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Death: The Real Story

Reflecting on What God Says, Warns, and Promises about Death

the Evangelical Free Church of Redwood FallsPastor: Brian Swedburg

Fall 2016Chapter 1 The Real Story

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The Word of God is straightforward and consistent about death.

Birth and death are reality for all humanity (Ecc 3:1-8; 3:19; Ez 32:17-32; Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22). Birth is good and death is bad (Gen 1:28; Gen 2:17 & 1 Cor 15:54-55). Death is in fact the final enemy of humanity (1 Cor 15:26), because we were not created immortal souls (1 Tim 6:16; 2 Tim 1:10).

Just as the Old Testament promised (Gen 12:1-3; Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:10-11; Is 25:8 & 53:10-12; Ez 37; Hos 6:1-3), God has come to us in Jesus to free us from both death, and its shadow, the sting that brings death, that is, sin (Matt 1:21; John 1:9-13; 3:1-21; 5:18-24; Rom 5-6; 2 Tim 1:10) The death of Jesus is the death we deserve as sinners, both atoning for and freeing us from slavery to sin and death (Luke 24:44-49; Rom 5-6; 1 Cor 15).

The resurrected Jesus is life Himself (John 1, 5), our life (Jn 15, 17), and the promise of resurrected life for eternity (Matt 22:28-32; John 11:24-26; Romans 6:5; 1 Cor 15:20; 50-57; Col 1:18; Rev 20), for all who are born anew by taking Jesus at His word.

The resurrected Jesus has bodily ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven (Jn 20:17, 20, 27; Acts 1:9-11; Heb 1:3; Rev 5:5-7).

He restores us to humanity, bearing His image in all creation, by the rebirth of His presence in and through us, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, until we die or Jesus comes again. (Jn 1:9-11; Rom 6, 8:11; Col 3:10-11; Titus 3:4-6)

Those who trust in Him need not fear death, as grievous as it is (Ps 116:15; 2 Sam 3:31-32; 12:16-23; John 11:33 & 35), for it will usher them into His presence, to rest until the resurrection

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(Luke 16:19-31; 23:43; Jn 5:24; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:21-23; 1 Thess 4:17-18; Rev 6:9-11). This initial paradise is not our hope, but a time of waiting, in His presence.

For those who reject the grace, and life that God offers, the Bible explains (65 times!) that sheol, the pit, will be their dark and comfortless resting place (Gen 37:35; 1 Sam 2:6; Job 7:9, 24:19; Ps 6:5; Prov 5:5; Is 14; Hos13:4) in death.

Jesus will Himself return bodily (Matt 24:30; Luke 17:22-24; 1 Thess 4:13-18; Tit 2:11-13; Rev 5:5-7, 19:11-16) for

- the restoration of heaven and earth forever (Is 66:22-24; Rom 8:21-23; 2 Pet 3:3-13; Rev 21-22)

- the destruction of all evil (1 Cor 15:25-26; 2 Pet 3; Rev 20)

- the final judgment of all mankind (Dan 12; Matt 16:27; John 5; Acts 10:34-43, 17:30-31; 2 Cor 5:10; Heb 9:27-28; Rev 20)

- the final resurrection of all mankind. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20)

On this day of His return, those who have already died will precede those currently alive in this transforming, or condemning resurrection. (1 Thess 4:13-18)

When he returns all humanity will be separated by one of 2 resurrections. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5:18-24; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20) All who have taken God at His Word in Jesus receive the gift of immortality by resurrection in the presence of God in the new heavens and earth…. All who have rejected the grace of God in Jesus will receive the curse of resurrection to eternal death in the lake of fire.

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The Bible is straightforward and consistent about all of this. So, why are churched and unchurched people in America equally confused and troubled by death?

Certainly, death is terrible and painful loss and trauma for us all. Death troubled and grieved both King David and King Jesus. It is an issue that is tangled with evil and suffering in our minds, and to people we have known. The pain and grief of death does overwhelm and confuse us.

But again, given the consistent teaching of the Bible, why would churched people have the following reincarnation poem on their funeral bulletins?

Do not stand at my grave and weep;I am not there. I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.I am the diamond glints on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain.I am the gentle autumn rain.…

Do not stand at my grave and cry;I am not there. I do not die.

(Often attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye: 1904-2004; quoted from “Surprised by Hope,” by N.T. Wright, Harper One, 2008. P 11.)

