance to the world’s pressure as the path to knowing God’s will. This is the first and most reliable key. Revealed truth found primarily in the Scripture is the source of the renewed mind. Once we begin to think God’s thoughts after Him (as much as humanly possible), we can know His will.

Even an elementary knowledge of Scripture reveals much of God’s will for His people. We don’t have to wonder whether it’s okay to sleep with the neighbor’s wife, or if it’s okay to rob a bank to pay bills. (Exodus 20:14-15) We know that if we fail to care for those in need, we have violated the core command of God’s law. (Luke 10:30-37) We know that if we allow our anger to burst out in derisive or slanderous speech, we have invalidated our Christian faith. (James 1:26) We know that if we have vengeful thoughts or take action against those who we believe have wronged us, we are outside of God’s will. (Romans 12:19-20) In fact, we know that if we are insulted or persecuted, we are among the blessed of God. (Matthew 5:11-12)

I could go on, but I have made my point. There are hundreds if not thousands of direct expressions of God’s will for our lives. It is our duty to renew our minds with these clear commands before we set off wondering what God’s will is. It is also our responsibility to take these rules of conduct to heart and adjust our behavior accordingly. The Scripture warns that to know what is right and to not do it is sin. (James 4:17)

God has provided another source to help us know what He wants of us: our fellow believers. If a brother or sister discovers we have stepped out of God’s will, they are bound to steer us back to the path with a gentle spirit. (Galatians 6:1-2) If the wrong has been done against us, we must follow the pattern laid out by Jesus: first go to the one who wronged us and tell them we were hurt; then, if that is not well-accepted, take another mature believer with you, and try again. Then, if there is still no recognition or repentance, the whole church must be made aware. (Matthew 18:15-20) This kind of church discipline is rare today in our hypersensitive, politically correct society, but it is as much God’s will as any other command. We may never know how many wandering sheep may have been brought back into the fold if their fellow-believers had just followed this instruction.

What if there is no clear biblical precedent to follow? What if there are no mature believers willing to step in to help? In those cases, we make inferences from the what the Word of God teaches, and we do our best to apply them. Obviously, this is not foolproof. We may misapply Scripture. We may be ignorant of a principle that would be helpful. Our most reliable course of action is to first do nothing – nothing except pray. God has promised wisdom to those who ask. (James 1:5-8) If we step out to act without first waiting for God to speak, we have become the fool – the one who lives as if God doesn’t exist.

If after praying for guidance, we still don’t have a clear answer, it may be helpful to thoughtfully consider a potential course of action. After thinking about what to do, if there is no sense of resistance or correction in the spirit, it may be time to take the first step toward action. It has often been said that God will open and close doors as a way to guide His children. This is not ironclad either because the enemy is also able to manipulate worldly affairs to his advantage. This is when a keen sense of God’s Spirit within us is essential. We know that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17) In the context of that verse, Paul was talking about the veil being lifted so that we can see the truth. We need that unveiled view to know whether we are free to proceed.

If we decide to move one step at a time into our proposed course of action, the freedom of the Spirit should allow us to have the peace we are promised. Paul told the Philippians that if they made their request made known to God, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) I believe the Spirit-given peace will be made available even as we begin to consider what to do. If we set our minds to do something that would be contrary to God’s design, His Spirit will make us uncomfortable – remove the peace. When that happens, we must backtrack; wait again; pray again.

There have been too many times in my life when I have stepped out of God’s will because I didn’t bother to seek it. Often those incidents involved the purchase of a car or motorcycle. I have also said things in the heat of the moment that I soon wished I could retract. Lately, my problems have come from knowing what to say or not to say in a public forum (eg. Facebook) or in private conversation about a controversial issue. I’m getting better, but I still have a ways to go. I use the “peace test” to weigh my responses when I remember to do it, and it has served me well. I have also ignored it at times and paid the emotional penalty.

We can’t always know God’s will perfectly. Sometimes there is no Scripture, no mature friend, no inner witness. Even then, we do know that God has our back as the saying goes. He can take our worst failures and turn them into something that ultimately accomplishes His will. The Bible tells us to rejoice in trials because they make us better. (James 1:2-4) That is comforting, but it is not a license to screw up so we can learn. There are less painful ways to be educated than the school of hard knocks.

Why Do the Wicked Prosper?

The question posed in the title is one every thinking believer has asked. The Old Testament is peppered with the question. (See Job 12:6; 21:7–15; Psalm 92:7; Malachi 3:15) The prophet Jeremiah who wrote from very personal experience with “the wicked” put it like this:

Why are the wicked so prosperous?

