Are You Afraid To Die?

by Richard Allen Bodey

Are you afraid to die?

"What man," asks R. W. Gilder in his book Love and Death, "can look on death unterrified?" "He who pretends to face death without fear," charged the French philosopher Rousseau, "is a liar."

We are all caught up in mortal encounter with the fear of death. Our fear is chiselled into the very names with which men have labelled death: the dark angel, the grim reaper, the king of terrors. Even in our sophisticated age of computers, robots, artificial organs and transplants, earth satellites, and lunar touchdowns, we are unable still to shake ourselves free from this most ancient, most devastating of all fears.

But the fetters can be broken. The shackles can be loosed. Christ delivers men from bondage to fear. That, as the author of Hebrews tells us, is one reason He took our flesh and suffered death Himself.

"Since these children are people with physical bodies, Jesus himself became like them. He did this so that, by dying, he could destroy the one who has the power of death—the devil—and free those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15,)

Take a close look at the fear of death. Examine some of the chains with which death binds our hearts in terror. Then see how Christ shatters them when we trust Him utterly and completely.

The Chain of Loneliness

After God created Adam and placed him in Eden, He said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will provide a partner for him." Not even the perfect charm and beauty of his earthly paradise were enough to make Adam's life complete. He needed one thing more. He needed someone with whom he could share the wonder and adventure of life. So God made Eve and joined her to Adam in the sacred bonds of love.

God has created us with a built-in need for love and companionship. A writer captured this truth in the striking title of her book, You Can't Be Human Alone. No normal person wants to be a hermit. Doctors tell us that one of the worst ills suffocating the lives of multitudes in our impersonal world today is just plain loneliness. Especially do we feel this need in our moments of personal crisis. In our weakness we cry out for the comfort of another's voice, the bracing grip of another's hand. Even the Son of God took His closest disciples along with Him when He went to wrestle in the agony of the garden.

But what could be more lonely than death?

A minister was talking with his little boy who was dying. The little fellow looked up into his father's face and asked, "Daddy, am I going to die?" With broken heart and trembling lips the father replied, "Yes, Sonny, the doctor says so. Are you afraid? " "No," answered the little boy, "I am not afraid. But I wish somebody could go along with me."

No small part of death's terror for us lies right there. We must do our dying alone. When we breathe our last, when we close our eyes for the last time on earth's familiar scenes, we slip out into the darkness alone. Loved ones may stand vigil by us to the end, but they cannot go with us beyond the veil. Bereft of all human comfort and support, defenceless before the savagery of this monstrous foe, we enter the gates of death alone. Well may we shudder at the thought.

But Jesus Christ smashes the chain and sets us free.

The loneliness of death is not what it seems. We are alone, yet not alone. Christ is with us. He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Though the cruel hand of death severs us from all human companionship, it cannot sever us from Him.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," said the psalmist, "I fear no evil; for thou art with me" (Psalm 23:4). When we come to that valley, we shall find that the Good Shepherd, who has been our constant guide and protector, is with us still. In His keeping we can go on unafraid.

When he was a young man, the Scottish evangelist John McNeil worked in a community seven miles from his village home. Every Saturday night he walked the distance home to spend the Lord's Day with his family. One Saturday it was past midnight when he set out. The road wound through a dreary glen, and two miles from his home it became black as a wolf's maw as the road cut through a high wooded hill. He had heard tales of travelers who had been ambushed and robbed on the road.

As he neared this most forbidding stretch he quickened his pace so that his feet barely skimmed the ground. All at once, out of the blackness came a strong masculine voice. "Is that you, Johnnie?" It nearly bolted him to the ground. When he recovered, he realized that his father had come to meet him at the worst of the road.

"The rest of the way home," said Dr. McNeil, "I feared no evil, for my father was with me." Never will our Saviour let us walk through death's dark valley or cross its deep, chill river alone. The loneliness of death frightens us. But we hear the voice of Jesus, "Fear not, for I will be with you; do not be dismayed" (Isaiah 43:1-2). And our fear melts before His promise.

The Chain of the Unknown

A second and stronger chain with which death binds our hearts in terror is the fear of the unknown. To our human view the realm of the dead remains forever shrouded in uncertainty. We can make no contact with it. We know nothing at all about it. No one ever returns to unlock for us its secret. Neither science, nor philosophy, not even religion can tear away its veil of mystery.