How about the church play I attended several years ago where when people died they all awoke to Jesus and the devil? Jesus took all the good ones to heaven, and Satan threw all the bad ones in hell. I was so angry and sad! Just in case you aren’t sure… this is not at all what the Bible warns and promises us… so why would it be the basis of a large denomination’s outreach strategy?

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How often are we expected to nod to the common assumptions that…whenever anyone dies, they have gone to a better place. I find it painfully sad when people say “they are not really dead if we remember them in our hearts.” Really, they are not really dead!?

Maybe, some of us church going people have simply not seriously considered what the Bible says. Maybe some of us have had too little experience with death to pay attention. For some, how do we open ourselves up to belief in a blessed heaven or resurrection, when one of our loved ones, who has died, has rejected a savior? The sense of betrayal almost rules out such a hope.

Some of us have way too much exposure and experience with death. Perhaps you have been in war, or faced the death of a child, or faced death early on as a child… Dr. Friese was telling me that this kind of trauma as a child can literally change the way our brains function… Friends, our over-exposer to death can affect us like over-exposed film and leave us either clinging to

- any happy thought- or numb to all hopeful possibilities.

Even though you’d like to believe in the Bible, have you been cornered into one of these two directions by loss and death? Do you cope by affirming and clinging to any happy thought people have in the face of death… or are you numb to such fantastic possibilities as heaven, in this world of chance, biology, and cause and effect?

There is a song, that portrays these two perspectives many of us have taken refuge in, in the face of death, in the musical “Finding Neverland.” I don’t share it with you because it is

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true, but because it is beautifully and painfully ‘true to these 2 experiences’ in the face of death.

The musical tells a story of J.M. Barrie, the author of the children’s classic “Peter Pan.” In this Broadway rendition, we find that Barrie is struggling with his marriage and career when he meets the beautiful widow Sylvia, and her four sons, Jack, George, Michael and… Peter. This grieving family provides the spark that Barrie needs to imagine and produce the “Peter Pan” story.

In the duet that follows (“When Your Feet Don’t Touch the Ground,” words and music by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxz9DWDzJIE is a link to watch a blending of the live recording and stage presentation of the song), Peter is stuck in the grief of the reality of his father’s death, and Barrie is inviting him to embrace ‘make believe’ as the power that can free him.

Barrie: When did life become so complicated?Years of too much thought and time I wasted,And in each line upon my face,Is proof I fought and lived another day.

When did life become this place of madness?Drifting on an empty sea of waves and sadness?I make believe I'm in control,And dream it wasn't all my fault.

When your feet don't touch the ground,When your voice won't make a sound.Here, it's safe, in this place,Up off the clouds.When your feet don't touch the earth,You can't feel the fates that hurtAnd you're free, there's no needTo come down.

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Peter: Everyday just feels a little longerWhy am I the only one not getting stronger?Running around pretending life's a play,It doesn't make the darkness go away.

I may be young but I can still rememberFeeling full of joy, crying tears of laughterNow all my tears are all cried out,Make-believe, but count me out.

'Cause my feet are on the ground,And the inner voice I foundTells the truth, "There's no use,If your head's in the clouds"With my feet on solid earth,I can face the fates that hurt,And in time, I'll be fine,I'll come 'round.

Barrie: I was once like you.Life was a maze.I couldn't find my way out.But what I say is true,You will be amazed,Make-believe and you will find out that it's true.

Barrie and Peter sing simultaneously their choruses…When your feet don't touch the ground…'Cause my feet are on the ground…

As Francis Schaeffer might say, this song rings beautifully true, not because it is true, but ‘because it accurately captures our despair’, and the 2 choices that seem to be our only choices in the face of despair and death: ‘make believe’… or hopeless realism.

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In preparation for taking hold of what the Bible realistically promises and warns us about death, will we confess and turn away from these 2 cul-de-sacs that our culture has chosen for us?

The stories of natural evolution, and the invincible human spirit in this godless world, have been the mother’s milk we were raised on, our factual reality story in education and public policy, for decades now. We have been told there is no hope, no truth, no savior, only biology and chance and survival of the fittest, and the pursuit of the things that make me happy. We are taught that the religious perspective is fine if it helps people cope, but only in private, not in education, public discussion, politics, law, courts, etc.…

Consequently, ideas such as heaven and hell have become embarrassing ‘make believe’ to many of us… resurrections must be metaphors, and religious stories can be meaningful and beautiful, but not true. In the end, death is still a frightening specter under the bed that we hope to jump over when the time comes.