    Why are evil people so happy?

² You have planted them,

    and they have taken root and prospered.

Your name is on their lips,

    but you are far from their hearts.

³ But as for me, Lord, you know my heart.

    You see me and test my thoughts.

Drag these people away like sheep to be butchered!

    Set them aside to be slaughtered!

⁴ How long must this land mourn?

    Even the grass in the fields has withered.

The wild animals and birds have disappeared

    because of the evil in the land.

For the people have said,

    “The Lord doesn’t see what’s ahead for us!”

 

Jeremiah was warning Judah that they were about to suffer the same fate that had befallen Israel some 200 years earlier. They were going to be defeated and taken captive by the Babylonians in the near future, yet they continued in their wicked ways. They didn’t just ignore Jeremiah; they persecuted him harshly. It is not hard to understand why Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet.

In verse three the prophet slips into what is called an imprecatory attitude; he asks God to execute justice on the wicked; he wants the judgment God has promised to come quickly. In this context, it is not the wicked Babylonians Jeremiah wants slaughtered like sheep; it is his own countrymen – the wicked men of Judah. I understand that because, in a way, they are more culpable than the Babylonians; they have Moses’ law and the other prophets. They should know better, but their history by this point has proven that they are unwilling to follow God’s commands.

Jesus told a parable about the consequences for servants who were disobedient during their master’s absence. “And that slave who knew the will of his master and did not prepare or do according to his will will be given a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did things deserving blows will be given a light beating. And from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be demanded, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will ask him for even more.” The leaders in Judah in Jeremiah’s time were those “to whom much [had] been given.” Jeremiah was asking God to give them the beating they had coming.

When I look at Judah’s predicament, my first thought is that the Babylonians should be the ones getting slaughtered by God. In fact, according to Isaiah, it was God Himself who brought the Babylonians to power explicitly to chastise His people. Then, in an odd twist of fate, God deals the Babylonians their just deserts by bringing in the Persians to conquer them. Eventually it was Cyrus the Persian who released the Jews from their captivity to rebuild Jerusalem – something God had predicted over one hundred years before it happened.

This is all interesting history, and it is some of the best proof we have that God knows the end from the beginning, but I see a lesson for us in this. Jeremiah complains that the wicked are happy and prosperous even though God is, “far from their hearts.” It is no coincidence that the great enemy of the church in the book of Revelation is called Babylon. Nor is it surprising that God’s judgment falls on Babylon. Interpreters differ whether Babylon is a metaphor for apostate Jerusalem, judged and destroyed in 70 AD, or if it refers to some future entity (the resurrected Roman empire for example). Either way, God wins; justice triumphs; the church is victorious.

I still want to pray like Solomon did when dedicating the temple: “May you judge your servants, [by] condemning the wicked man [and] bringing what he has done on his own head.” When speaking of people who “suppress the [obvious] truth,” Paul said they would receive, “in themselves the penalty that was necessary for their error.” In Psalm 69 David asked that God would, “Pour out your indignation on [my adversaries], and let your burning anger overtake them.” If not for these passages and others like them, one could assume that this kind of vengeful attitude is too human for a believer, but apparently it is not wrong to pray that evil people get their due.

However, I cannot forget that God’s most severe judgment and Jesus harshest condemnation was always against those who should have known better. I fear what this means for people who claim to be Christian but preach a twisted gospel saying that gender is fluid or that God can bless same-sex marriage or that the virgin birth and Christ’s divinity don’t matter or that hell and judgment don’t exist. Even more disturbing is the condition of the Christian who sits in church every Sunday but is no different than his non-believing neighbors the rest of the week. I remember James’ judgment of people who hear the Word but don’t do anything in response.

The so-called prosperity gospel says that God’s blessing is evidenced by the believer’s physical prosperity. If that is true, how do we handle the question of the prosperity of the wicked? If there is anything to be learned from the lives of the Apostles and centuries of Christian martyrs, it is that worldly prosperity is not the measure of true faith. This is the answer to my title question: the wicked prosper only until God brings about their demise. By contrast, the righteous prosper through all eternity; we just define prosperity differently.

Related posts: Friendship With the World; Through the Bible in Seven Minutes; The Knowledge of Good and Evil

The Missing Book

Something I read in Second Kings about King Josiah got me thinking. When he took over from his predecessor, a spectacularly wicked king, Josiah ordered the clean-up and restoration of Solomon’s temple which had fallen into disuse and misuse during earlier reigns. In the process, they found the scroll of the Torah, also known as the books of Moses, which had remained hidden for a long time. Josiah’s emotional reaction (he tore his robes) indicates the level of his piety for which he is famous. Josiah ordered the book to be read and he discovered the institution of the Passover. Here is what shocked me: the writer of Second Kings says that the Passover had not been celebrated since the time of the judges.