"A fearful leap into the dark!" That is how the great sceptic Thomas Hobbes summed it up as he stood on the threshold of eternity. At best the mind of man can only speculate on what awaits us beyond the veil. But our anxious hearts cry out for something more solid than flimsy guesses in the dark.

Think how much is at stake here.

For all we can tell, the dead are as nonexistent as the unborn. What, then, if death is the end of everything? What if when our hearts stop beating we are blown out like a match in the wind? What if death plunges us into a voiceless abyss of extinction? What if death destroys forever the loving ties between husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend? Before unanswerable questions like these the bravest heart grows numb with fear.

But once again Christ smashes the chain and bids our fear be gone.

Death is not the end.

In Christ we are not destined for an eternal void, a bleak and silent wasteland of destruction. He died and was buried, and lo, the third day He rose again in the power of an endless life. By His resurrection He has brought life and immortality to light. And He shares with us His conquest. "Because I live," He says, "you will live also" (John 14:19).

"Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:26). Death is not the end, not the final curtain falling on the senseless drama of life. It is only a passage to another life, a gateway on the skyline. In Christ the last word is not death. The last word is LIFE -- eternal, imperishable, radiant, glorious life!

But this is not all. To silence our anxieties, Jesus also gives us hints and suggestions about what the life beyond is like. First, He says that we shall be with Him. "I go to prepare a place for you. And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also" (John 14:2b-3).

It is significant that when Paul anticipated death, he never talked about going to heaven. "My desire is to depart and be with Christ," he wrote (Philippians 1:23). "Away from the body," he said again, "we are at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). In the book of Revelation, wherever we see the saints in heaven, they are always with Jesus.

"What is heaven to a reasonable soul?" asked Luther.

Answering his own question he replied, "Nothing else but Jesus." To be with Jesus, to see Him face to face, to dwell in the sunlight of His love forever with never a shadow between us - if we know Him at all we know nothing could be half so wonderful as that. It is enough. If we shall be with Him, all will be well.

Again, Jesus indicates that in heaven we shall have fellowship with the redeemed of all ages. "Many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 8:11). How thrilling it will be to meet in person and come to know as friends those heroes of faith whom we read about in the Bible and in the history of the Church!

But there is something even more wonderful in this thought. For it includes reunion with our own dear ones in the Lord. Remember that Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms" (John 14:2). The Father's house! When a Christian dies he goes home. And what is home? It is the place where love dwells, where heart embraces heart in closest union, where the richest joys, the tenderest memories, and the fondest dreams are shared.

And where human love is made holy in Christ, heart will find heart again in deeper union and fuller joy in God's eternal home. Could any description of heaven be more beautiful than this? Death shall not mock our hearts forever. Death cannot separate God's children forever. In heaven our bitter tears of farewell will turn sweet in the gladness of reunion.

Dean Stanley of Westminster Abbey inscribed these words on his wife's tomb: "Till death us unite." For Christians that is no idle dream. Love's broken cords will be reknit. In His eternal home our heavenly Father will at last restore to us all whom we have loved in Christ and lost awhile. Nor shall we ever part again.

And then, Christ assures us that in the world to come we shall enjoy a life of perfect blessedness. In the book of Revelation John recorded the visions of this heavenly glory Christ revealed to him. In contrast with this present world, there will be no sorrow, grief, or tears (Revelation 21:4). We shall be set free from all cares and burdens, all trials and temptations, all frustrations, failures, wants and fears. Pain and suffering will cease. Nothing that displeases God, nor any trace of His curse, will be found there.

There will be no funeral chapels or cemeteries, for death itself will be swallowed up in an ever flowing floodtide of life. Every barrier to life, every fetter of the soul, every cloud of unhappiness will vanish because sin will be forever gone. Crowning this blessedness will be our new relationship to God. We shall see Him in all His splendour. We shall be holy, as He is holy. We shall dwell in His presence in unbroken communion with Him.

In the strength of new and enlarged powers, we shall serve Him with untiring devotion. With the angels we shall join in adoring worship around His throne. Secure in His love and favour, and possessing every possible good, we shall reign with God and with our Saviour in an ecstasy of joy forever.