If you and I are to really lay hold of the reality of the Gospel for death, first, we must let go of the 2 dead end options of our modern world, either sterile and meaningless life and death, or make believe.

Second, we must get a hold of the story that makes realistic sense of our lives and our deaths. The Gospel invites us to find that heaven and hell and resurrection are not just random religious thoughts meant to comfort people who use their imagination to escape reality. They are part of the realism of how and why this world came to be what it is… and how and why we are here… When we know the whole story, we can lay a hold of and make sense of death in the

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world we actually live in day to day, instead of resigning ourselves to ‘make believe’ or life and death without meaning.

Today, I tell you the broad story that makes sense of life and death. Then in the following 2 chapters, we will restore our hope in the details and doctrine of God’s justice in death and in resurrection, by the Gospel.

Our Gospel Story

God…the Father, Son, and the Spirit…

…created this planet, in seven days… He spoke, and according to His heart and mind and designs, all things came into being, seen and unseen, in the heavens and the earth. God gave life to mankind, breathing that life into his frame. People, male and female, husband and wife in family, were the very center of this creation. As God’s spitting image, man and woman together pro-created life and were God’s stewards of all life on earth, guarding and cultivating God’s good life for us all.

…but there was one thing, out of all the things in the garden of this world that was off limits to the man and woman… the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, the place where a person chooses right and wrong for themselves, instead of letting God make that decision. Adam and Eve chose to be wise in and of themselves… to disregard God’s perfect and loving instructions… to disregard their special role…to give regard to the advice of a snake in the garden… to take the thing that they desired… the very choice that God warned them would be their death… the very thing that the snake mocked and refuted, “you will not

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die!” And so Satan urged Eve to go ahead and eat… to choose for herself and disregard God.

On the other side of their choice, Adam and Eve began to experience the shadow and spread of death that God warned them of. In grace and truth, God moved them out of reach of the tree of life, and covered their newly discovered sense of naked shame in the mercy of animal skins. Adam and Eve found their marriage dying in a competitive rivalry, rather than a complimentary companionship. This death of human rivalry tore the family apart at the seams when Cain slit his brother’s throat.

It became harder and harder to accomplish the work that would provide for their family… because the death’s long shadow, sin, had corrupted the very ground and nature of nature. The wonder of childbirth would already be tainted with the pain that shadows death. Yes, it was plain now that death could be seen in the shadow it cast before itself in human sin, and in nature’s corruption, even before it struck its final blow to Abel, and to all who would die in this world.

By the sixth chapter of the Bible, it is plain that this is not just Adam and Eve’s problem, but the problem of each and every man and woman and child, created to live as the spitting image of God in this world, with a life of meaning and purpose for God’s glory and this creation’s good… who become terminally corrupt by their desire to choose right and wrong for themselves, instead. And so, the shadow of death spread in so many, many ways through the sin of those who were meant to live and bring the light of God’s life, wherever they went. All of this culminates in Genesis 11, in the international attempt to usurp God in the tower of Babel.

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But God… being rich in mercy…because of His great love with which he loved us… had a plan and spoke His promise to restore all things from death to life. In Genesis 11 & 12 God puts his plan into motion, calling Abram out of Ur, and promising Abram and Sarai, his barren wife, the impossible restoration of life as a family, and God’s family blessing in all of creation. There would be a ‘seed’ and child, who would put the mess of this shadow of death by sin in this world, aright, blessing all who would return to taking God at His Word, and furthering the curse among all who reject Him. Galatians teaches us in simple language that that ‘seed,’ that child would be the long awaited Messiah, Jesus. The hope of this anointed Son of God coming to right all wrongs, and bring life to a landscape of death would be a chorus sung over and over by God’s people and prophets throughout the Old Testament, as they waited for the One who would condemn all evil and deliver God’s people.

Yet the Old Testament was a time of waiting for this hope, this life. God’s grace to His people in waiting was the Covenant and the Law to lead them to know and walk in life with God. While Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy could not take away death and give life, they perfectly provided a map of the tangled landscape of life and death, good and evil, blessing and curse, for God’s people to trust and allow God to navigate them in His way, choosing life, instead of death.

ESV Deuteronomy 30:11-20 "For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?'

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14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. 15 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."

