19 Jan Resources | Death Be Not a Death to Us

Death is ours — and for our good. It does us more good than all the friends we have in the world. It determines and ends all our misery and sin; and it is the suburbs of heaven. It lets us into those joys above.

But may not a good Christian fear death? No, so far as a Christian is led with the Spirit of God, and is truly spiritual; for the Spirit carries us upward (toward heaven). To the extent that we are earthly and carnal, and biased downward (to worldly things), we detest the idea of departing from here.

In some cases God’s children are afraid to die because they simply are not ready. Though they love Christ, they have not yet prepared themselves. Just as a woman whose husband is abroad desires his return home, she may desire that he stay awhile longer if she hasn’t prepared the house. But as far as we are guided by the Spirit of God sanctifying us, and are in such a spiritual condition as we should be in, so far the thoughts of death ought not to be terrible to us.

Beloved, no one but a Christian can desire death. It is the end of all comfort here; it is the end of all callings and employments, of all sweetness in this world. If there is a non-Christian who desires heaven, he desires it not as heaven, nor to be with Christ as Christ; he actually desires it under some notion suitable to his corruption. A worldly man cannot go beyond the world; a carnal man cannot go beyond the flesh. Therefore a carnal man cannot desire heaven as it truly is. A man that is under the power of any lust can desire nothing but the satisfying of that lust. And heaven is no place for such.

None but a child of God can truly desire heaven. How can he who hates holiness here on earth long for it there in eternity? For if we consider heaven, we must think of being with Christ and being made holy. Can one desire the image of God upon him in eternity yet hate it in others and himself here and now? Can he desire to be free from sin, that engulfs himself continually in sin? He cannot.

God reserves the best for the last. God’s last works are his best works. The new heaven and the new death are the best; the second wine that Christ created himself was the best; spiritual things are better than natural. A Christian’s last is his best.

God desires that Christians, for their own comfort, would remind themselves daily that their best is yet to come. That every day they rise, they may think, I am nearer heaven one day than I was before, I am nearer death, and therefore nearer to Christ. What a solace is this to a gracious heart! A Christian is a happy man in his life, but happier in his death, because then he goes to Christ; but happiest of all in heaven, for then he is with Christ.

A Passage to Christ

Before death, while still living, Paul considered himself a citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20). His mind was there, and his soul followed after. No man’s soul comes into heaven without his mind being set there first. It was an easy matter for Paul to desire to be with Christ, since his mind was set on heaven already. Paul in meditation was where he was not, and he was not where he was. He was in heaven when his body was on earth. But how do we make Paul’s holy desire — to die and be with Christ — our desire? Let us carry ourselves as Paul did, and then we shall have the same desires.

Paul had loosed his affections from all earthly things; therefore it was an easy matter for him to desire to be with Christ. “Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.” (Gal. 6:14). If once a Christian comes to this pass, death will be welcome to him. Those whose hearts are fastened to the world cannot easily desire Christ.

Paul labored to keep a good conscience in all things. “I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and all people.” (Acts 24:16). A guilty conscience trembles at the mention of death. Oh, beloved, the exercising of the heart to keep a clear conscience can only breed this desire in us to depart and to be with Christ.

Paul had assurance that he was in Christ, by his union with him. “It is not longer I who live,” Paul said, “but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Therefore labor for assurance of salvation, that you may feel the Spirit of Christ in you, sanctifying and altering your carnal dispositions to be like his. Paul knew whom he had believed; he was assured that nothing could separate him from the love of God, neither life, nor death, nor anything whatsoever that could befall him (Rom. 8:38-39).

“it should be the art of Christians to present death as a passage to better life”

Paul had an art of sweetening the thoughts of death. He considered it only as a departure from earth to heaven. When he thought of death as a transition, as a passage to Christ, it was an easy matter for him to desire it. Therefore, it should be the art of Christians to present death as a passage to better life, to labor to bring our souls into such a condition, where we consider death not to be a death to us, but the death of itself. Death dies when I die, and I begin to truly live when I die. It is a sweet passage to life. We never live till we die. This was Paul’s art. He had a care to look beyond death, to heaven; and when he looked upon death, he looked on it first as a way to Christ’s presence; so let it be our art and skill. Let us look on death as a passage to Christ, and look beyond it to heaven. All of us must go through this dark passage to Christ, but we are of the same mind as Paul was, it will be an easy matter to die.

Die Well Every Day

Therefore, if we desire to end our days in true joy and true comfort, let us now lay the foundation of a comfortable death. To die well is no easy matter. But to die well is a matter of every day. Let us daily do some good that may help us at the time of our death. Every day by repentance pull out the sting of some sin, that so when death comes, we may have nothing to do but die.

“Every day by repentance pull out the sting of some sin, that so when death comes, we may have nothing to do but die.”

To die well is the action of the whole life. For the most part, no one dies well unless they have died daily, as Paul said of himself, “I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31). He labored to loose his heart from the world and worldly things. If we loose our hearts from the world and die daily, how easy will it be to die at last! He that thinks of the vanity of the world, and of death, and of being with Christ forever, and is dying daily, it will be easy for him to end his days with the comfort God alone provides.

Adapted from Richard Sibbes’ sermon “Christ is Best, or, St. Paul’s Strait” as part of our sermon series, “A Theology of Death.” Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was an English Puritan theologian.

For Paul, to be absent from the body meant to be present with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8). So what does the Bible have to say about heaven, the importance of keeping an eternal perspective, and living in light of eternity? For more on what comes for believers after death, see our six-week “Forever” teaching series, in which we take a look at eternity and what it means to live an impactful life on earth in light of eternity.