The British Bible scholar G.T. Manley told of a little Muslim girl who had been looking at some Gospel pictures. The next day she greeted her teacher with a beaming face. "Oh, Sitt!" she exclaimed. "Last night I saw Jesus in a dream and He is a hundred times better than the pictures." Just so we shall find that heaven, too, is a hundred times better than the picture.

Endless life with Christ; fellowship with all the redeemed, including reunion with our own loved ones in the Lord; and blessedness beyond imagination - by this revelation Christ liberates us from the dread of the unknown.

The Chain of Judgment

By far the heaviest chain with which death binds our hearts in terror is the fear of judgment. On every hand voices warn us of a reckoning up ahead. With deafening insistence conscience thunders it. Reason proclaims that if life has any meaning at all we must render account of it to God. History in some of its most dramatic moments foreshadows it.

In solemn tones holy Scripture again and again confirms these lesser witnesses. "It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). God "commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).

Some day God will summon us all before His judgment throne. How momentous are the issues of that judgment! How final and far-reaching! From the lips of one who knows the most secret secrets of our hearts, and whose judgment is unerring, we shall hear the verdict that proclaims and seals our eternal destiny. From that verdict there is no appeal. Never.

Judgement.

A terrifying thought, indeed. How shall we escape God's wrath and condemnation? Who of us, even before the court of his own conscience, would care to defend his innocence of all moral fault and blame? Who would dare to claim that his life has always and in all things been pleasing to God?

No, we are dyed indelibly with our guilt. Nothing we do can ever rub it out. We have revolted against God and enthroned self over the empire of our hearts. We have smeared the tablets of His law with our protests and obscenities. We have mocked His vengeance by our disobedience. With our lusts and passions, our envy and worldliness, our pride, our hatefulness, our ingratitude and unbelief, we have defiled the temples of our souls in which He longs to dwell. We have even despised His love.

I say this reverently: If God has a scrap of self-respect, He cannot let us off as if our sins were nothing worse than the pranks and capers of a mischievous boy. If He really is just and holy, if He loves righteousness and hates sin, as He says He does, then He must surely cast us off.

That man was a fool who said, "When I get to the judgment seat of God all that I will ask for is justice." If justice is all we get, we shall every last one of us be banished to the outer darkness and flames of hell forever. When in death's hands we read that summons to judgment, who does not pale with horror? But, blessed be God, Christ comes again and shatters this chain too, driving our very worst fear away on the tides of His everlasting mercy.

What is the heart of the Gospel?

Just this. At Calvary the sinless Son of God bore for all who trust Him God's judgment on our sins. In His own soul He absorbed and exhausted God's wrath against us. With His own blood He paid our penalty and purchased our peace with God.

By His self-sacrifice He so perfectly satisfied all the claims of divine justice against us that God can remain righteous, yet for Jesus' sake cancel our sins, pronounce us "not guilty," and accept us as if we really were righteous.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," cried the apostle (Romans 8:1). The very moment we come in faith to the cross God gives us our pardon and welcomes us into His family. Then and there we pass forever out of death into life in Jesus Christ our Lord. No longer do we dread the day of judgment. We face it instead with confidence and expectancy. The verdict is not in doubt. Our acquittal is secure. In a very real sense there is no judgment for us at all.

At the cross of Christ the fear of judgment is banished from our hearts. The chain falls off, and we go our way in peace. The fear of loneliness, the fear of the unknown, the fear of judgement - our wonderful, wonderful Saviour liberates us from them all. Are you afraid to die?'

If you are not trusting Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have every reason to be afraid. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). Yet, this very minute you can find peace with God. Christ invites you to leave with Him the whole burden of your sin. He pleads with you to commit your eternal destiny to Him. If you do, He will put your fear to flight.

If you are already a Christian, there is nothing in death for you to be afraid of. Nothing at all. You may still naturally shrink from death and wish you could avoid it, since death is, after all, an enemy, not a friend. But never again need you cower before it in dread and terror.

Death cannot harm you.

Christ has broken its power over you, and in His keeping you are safe forever. Now He bids your fear be gone. Free from the torment of its bondage, journey home in peace, singing as you go faith's triumph song, "0 death, where is thy victory? 0 grave, where is thy sting? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55,57).

Richard Bodey is a retired pastor and seminary professor.