This Torah and Covenant would be the gracious ‘tutor’ of God to lead God’s people through this world’s mottled landscape of life and death… if…. they would trust Him and follow. Over and over the people of God chose the idols and lies popular in their time, always eating at the tree by choosing for themselves, always dying the slow death of suppressing the truth of God.

Kings would come and go. Some would lead them toward the very life giving paths of Torah and walking with God each day. King David would be a glimpse of the promised life in God’s Kingdom. Other kings would lead the people back into the blind darkness of the shadows of death, in a variety of fashionable and popular sins.

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God faithfully spoke light and life through His prophets, like Isaiah.

Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. 3 'Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?' Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

6 "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.' If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. 11 And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places

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and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. 58:1-12 (ESV)

But, as Jesus tells us in John 3, the people preferred darkness to light, because their deeds were evil.

Finally, the ‘seed,’ the child, life Himself, stepped off the pages of the book and out of the hidden glory of heaven, to be born in the dirt of a cattle trough, just as He promised. God the Father came to us in God the Son, conceived in the virgin’s womb by God the Spirit. He would grow up and every word and action and miracle would be the life and light of God Himself. Then, He would go to the cross, to death, in the place of all sinful and dying humanity. But death could not hold Him. On the third day, the Messiah King Jesus rose as the victor over death and sin and the devil. He is the firstborn from the dead, so that, all who trust in Him may be certain they will share in His resurrection, come the final Day.

Yes, in light of this reality, we see the need and the sanity of how God has dealt with life and death, by coming to us, in Jesus…

…to free us from both death, and its shadow, the sting that brings death, our sin. He has atoned for and freed us from slavery to sin and death by His cross.

That he resurrected Jesus is life Himself, and the promise of resurrected life for eternity, for all who are born anew by taking Jesus at His word.

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That the resurrected Jesus has bodily ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven.

He restores us to humanity, bearing His image in all creation, by the rebirth of His presence in and through us, by the life of the Holy Spirit, until we die or Jesus comes again.

That those who reject the grace, and life that God offers, that sheol, the pit, will be their dark and comfortless resting place in death.

Those who trust in Him need not fear death, as dreadful as it is, for it will usher them into His presence, to rest until the resurrection. This initial paradise is not our hope, but a time of waiting, in His presence.

Jesus will Himself return bodily for the final judgment of all mankind, the restoration of heaven and earth forever, the destruction of all evil, and the final resurrection of all mankind. On this day of His return, those who have already died will precede those currently alive in this transforming, or condemning resurrection.

When he returns all humanity will be separated by one of 2 resurrections. All who have taken God at His Word in Jesus receive the gift of immortality by resurrection in the presence of God in the new heavens and earth…. All who have rejected the grace of God in Jesus will receive the curse of resurrection to eternal death in the lake of fire.

Will you trust His story, confessing and leaving behind the 2 cul-de-sacs our culture has cornered us in, humanistic ‘make believe,’ or rationalistic hopelessness?

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You have the basics before you. Re-read the story, and begin to study through the basic promises and warnings about death that God has freely given us. (pages 2-3 of this study)

God will not only change our dying, but the way we live, by His grace in Jesus.

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Chapter 2 Ashes to Ashes… Dust to Dust… to Resurrection!

I don’t know how you see life and death, how you see the life you are living right now, but God has graciously told us that this…

this branch broken from its life source in my backyard, is us, in more than one way. We are dying. The branch is still alive, for now, but it is now dying… like every man, woman, and child.

Graciously, God explains to us why we are dying, and what He has done about it.

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This is terribly important, because if we are able to move past the 2 dead end answers our culture has schooled us in,

- that we are just hopeless biological machines with no meaning and purpose that will eventually run their course…

- or, that we are welcome to any religious or secular ‘make believe’ that helps us cope

…even beyond these dead ends…we may misunderstand the doctrines of heaven and hell as some sort of temper tantrum by our control freak God who demands we keep the rules by threats of eternal fire!

But no… that is not what God is about… for us… in His Gospel. God knows and explains to us that we are mortally wounded… dying… because like Adam and Eve we have all of us torn ourselves from the very source of our life…God… by our sinful independence from Him. Our dying is both physical, and moral, and the two are inseparably intertwined.

The Death begun at the tree of Genesis 3; Proverbs repeatedly describes in our moral lives.

Proverbs 1:31-33 31 "So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way And be satiated with their own devices. 32 "For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them. 33 "But he who listens to me shall live securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil."

