How do you handle death? Everyone
deals with death differently. According to Mental Health America, they provide
a list of emotions that one feels when encountering the death of a loved one:
denial, disbelief, confusion, shock, sadness, yearning, anger, humiliation,
despair and guilt[1].
As one has encountered death often, the list is extensive, but not complete. They
also provide a list for those to help others with the grieving process: share
the sorrow, don’t offer false comfort, offer practical help, and be patient.
Again, they provide a very helpful list, but it is not complete. The one thing
that is missing from both lists is hope.
Death and hope are not naturally
placed together, but for the Christian they are inseparable. We are called to
hope in the face of death and we are called to help others hope as they face
death of those they love. Churches are places of hope. We are called to be a
hopeful people. Even in the worse moments of life, Christians are called to
hope. And the hope of Christians by no means lessens the pain of death. All
death is awful. Death is sign of the curse and consequence of human rebellion.
Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and
death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Death is
a constant reminder of the curse. We will face death, but how will we face
death as church?
An exemplary church lives with an
exemplary hope. We want to have hope always on our lips for we have been born
again to the living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading in heaven (1
Peter 1:3). We will not escape death as a church. And we truly love one
another, we will experience deep sadness when we face death as a congregation,
but we must face that sadness with hope.
Hopeful
Grieving
The Thessalonians were a young
church and they believed in the resurrection. Remember back to 1 Thessalonians
1:9-10, “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had
among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true
God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus
who delivers us from the wrath to come.” They waiting for their deliverance on
the return of Jesus Christ, but there were some people that were concerned
about those who died before Jesus returned. Paul writes to give the church
hope, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are
asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” (1 Thess. 4:13)
Jesus redefined death for his
followers. Jairus’ daughter was sick and near death and he asked Jesus to come
and heal her. When Jesus and Jairus arrived at the house, they told them that
she was dead, but Jesus said, “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.”
(Luke 8:52) And taking her by the hand he called, “Child, arise,” and her
spirit returned and she was restored to her parents. Death for Christians was
redefined as sleep for those who go to sleep will one day wake up. Paul is
teaching these young Christians how they should think about death. Those who
die in Christ are not dead, but are asleep.
Paul does not say that Christians
shouldn’t grieve, but should grieve entirely different than the
For if we have been united with
him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his. (Romans 6:5)
For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be
the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29)
For as by a man came death, by a
man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also
in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. (1 Corinthians
15:21-23)
Indeed, I count everything as loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I
have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I
may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the
righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power
of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
(Philippians 3:8-11)
Jesus said to her, “I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he
live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe
this?” (John 11:25-26)
Christians always live in the hope of the resurrection. Do
you believe this?
By saying that believers live in
the hope of the resurrection, Paul is also saying that those who do not believe
in Jesus have no hope in death. There is a resurrection promised for everyone.
Jesus says in John 5,
Truly, truly, I say to you, an
hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son
of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so
he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority
to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for
an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come
out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have
done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:25-29)
What will happen when you die? You will experience a
resurrection, but what kind of resurrection will you experience? If you were to
die today, how confident would you be that you would experience the
resurrection of life 50%, 85%, or 100%?
I have done a lot of funerals
where the family had certainty that their loved one was a believer in Christ
through their word and deed. And I have done others, when the family did not have
confidence in their loved one’s faith. The family did not have hope. It is a
completely different kind of grief. They are not comforted with truth, but come
face to face with the reality of death without God. Atheists comfort themselves
about the prospect of death by believing that they cease to exist or that they
become part of the earth and the circle life. Although they may look for
comfort elsewhere, the reality is that in death they will meet God and answer
for their sin alone. And to stand in death alone without Jesus means they will
be put in Hell.
