We are all born into an impossible predicament. When we are first conceived, we are conceived with a built-in terminal illness. Every single day that passes, is a day we come closer to succumbing to that illness. The weirdest part of this is that we don’t know if we have a few years, a few days, or a few minutes left. The best scientists and doctors are absolutely helpless to do anything about this universal death sentence. Death cannot be avoided.
Yet somehow, for the majority of my life, I did a great job avoiding death as an issue. I rarely thought about it. My friends as far as I know never thought about it, and I never really knew anyone close who had died. I think most of you, if you’re honest, rarely think about the implications of death, and what death really is. But the truth is, that what we think or don’t think about the reality of death has a profound impact on the way we conduct our lives day to day.
There are really only two basic choices about what happens when we die:
1. Nothing. This is the view of someone who believes that there is no self, besides the physical self. (This view, in my opinion, is obviously false. Though this is a debate for another time)
2. The soul lives on in some other capacity. (I think that the existence of a soul is obvious upon careful self-reflection, but see a good argument for dualism here. )
If there is no “self” separate from the body, then when we die we are gone. This may seem obvious, but I challenge you to do some careful reflection on this fact. What does this mean? Honestly, it’s hard to wrap your head around this idea. The last scene of the Soprano’s, debatably, tried to capture the essence of this. One moment, you’re with your family, about to order some onion rings, listening to Journey, the next minute… silence and black. Only silence and black doesn’t explain it at all. You have to be able to perceive silence and black. Dead flesh doesn’t perceive anything. Again, I challenge you to reflect on this. It’s a mind bending concept to imagine what oblivion is like.
It’s also really depressing. If oblivion is what awaits us, what in the world are we doing here? Why do we feel the need to do anything? Why are you going to work, going to the gym, loving our families, trying to eat right? What’s the point? The atheist says, “There is no point!”, then simultaneously tries to convince us to stand up against evil, or to care about global warming, or some cause. Why should I?
I love that scene in Seinfeld. The group is reflecting on death, after Jerry’s infamous “Pony Remark” kills his aunt Manya:
GEORGE: [Funerals] always make me take stock of my life and how I've pretty much wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.
JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, "From this moment on, I'm not going to waste any more of it." But then you go, "How? What can I do that's not wasting it?"ELAINE: Is this a waste of time? What should we be doing? Can't you have coffee with people?
They then go on with their conversation, but this is so true. If death is just death, then we’re all just killing time. If death is meaningless, life is meaningless. Most atheists don’t live like this though and most people in general do believe in an immaterial “self”/soul, and life after death. Most people are willing to trust their instincts that life does have meaning.
As I have stated before, I have good reason to believe that Christianity is true. So what does the Bible say about the prospect of death?
The Bible teaches that the human soul, once created, never dies. There are very good reasons to believe that this is true. But it has a lot to say about carnal death. There is a lot of this in the Bible. I won’t go into too much detail but I have noticed an interesting feature in the stories.
When major players in the Bible story die, besides Jesus, it really just moves the story along right away. There is no pomp, there is no circumstance. It’s just over, and the story continues. I think this is intentional. God wants us to know, no matter how great and powerful we think we are, when we die on this earth, the earthly power and wealth we have, utterly meaningless and totally worthless. Check out some classic biblical eulogies:
Abraham, father of the Israelites:
Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.Samuel the Prophet:
Then Samuel died; and all Israel gathered together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house in Ramah.And the famous King David:
Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. These guys were majors. They got a sentence each. The bible teaches that our life on this earth, while meaningful, is fleeting. It comes and it goes like the snap of a finger. We are often compared to grass. Here today gone tomorrow. But the Bible also teaches that we were created for a home that is NOT this earth. We were created for heaven.
Many of you who are reading this probably believe that the Bible teaches that good people go to heaven. Most believe that in the end if your good deeds outweigh the bad deeds, a good God will have to let you in. This doesn’t really make any sense. How would you gauge it? Would you have to be a 51%er, in the top 50% of goodness? How could you possibly know that you would make that cut? Furthermore, would it be “good” of God to turn someone away in the 49%ers (49% good deeds and 51% bad)? And what would he do for the 50%ers, with equal amounts of good and bad?
The truth is that the qualification for heaven is not about being good, it’s about being perfect. You get in through perfection. This is really really good news. The perfection of Jesus is good enough for all of us. The 90%ers, the 50%ers, even the 10%ers can all tap into the free gift of God that is Jesus. Believe on Jesus, and your soul (the real “you”) will spend forever with him in heaven.
As I stood in front of my grandmother’s lifeless body a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about her. I knew her through that body. It was how I recognized her as child, but was it that body that I loved? Impossible. The love I had for my grandmother had nothing to do with her physical body….it was her soul that I loved…the real her.
But the real “her” is still very much alive. She was a powerful woman of God, with a strong faith in the Lord. She held on to the reality of his promises until the very end, and faced her own death with courage, fearlessness and confidence. She prayed to God unceasingly for me, that He would soften my hard heart. That he would remove whatever it was that kept me rebelling so hard against him. I found this out at the funeral. I thank God that he answered that prayer.
My prayer is the same for you. I pray for whoever is reading this… come to Christ. If you don’t know what this means or how to do this, email me, or I’d be glad to talk this out over the phone. I will leave you with this. You are not going to die. I mean the real you, the you that is separate from your body. You will go on living forever. I urge you to accept the gift of heaven. Living forever with God is going to be better than we can possibly imagine.