Proverbs 9:13-18 The woman of folly is boisterous, She is naive and knows nothing. 14 She sits at the doorway of her house, On a seat by the high places of the city, 15

Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight: 16 "Whoever is naive, let him turn in here," And to him who lacks understanding she says, 17 "Stolen water

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is sweet; And bread eaten in secret is pleasant." 18 But he does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

Romans 5 explains our moral and physical death.Romans 5:8-12 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. … 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--

Jesus tells us He is the only remedy for us morally and physically.

John 11:21-26 21 Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.22 "Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

In the next chapter, we will more fully explore our moral death and resurrection. This week we explore and stand in awe of what God has done, in love, in grace, and great personal cost… to save our lives from physical death… if we will return to Him, and trust once again that all life and joy and truth and good is wrapped up in Him.

Let’s begin to walk through the doctrine laid out at the very beginning of this study.

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Those who trust in Jesus need not fear death, as grievous as it is (Ps 116:15; 2 Sam 3:31-32; 12:16-23; John 11:33 & 35), for it will usher them into His presence, to rest until the resurrection (Luke 16:19-31; 23:43; Jn 5:24; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:21-23; 1 Thess 4:17-18; Rev 6:9-11). This initial paradise is not our hope, but a time of waiting, in His presence.

Please know that your grief and sorrow in the death of loved ones, or the evil and death that overwhelm us through the media daily, is not wrong. In John 11, even Jesus, who knew He would raise Lazurus, grieved at the graveside of his friend. The hope of resurrection is taught to us in 1 Thess 4 not to prevent our grief, but to prevent us grieving without hope.

While the manner of our deaths may be frightening, the grave is not our resting place. We are assured that in death, all who have taken God as He is in Jesus, will enter into His presence, in a mysterious incomplete way, to await the day of our bodily resurrection.



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Friends, the resurrection of Jesus is the lynch pin of Christianity and history. 1 Cor 15:16-23. If you want to have some form of Christianity where Jesus is not really risen from the dead, I would simply encourage you that in a free country you may believe that the moon is made of cheese, but the Bible does not call this Christianity, and neither should we.

In both 1 Cor 15 and in Col 1, Jesus is referred to as the first fruits of the resurrection. He is the fulfillment of the festival in which Israel brought the very earliest offerings from the crops that were growing and would yield their harvest (Ex 22; Deut 26). All of Israel brought a first portion of that early crop as the evidence that the rest would follow in the harvest. In just the same way, Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee that we too will rise come that final day of judgement.


While it does escape our notice, perhaps because we are used to thinking of heaven in terms of a floaty ghostlike existence, once Jesus is risen, He retains that resurrected body in every appearance!

Jesus will Himself return bodily (Matt 24:30; Luke 17:22-24; 1 Thess 4:13-18; Tit 2:11-13; Rev 5:5-7, 19:11-16) accomplishing at least 4 things related to death.

- the restoration of heaven and earth forever (Is 66:22-24; Rom 8:21-23; 2 Pet 3:3-13; Rev 21:1-8)

If, when we think of the ‘after life’ we have been schooled to think of a heaven where we float around in

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ghostly or angelic etherealness, we have not been taught what God has promised. The renewed heaven and earth, the restoration of all that began to die from the garden of Eden onwards, this is the eternal hope we are waiting for, saved for, and restored for… to finally be with God, bodily, on the renewed earth, forever.


- the final judgment or justice of all mankind (Dan 12; Matt 16:27; John 5:25-29; Acts 10:34-43, 17:30-31; 2 Cor 5:10; Heb 9:27-28; Rev 20)

Friends, God is just. God does not wink at evil. God does not pat people on the butt and say “it’s all good,” and call this grace. We do.

We are a culture schizophrenically angry about the lack of justice in a world of trafficking and refugees and ISIS, with so many rejecting God because such evil and death exist… while at the same time demanding words like guilt and shame be erased from our vocabulary and that we always get unconditional grace… ourselves.

Friends, God is patient and God is just, holding us all accountable for all we have said and done, and left unsaid and undone. The only consolation for any of us, is that our just judge has offered Himself to bare our punishment, in our place, and rise so that we can leave our dying self behind and live again… if we will trust Him, and confess our evil, and repent of this addiction to death, and be restored. God is just, and the day of reckoning will come, in this…

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- …final resurrection of all mankind. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20)

o On this day of His return, those who have already died will precede those currently alive in this transforming, or condemning resurrection. (1 Thess 4:13-18)

When he returns all humanity will be separated by one of 2 resurrections. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5:18-24; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20) All who have taken God at His Word in Jesus receive the gift of immortality by resurrection in the presence of God in the new heavens and earth…. All who have rejected the grace of God in Jesus will receive the curse of resurrection from sheol, to eternal death in the lake of fire.