Hell is not something that is
often mentioned in general yet alone mentioned during death. There is no hope
for those who do not have Christ, because they will have to face God
themselves. When we try to erase Hell, we darken our understanding of God’s
power. Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God.” God is so glorious and so holy that any sin against His name
deserves to be punished severely. Great American Theologian Jonathan Edwards
writes,
Rebellion against God’s authority
and contempt of his majesty, which every sin contains, is an infinite evil,
because it has that infinite aggravation of being against an infinitely
excellent and glorious majesty and most absolute authority. A sin against a
more excellent being is doubtless great than against a less excellent; and
therefore, sins against one infinite in majesty, authority and excellency must
be infinite in aggravation, and so deserves not a finite, but an infinite
punishment, which can be only by its being infinite in duration.[2]
A crime against an infinite being deserves infinite
punishment. So an exemplary church must believe in an exemplary hope, but also
must believe in a total lack of hope for those who do not have Christ. This is
the Christian message.
And when we understand how
horrific the punishment of hell truly is, we only can then understand how
glorious the hope we have in Christ. We cannot have one without the other.
Beloved, since we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so, with Jesus, God
will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Death may be hard, but we
bear it with hope. We must face death as a community with a hopeful grieving.
Hopeful
Gazing
When will this glorious hope be
finally realized? On the day of our Lord’s return. We keep our hopeful gaze on
his coming. We long for our Lord’s return. We, ourselves who have the
firstfruits of the Spirit of God, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:24-25, “For in this
hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what
he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
And what do we wait for? Paul declares it to us by a word from the Lord. 1
Thessalonians 4:15-16, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,
that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not
precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from
heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the
sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (1
Thessalonians 4:15-16) We wait for the blessed hope the appearing of our great
God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Paul mentions the Parousia or The
Coming of Jesus Christ four separate times in this letter (1 Thess. 2:19, 3:13,
4:15, 5:23). The coming of Christ was meant as an encouragement for the
Thessalonians to stand firm in the face of persecution. And here Paul uses the
coming of Christ to comfort his brothers and sisters who have seen dear friends
fall asleep in Christ. There is no need to worry about those who have fallen
asleep for their resurrection will precede those who are left until the end.
Those who are asleep will be the first in the resurrection. The church should
be comforted because those who have died will not miss anything. Paul does not
explain in this letter where Christians are in the intermediate state between
their physical death and the physical resurrection. We must focus on what Paul
does say rather than on what he doesn’t.
Paul uses three prepositional
phrases describing the Lord coming, “a cry of command, a voice of an archangel
and the sound of the trumpet of God.” Scholars debate on the exact nature of
how these are connected, but most see them as connected to calling the dead in
Christ to their resurrection. Christ descended from heaven issuing a cry of
command through the voice of an archangel and the sound of the trumpet of God.
Therefore Christ calls the dead via the archangel and the trumpet. The trumpet
is a common symbol throughout the Old Testament to inaugurate the Last Day (cf.
Ex. 19:16, 19; Is. 27:13; Joel 2:1; Zp. 1:14–16; Zc. 9:14).[3] The
trumpet calling the dead to life is also consistent with 1 Corinthians 15,
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will
be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put
on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1
Corinthians 15:51-53)
This promise of an imperishable body is only for those who
are dead in Christ. “In Christ” being an abbreviated way of defining believers.
Do not lose the intent of the
passage. Paul speaks about the coming of the Lord as an encouragement for the
church. It was not written to garner debate and disagreement about the timing
of the Last Day, but to encourage the saints to press on even in death because
one day God is going to come again. We all may differ slightly on how we view
the sequence of the end of history will occur, but there should be no
disagreements that we all believe that Jesus Christ will come again and close
all of history.
Hopeful
Gathering
Paul offers one more encouragement
to the Thessalonians. He not only wants them to see that those who have fallen
asleep will not miss out on the resurrection, but they will not miss out on the
glorious gathering of the saints in heaven. 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “Then we who
are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” Let us first
deal with the content of the verse then we can look at the main intent of
verse.
The idea of a rapture has come from
verse 17. The word “caught up” comes from the Greek word harpazo which is
translated rapio in the Lain which is where we get our English word rapture. As
we have seen in verse 16, it does not appear that this is a silent event, but a
loud visible cosmic declaration of the coming of the King of kings and the Lord
of lords, Jesus Christ. The saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the
air or the clouds. Daniel mentions that the Lord will be coming in the clouds
and the angel said after Jesus ascended into heaven that they would see him
return in the same manner. The term “meet” comes from the technical greeting of
a visiting dignitary to a city. The city officials and citizens would meet the
dignitary on the road and then be ushered back into the city with great
celebration and fanfare. The word is used with a similar meaning elsewhere in
the New Testament[4].