Not Saul, nor David, nor Solomon bothered to obey the command to remember the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt with the annual celebration of Passover. What is most curious to me is that both David and Solomon made scores of references to the word of the Lord in their writings. David’s 19^th Psalm extols the law, the precepts, and the ordinances of God as enduring forever, righteous altogether, more desirable than gold. Yet apparently, Israel’s greatest king, a “man after [God’s] own heart,” couldn’t be bothered to keep one of the required feasts, perhaps the most important feast, commanded in the law.

I can only assume that the scroll discovered by Josiah was not read by David. That is what the text of Second Kings implies. Surely, the man after God’s heart would follow such a clear command if he knew of it. But he didn’t. I am left wondering what David used as his supporting text for his volume of Psalms that regularly encourage the following of God’s commands. Perhaps they were oral tradition, or they might have been other documents that are lost to us. The point is that apparently, David didn’t read the Torah.

This might explain why he had as many problems as he did. If you are not regularly reading the law that says thou shalt not commit adultery or thou shalt not commit murder, maybe you can plead ignorance regarding the Bathsheba and Uriah incident. I note that when the prophet Nathan confronted David with his obvious sins, the approach was an emotional one rather than a legal one. David was asked to consider the theft of a poor man’s lamb for a rich man’s pleasure. Incensed, David demanded that justice be executed upon the wicked person. “Thou art the man,” proclaimed Nathan. Perhaps they were ignorant of the law’s requirement to stone adulterers and murders; could they be applied to the king?

But if they were not reading the law because it had been missing since the time of the judges, one would not expect it to be brought out in accusation. Might this also explain David’s twenty-odd wives, and his horrible track record with his children. Moses had commanded that children be raised with great respect for the requirements of the Lord. Was David relying on his own understanding of what God wanted instead of reading it as written in the Books of Moses?

It was not until the remnant of Israel was returned to the land of promise that they began to revere God’s Word. Perhaps they finally realized what they had been missing. Fortunately, the destruction of the temple did not include the loss of the scrolls of Moses. The captivity in Babylon forced the Israelites to consider what they had lost. Among those lost things was the Law. In post-exile Palestine, the institution of the synagogue (which had its beginnings in Babylon) became almost as important as the temple itself. The rise of the scribes and Pharisees who are so prominent in the time of Christ also began during this period. It is believed that Ezra, one of the returnees from Babylon, wrote much of the history of Israel as we now have it. The rabbis, a feature of the synagogues, began to write commentaries and other genre such as the apocryphal books that Jews respect even to this day.

We know that the canon of Jewish scripture was well developed by 150 B.C. because a group of Alexandrian Jewish scholars translated their scriptures into Greek in what became known as the Septuagint. Jesus and the writers of the books we now call our New Testament, all make reference to the Word of God as the Jews had received it. The devout Jews and then the early Christians, many of whom were converted Jews, had great reverence for the Scripture. They knew their lives depended on it, and they often gave their lives for it. And they turned the world upside down.

I am about to beat a dead horse, so pardon me. Search any pollyou can find about Bible reading in the modern church, especially in America, and you will be dismayed by its absence. If that were not bad enough, polls also prove that even those who claim to read and believe the Bible differ very little in their lifestyles from those who make no such claims. I wonder where the Josiahs are who could find in Scripture a reason to tear their clothes and weep over the rediscovery of God’s word.

If the modern church seems to be powerless to do anything about America’s descent into paganism, it is because her people don’t read their Bibles; they are ignorant of the power they have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To quote N.T. Wright, the message of Christ’s resurrection is, “that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ, and that you’re now invited to belong to it…. There are many parts of the world we can’t do anything about except pray. But there is one part of the world… we can do something about, and that is the creature each of us calls ‘myself.’ Personal holiness and global holiness belong together. Those who wake up to the one may well find themselves called to wake up to the other as well.”

It is just as Paul encouraged the Romans, “Wake up… The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So, remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see.” (Romans 13:11-13 NLT) This echoes what Jesus said, “Let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” We need to bring the church out of the new dark ages it has fallen into. Light it up! Read the Book.

Related posts: Read This Or Die; Through the Bible in Seven Minutes; Take the Bible Literally; Understanding the Bible as Literature; What Did You Do Today; Merely Christian