Should I believe that the lake of fire is literally a lake of burning fire? Is there any question it is real? It is challenging at times to recognize how literally or figuratively to interpret some of what the Bible says. Yet, it is clear, whether it turns out to be an actual burning body of water or not; it is a real, horrifying place of torment, day and night, forever, for all who reject God’s reign and grace, in Christ.

In addition, there is plenty of popular and scholarly debate in our time about whether or not we should believe in hell. You will note that I have simply not used that term in our study. It is not that I have avoided it. It is simply not necessary to use the word ‘hell’ to affirm the justice of God in sheol and the lake of fire, for all who reject His offer to live… who reject Christ’s reality and their humanity. May we believe in God’s justice.

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This is the outline of the shape of death and life that is our reality. I could have done a chapter on each of these points. I think if you go to these passages, what they say is plain.

What matters most in making sense of all this, is our grasp of the Gospel story… our understanding that this is more than God’s plan to reward and punish rule keepers and rule breakers.

Like a branch, broken from the plant, from the very source of its life, you and I are dying! We are still green, but we too are dying. Sickness and death are the product of sins shadow and corruption in this creation. All of creation is dying, like a Christmas tree in its stand, no matter how pretty the lights… and Einstein’s theory of relativity does agree.

Romans 8:18-22 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

But God, because of the love with which He loves us… His desire for each and every one He has created is life, life flowing from right relationship with Life, Himself.

He has sent His son to deal both with our physical dying, and our moral, death. As we shall see in the next chapter, faith in Christ moves us from moral death, to life by His Spirit, undoing our moral death, even now, even today.

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As we have seen, our physical death is irreversible… and God has chosen to transform and restore our physical bodies, after they die, by resurrection. Even today, this is the day for us to turn around, to return to the One Who is our life, and be healed of both our moral and our physical death.

2 Questions to Answer, in Light of our Resurrection

Should we pray for the dead, that God might raise them, like Jesus rose Lazarus or Paul raised the boy who fell to his death listening to Paul preach late at night?

I was once called to the scene of a man’s death, as a sheriff’s chaplain. He had died suddenly, while vacuuming the back seat of the car in the garage. The wife asked if it was wrong to pray that he might be raised. It wasn’t wrong. So we prayed. He did not rise. Can God raise the dead back to this life? Yes! Is He likely to? No. He has already graciously dealt with death by the promise and plan of His Gospel.

What happens when children die?This important and painful question does not receive a quick and easy answer we can quote as a Bible verse. And yet God’s Word does provide us hope, in at least 2 ways.

First, even as we ask the question, “what happens when a (my) child dies!?” we find that we are really asking questions like “God, are you merciful? God do you care? God are you here?” The answer to all these questions has been shouted for us in His Word and in the death of God’s Son, for us. Yes, we can trust God to do what is right and good with the children we have lost. This answer may not be as

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tangible as my second suggestion, below, but it may be the most important answer.

Secondly, we do have an example in the Old Testament that closely parallels our question, “God what happens when a child dies?” If you recall, the book of Numbers is about how God’s people spent an extra 40 years wandering the desert until the last man in the generation of those who were responsible for rejecting God’s grace and instruction to enter the land (Num 14) had all died. Deuteronomy 1 recounts this story of unbelief and the death that followed it, yet it finishes with the following irony.

Deuteronomy 1:39 19 'Moreover, your little ones who you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.

My point is simply this, God knew ‘who’ it was in the congregation that was too young to be morally responsible for their behavior. While I am unwilling to try and nail down what age that might be, we have this story for our instruction, and our confidence, that God does not condemn those who are too young to know right from wrong.

Let me conclude with a story… a true story… told to me by a friend who designs and installs landscaping for homes and properties for a living. It just so happened that one day he was providing very specialized landscaping for a property in the mountains of the Northwestern United States. He was actually using ropes to climb up and down this rock face placing and planting various kinds of plants. As he finished with one plant, he briskly hauled himself up and over the

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ledge he was hanging from, landing seated on what he assumed was one of his ropes. It took just a moment for him to realize this was not one of his ropes. It was a rattle snake.

What are going to do my friends, sitting there on the rattle snake? If you get up…? If you sit there too long…?