Although the passage does not clearly state what happens after the alive and
sleeping saints meet the Lord together in the air, it is a logical deduction
that they met Jesus in the air to usher him back to the earth. We do not have
time to unpack how this passage relates specifically to the millennium and the
tribulation, but appears based on this passage alone that Paul is describing
the Last Day and consummation of history.
It would be easy to get lost in
the details, but we have to continue to focus on the Holy Spirit’s intent
through Paul to encourage the church of the Thessalonians. There are two main
encouragements from this verse. First, all the saints of history will be
reunited as it says, “caught up together with them.” We have not lost those who
have fallen asleep. Their sleeping will one day end and w all will be reunited
together. How comforting and encouraging is that truth!!! We will see all those
we have lost in Christ again. It is hard to quantify how encouraging that is.
One of my favorite things to watch is military reunions. I love to watch
children run to their dads and wives run to their husbands. The joy and
happiness is so overwhelming that in almost every reunion I see, I am moved to
tears. Can you even imagine how glorious our reunion will be with the saints
who fallen asleep?
The second encouragement from this
verse is that we will be with the Lord. The text says we will be caught up
together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with
the Lord. Our Savior who for our sake, became sin who knew sin. Our King who
bore our sins in his body on a tree. Our Messiah who took our shame nailing it
to the cross. Our Prince who delivered us from God’s wrath. Our Lord who cast
our sin as far as the east is from the west. On that Day we will always be with
Jesus and all his saints. Do you long you to see Jesus? It will be glorious to
see our love ones, but it will be even more glorious to see the King of Glory.
Jesus is our only hope in life and
in death. On November 15, 1982, Atheist and Russian General Secretary Leonid
Brezhnev was buried at the age of 72. Then Vice President George H.W. Bush
attended the funeral. Five years later when giving a graduation address, Bush
recalled that day,
(At the funeral of Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev,) things were run in military precession; a coldness and
hollowness pervaded the ceremony – marching soldiers, steel helmets, Marxist
rhetoric, but no prayers, no comforting hymns, no mention of God. The Soviet
leaders took their places on the Kremlin Wall as the Brezhnev family silently
escorted the casket around to its final resting place. I happened to be in just
the right spot to see Mrs. Brezhnev. She walked up, and took one last look at
her husband and there – in the cold, grey center of that totalitarian state –
she traced the sign of the cross over her husband’s chest.[5]
There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife
of the man who had run it all, hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that
there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who
died on the cross.[6]
She knew that the only hope in the face of death was Jesus. She knew people in atheistic
Russia didn’t want to think of Jesus, but she also knew that the only way to
bring hope in death was to share the hope of the cross.
An exemplary church will regularly
speak of our exemplary hope as we face death. 1 Thessalonians 4:18, “Therefore
encourage one another with these words.” Is there anything that could be more
encouraging than sharing real hope? Let
us commit ourselves to the unwavering hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “May
the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the
power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13) Believe and
share the gospel of hope.
[1]
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/coping-loss-bereavement-and-grief
accessed 10.17.2015
[2]
Jonathan Edwards, quoted in Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell by Owen Strachan
and Douglas Allen Sweeney. Moody Publisher, Chicago 2010
[3]
Wanamaker, C. A. (1990). The Epistles to
the Thessalonians: a commentary on the Greek text (p. 173). Grand Rapids,
MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[4]
“To meet” the Lord translates a term used only two other times in the New
Testament. In the parable of the ten maidens the maidens are called out to
“meet” the groom and join the marriage procession (Matt 25:6). Outside Rome
some Christian brethren came to “meet” Paul and escort him back into the city
(Acts 28:15[4]
[6]
Gary Thomas, in Christianity Today, October 3, 1994, p. 26.
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