Death

Not the most pleasant of subjects to be talking about, but I am forced to think about it quite frequently lately. I wonder what death means, what happens at the instant of death, and what the afterlife is like. It does not matter who you are, you will die. It is the only inescapable thing in this world. We can avoid many things in life, but death is the only constant that every living being must face. How we face death, whether it is our own, or a family member or friend, it defines us and how we are remembered.

What will I do, what will you do, at the moment of death? What is it like? I hope that I face death with dignity and without fear. I believe it was Martin Luther who said that we should not fear death as fear is the devil’s playground. Satan wants us to fear death because death is the avenue for our soul to become closer to and know God in a way we cannot know in the mortal world. That is exactly what Satan does not want us to be. Satan is forever working to keep fear of death within us because he does not want us to know God.

This does not mean we should seek death, such as suicide, or other means, but we should not fear death. If death means being closer to God why not seek death? Well, we are going to die no matter what, so why seek something that we already have. I am just saying we should not fear something that we cannot change. We should embrace this life and live it honoring God with good actions for every good action we do honors God.

What does death mean? That is really a question I think humans have been dealing with since humans existed. Atheists seem to think that we just cease to exist at the moment of death. Of course, as a Christian, I totally disagree with them. Death is the end of this life and the beginning of a new life with God (if he deems it so). Whether we live with God or not, is our choice. John Calvin got it very wrong in my opinion with his pre-destination theory. Calvin does not allow humans to have a choice in salvation as he believes that God has already chosen who will be in heaven. The problem is “chosen”. God knows all, and he is outside our understanding of time. He knows the past, present and future. God knows who will be in heaven, but it is our choices that bring us to God. We choose what we do because God gave us the gift of free-will. We are solely responsible for our actions, and the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ allows us to become closer to God in heaven. Yes, there is God’s “chosen” people, but that is something entirely different.

While God knows our choices before we make them, it is still our choice. To deny this is to deny God’s gift of free will that he did not give anything else in creation.

Then what is heaven? Heaven is God. It is neither a place nor a specific location as we know it. Heaven is a state of our soul being in total communion with God. Hell is the separation from God. I, for one, want to be in communion with God.
Now, if you do not read any other portion of this blog, I hope you read this portion. It is said that God wrote his laws on the human soul. Such as, thou shall not kill, commit adultery, and so on. I propose that there were other things that God wrote onto our souls for understanding. If you look in history, most cultures have some form of afterlife. Whether it is reincarnation, ghost, etc…there is a form of afterlife. Some people may say we want to believe in an afterlife out of selfish reason because we do not want to face an end to existing. I think that God wrote other things onto our souls and a belief in the afterlife is one of them. Am I supported by scripture? I have no idea, but the coincidence of a belief in something after death by so many cultures leads me to think that the afterlife was written onto our soul for us to believe.

Death is only the end of a mortal life, and the beginning of eternal life. Death, as with many other subjects, is an extremely complex philosophical and theological issue. While everyone will face death, it should not be something we dwell upon. Death is not something we should fear, nor seek, but embrace it when our time comes.

Peace
Dirk