You and I probably won’t have this kind of opportunity to sit, and ponder the invitation of Christ to live… instead of die. It is far more likely that the mundane necessities of our day will lull us into little or no concern about the living that God has for us, in the face of the death that awaits us all.

Regardless of the details of your day, the invitation of Jesus is worth hearing again.

… 21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. 22 "For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; 27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. 28 "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29

and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

John 5:21-29 NAU

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Chapter 3 Choosing to Live

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The invitation of God in Creation, in His Word, in His Son and Spirit, is captured in the truth of this picture: return to me and live! It is not a metaphor that when you head for the water you live, and the further you move away from the water, the further you move from the living. This is the reality of life and water. So it is with God, because He really is life itself.

Looking back, we have identified the 2 dead end answers our culture has provided in the face of death (meaningless naturalism – or – ‘make believe’) and been encouraged to replace them with the story that makes sense of our living and dying: the Gospel.

Next we walked through the doctrine describing what God has done to save our lives from the fatal consequence that our sinful independence has brought to us all, physical death.

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It was crucial to recognize that the doctrines of heaven and hell are not religious scare tactics to control our behavior. But, that God has come to us in Jesus to save our lives. Thanks be to God for the promise of bodily resurrection, in the new heavens and earth, in His presence, for all who return to life in Jesus Christ!

Now, we will follow the thread of our moral death, through our Gospel story, backwards. May we see clearly the heavy reality of our moral death, and, the resurrection to moral life that is ours today, if we will trust in the gracious reign of Jesus.

What does God explain to us, in each of these passages, about the connection between our sin and our death? Does this passage seem to describe our physical death, or our slow moral death, or both?

James 1:13-16 ESV 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Romans 6:20 – 23 ESV 20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get

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leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 15:1-8 ESV 1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

Micah 7:1-6 ESV 1 Woe is me! For I have become as when

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the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. 2 The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. 3 Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together. 4 The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. 5 Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; 6 for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

Proverbs 5:1-5 ESV 1 My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, 2 that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. 3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;

(Note: Feet, in Ancient Semitic Writings are often a euphemism, or non-taboo way of referring to “genitals.” In this case, the likelihood is strikingly appropriate!)

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Deuteronomy 30:15 -20 ESV 15 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."

Genesis 2:15-17 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

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Salvation: bad manners, or life and death?

When I was perhaps 10 years old, I remember a traumatic dinner that I ate while my older brother and I were staying with my Grandmother for a few days. During that meal, I began to choke on my steak. I couldn’t breathe. But this is not what my Grandmother saw. She saw a boy with bad manners at the table. I remember her telling me “that if I was going to behave this way I could just leave the table.”

I stumbled away from the table and into her small bathroom. There I really wondered if I was going to live. I finally dropped myself on my back on the floor of the bathroom, and out came the chunk of steak.

I don’t tell this story to speak ill of my Grandmother, who was a girder of faithfulness for me until she passed. I tell the story because I think we often make the same mistake this faithful German Lutheran woman made, when we view our relationship with God through the lens of good and bad behavior, when God Himself has come to deal with the fatal independence of our sinfulness, that is killing us.

Martin Luther himself delights in the God Who comes to us not to be our good/bad behavior cop, but to save us from the fatality of our sin! Hear Luther marvel at the why of our salvation! (The second article in his Small Catechism)

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human being, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil… with His precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to Him, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in

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eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.

This loving and gracious salvation from our moral death is summarized in four points that began our study, as follows.

- Just as the Old Testament promised (Gen 12:1-3; Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:10-11; Is 25:8 & 53:10-12; Ez 37; Hos 6:1-3), God has come to us in Jesus to free us from both death, and its shadow, the sting that brings death, that is, sin (Matt 1:21; John 1:9-13; 3:1-21; 5:18-24; Rom 5-6; 2 Tim 1:10) The death of Jesus is the death we deserve as sinners, both atoning for and freeing us from slavery to sin and death (Luke 24:44-49; Rom 5-6; 1 Cor 15; Eph 2).

- The resurrected Jesus is life Himself (John 1, 5), our life (Jn 15, 17), and the promise of resurrected life for eternity (Matt 22:28-32; John 11:24-26; Romans 6:5; 1 Cor 15:20; 50-57; Col 1:18; Rev 20), for all who are born anew by taking Jesus at His word.

