I thought that today I would speak a little about fear of death.  The reality is that people inevitably get older every day and sadly the number of funerals I attend grows every year.  As death gets closer it is important then to think about why we fear death.  I hope that this message might prove encouraging.

Death is not natural

Death is not a natural occurrence at all.  I know that it looks like it is since everything and everybody dies.  But God did not make the world that way.  Humanity was created for life.  The second creation account tells us “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.  In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:8-10).  There was a choice there.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden (2:17), but the tree of life was there for the taking.  Death was the result of human disobedience, that is, sin.  And when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden tree they were cast out of the garden and cherubim guarded the way to the tree of life.

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because they did not believe God’s word to them.  God told Adam, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (2:17).  The serpent tempted them in the garden by casting doubt on God’s word to them.  “Did God really say?” asked the devil (3:1).  “You will not surely die” (3:4).  Adam and Eve believed the lies of the serpent over the word of God.  In other words they did not trust God; they did not have faith.  Right from the beginning, faith is the path to life and lack of faith is the path to death.

As a consequence of the choice made by the first human beings, everybody dies.  And everybody dies because everybody repeats that choice of the first humans to doubt God and disobey him.  “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).  Actions have real consequences, but God was not willing to allow humans to simply die, so he made a promise of redemption right at the beginning.  To the serpent he said, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15).

People fear death

We all know that we will die and fear is attached to that knowledge.  This is the result of what comes after death, namely, the judgment (Heb 9:27).  In a sense death is itself a judgement on human sin.  But what follows is a greater judgement.  As a consequence most people in Australia try not to think about dying at all.  They distract themselves from the topic of death and never mention judgement ever.  I have been to a few funerals lately and generally even at funerals people do not mention death.  Have you heard the poem that some have read at funerals?

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.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there.  I did not die.

This is a dreadful poem.  It denies death altogether.  It also offers no one any real hope.

But the truth is that there is a judgement which follows death.  Jesus mentioned this many times.  “And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.  It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched’” (Mark 9:47-48).  “‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.”  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.  Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court.  And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell’” (Matt 5:21-22).  “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken” (Matt 12:36).  The judgement must be taken seriously.  Standing alone before God to give and account for your life may be something terrifying.

But Jesus is the judge

The judgement is coming after death, but the good news is that Jesus Christ is himself the one who will judge us.  Jesus said, “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22).  Paul had such confidence in the judgement of Jesus that he could say: “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.  My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.  It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes.  He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart.  At that time each will receive their praise from God” (1 Cor 4:3-5).  Paul had confidence that Jesus would judge him and he therefore had no need to worry.

Jesus has experienced death for us

Surely Jesus will judge rightly.  Our confidence on the day of judgement is based on what Jesus has done for us.  He has in fact faced death and judgement on our behalf.  Jesus did not just die, but he also experienced the fear of death that is the lot of sinners.

“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.  Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.  He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the assembly I will sing your praises.’  And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’  And again he says, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.  For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:10-17).

Let’s break down this passage a little.  First of all the author of our salvation, that is, Jesus, suffered as humans suffer.  This is what makes him our perfect high priest.  He went through what we go through, including the fear of death.  The devil has power over people because we fear death.  But Jesus helps us.  He can help us because he has himself experienced the fear of death.  Luke’s Gospel records Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane like this:

“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.  On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’  He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’  An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.  When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.  ‘Why are you sleeping?’ he asked them.  ‘Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation’” (Lk. 22:39-46).

When Jesus prayed before his death in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was so stressed by what was about to happen that he actually sweated blood.  The man who willingly went to Jerusalem to die and who always did the Father’s will cried out to God to remove the cup from which he had to drink.  This was what he came to do for the salvation of sinners and yet Jesus was afraid.  He did not want to go to the cross.  Be sure that Jesus was not in this state simply because crucifixion was a disgusting, humiliating and painful death.  He was fearful and severely stressed because he knew that on the cross he would bear the sin of the world.

Sin is the reason that we die.  Your own conscience tells you that sin is difficult to bear.  But Jesus did not bear the sin of one person; he bore the sin of the entire world.  The weight of that sin would surely have been immense.  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).  It was as if Jesus were the worst sinner imaginable on the cross.  As Luther put it:

“And all the prophets saw this, that Christ was to become the greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, robber, desecrator, blasphemer, etc., there has ever been anywhere in the world.  He is not acting in His own Person now.  Now He is not the Son of God, born of the Virgin.  But He is a sinner, who has and bears the sin of Paul, the former blasphemer, persecutor, and assaulter; of Peter who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer, and who caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord (Rom 2:24).  In short, He has and bears all the sins of all men in His body—not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.”[1]

Thus Jesus feared death as sinners fear death.  He feared the crushing spiritual weight of the death of a sinner.  He feared being cut off from the fellowship of the Father, of being abandoned by the one who had been his intimate companion for eternity.  Jesus knew what death really is, a judgement on human sin.  And he knew that in his death he must carry the burden of all that sin and the judgement which goes along with it.  Martin Luther wrote, “No man ever feared death like this man.”

We cannot imagine how profoundly agonising that spiritual burden was for Jesus or how intense the fear of death was for him.  But we can know that the one who will judge us when we die is the one who has overcome death and the fear of death by experiencing it himself.  He has taken the fear of death and the judgement himself, so that we do not need to fear death.

The Judgement

Knowing that Jesus has overcome death and the fear of death, let us now consider the day of judgment.  “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10).  Revelation describes the judgment.

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.  The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.  Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:11-15).

God’s holiness is so awesome that even earth and heaven fled from his presence.  Everyone will come before the throne of judgement.  Everything that we have done is written down; God has kept a record of it.  This is the basis of the judgement.  Now that in itself might cause fear, except that the most decisive question at the judgement is not what sins you have committed, but whether your name is in the book of life.  “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (20:15).  Your sin and my sin is not the deciding factor on the day of judgment; the book of life is the deciding factor.

The question then is how do you know if your name is in the book of life?  In the book of Revelation there are two kinds of people: those who belong on the earth and worship the beast, and those who belong in heaven and worship the Lamb.  According to Rev 13:8, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.”  It is the Lamb’s book of life.  He is the one who writes the names in it.  Jesus said, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven” (Matt 10:32).  “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).  “Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death” (John 8:51).  “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;” (John 11:25).  Getting in the book of life is not a matter of “being good” but a matter of trusting in what Jesus has done.  If you know him then he will not fail you on that day.

In conclusion, everything hinges on belonging to Jesus.  If you are known by him then death is simply the present means by which we go to be with him.  Jesus, and not your sins, determines your destiny on the day of judgement.  Trust him, since he has experienced death and the fear of death for our sakes.  When we are in Christ there need be no fear of death and judgement.