- The resurrected Jesus has bodily ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven (Jn 20:17, 20, 27; Acts 1:9-11; Heb 1:3; Rev 5:5-7).

- He restores us to humanity, bearing His image in all creation, by the rebirth of His presence in and through us, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, until we die or Jesus comes again. (Jn 1:9-11; Rom 6, 8:11; Eph 2:1-10; Col 3:10-11; Titus 3:4-6)

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These doctrine, this progression, from moral death to moral life is perfectly described for us, and offered to us, in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Dead… in the trespasses and sins we were walking in… God says things in shocking ways at times. Dead… and walking! In other words, we were morally dead in the sense that we were as unresponsive to God as a corpse. We were not unresponsive to the course or culture of our world, nor to the enslaving influence of evil spiritual forces, nor unresponsive to our own wants and desires, just dead unresponsive to God.

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But God… because of love… because He saw more than just bad behavior He could not tolerate… but because He saw the men, women, and children He had created dying in their sin, enslaved to culture and evil and their own desires… He came to die in our place, and rise in order to raise us up beyond enslavement… that we might live again… and through a life that is lived responsively to God, point everyone around us to God’s goodness and glory.

This life of trusting responsiveness to God is made possible because God gives the gift of Himself, His very presence, by His Spirit, to literally indwell all who will receive His life, as a gift, to reign in and through them.

This restoration from corpselike unresponsiveness to God is personal, but it is not at all private. The scope of need and restoration, from death to life, involves all of creation.

Ephesians 1:7-10 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Colossians 1:15-20 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities- all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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Once again, this is the story that makes sense of our living and dying, and all that God has warned and promised us concerning death.

Birth and death are reality for all humanity (Ecc 3:1-8; 3:19; Ez 32:17-32; Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22). Birth is good and death is bad (Gen 1:28; Gen 2:17 & 1 Cor 15:54-55). Death is in fact the final enemy of humanity (1 Cor 15:26), because we were not created immortal souls (1 Tim 6:16; 2 Tim 1:10).

Just as the Old Testament promised (Gen 12:1-3; Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:10-11; Is 25:8 & 53:10-12; Ez 37; Hos 6:1-3), God has come to us in Jesus to free us from both death, and its shadow, the sting that brings death, that is, sin (Matt 1:21; John 1:9-13; 3:1-21; 5:18-24; Rom 5-6; 2 Tim 1:10) The death of Jesus is the death we deserve as sinners, both atoning for and freeing us from slavery to sin and death (Luke 24:44-49; Rom 5-6; 1 Cor 15).



He restores us to humanity, bearing His image in all creation, by the rebirth of His presence in and through us, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, until we die or Jesus comes again. (Jn 1:9-11; Rom 6, 8:11; Eph 2:1-10; Col 3:10-11; Titus 3:4-6)

Those who trust in Him need not fear death, as grievous as it is (Ps 116:15; 2 Sam 3:31-32; 12:16-23; John 11:33 & 35), for it will usher them into His presence, to rest until the resurrection

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(Luke 16:19-31; 23:43; Jn 5:24; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:21-23; 1 Thess 4:17-18; Rev 6:9-11). This initial paradise is not our hope, but a time of waiting, in His presence.


Jesus will Himself return bodily (Matt 24:30; Luke 17:22-24; 1 Thess 4:13-18; Tit 2:11-13; Rev 5:5-7, 19:11-16) for

- the restoration of heaven and earth forever (Is 66:22-24; Rom 8:21-23; 2 Pet 3:3-13; Rev 21-22)


- the final judgment of all mankind (Dan 12; Matt 16:27; John 5; Acts 10:34-43, 17:30-31; 2 Cor 5:10; Heb 9:27-28; Rev 20)

- the final resurrection of all mankind. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20)

On this day of His return, those who have already died will precede those currently alive in this transforming, or condemning resurrection. (1 Thess 4:13-18)

When he returns all humanity will be separated by one of 2 resurrections. (Daniel 12; Matt 25:31-46; John 5:18-24; 1 Cor 15; Rev 20) All who have taken God at His Word in Jesus receive the gift of immortality by resurrection in the presence of God in the new heavens and earth…. All who have rejected the grace of God in Jesus will receive the curse of resurrection to eternal death in the lake of fire.

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Notes:

John 5:1

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The Evangelical Free Church of Redwood Falls seeks to be restored, and lovingly help others be restored,

from the brokenness of sin in our lives, to the life God has for us, trusting the Gospel of Jesus.

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