Death is not a subject on which most of us want to linger, for it is the enemy of the life we love. Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains how Christians are to think of death, that we may face this foe with hope in our risen Lord.

Many Christians reflect upon the purpose and consequences of Jesus’ resurrection only at Easter. This is distressing because the resurrection, as the event upon which Christianity stands or falls, should occupy first place in our thinking and living.This fall, Ligonier Ministries will explore the resurrection at our West Coast conference in Seattle, Wash. Alistair Begg and Michael Horton will join me on September 25–26, 2009, in examining the significance of the resurrection of Christ for worship, preaching, apologetics, and other issues. Following the conference, Mike Horton and I will speak on the doctrine of the church on a separate Pacific Northwest cruise, September 28–October 2.A firm understanding of the resurrection is essential for confronting false teaching and looking forward to our life in the world to come. Many Christians reflect upon the purpose and consequences of Jesus’ resurrection only at Easter. This is distressing because the resurrection, as the event upon which Christianity stands or falls, should occupy first place in our thinking and living.In Ligonier Ministries' 2009 West Coast Conference held in Seattle, Wash., "Is There Life After Death?," R.C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, and Michael Horton examine the significance of the resurrection of Christ for worship, preaching, apologetics, and other issues. A firm understanding of the resurrection is essential for confronting false teaching and looking forward to our life in the world to come.

Death of Death in the Death of Christ was John Owen's first masterpiece. Written from seven years of studying and reflection by one of the greatest minds in theological history, its exploration into the Scriptural perspective on the doctrine of universal redemption is yet to be answered or paralleled.This is the original text with a new layout. It is fully subtitled which makes it more accessible to a new generation of readers.

The ascendancy of television and now the Internet has created unprecedented changes in the way we process and communicate information. Like other media, there are countless benefits to these outlets, but as Neil Postman first warned us over twenty years ago, there are also many dangers when the screen shapes public speech. This classic work critiques our entertainment-driven culture and explores what we must beware of in the era of electronic discourse.

in and her body was icy to the touch. The sensation was eerie, defying logic.

Sleep makes the passage of time seem instantaneous. In what seemed like the span of a few minutes, my mother had changed from a breathing, warm, excited person to a lifeless statue. I stood transfixed in disbelief, caught in the absurdity of it. Within the span of 24 hours, I passed through the emotions of seeing my son take his initial breaths of life and seeing my mother in the coldness of death.

we experience a continuation of personal consciousness. No person is more conscious, more aware, and more alert than when he passes through the veil from this world into the next. Far from falling asleep, we are awakened to glory in all of its significance. For the believer, death does not have the last word. Death has surrendered to the conquering power of the One who was resurrected as the firstborn of many brethren.

the Creator. Satan is potent; God is omnipotent. Satan is knowledgeable and crafty; God is omniscient. Satan is localized in his presence; God is omnipresent. Satan is finite; God is infinite. The list could go on. But it is clear from Scripture that Satan is not an ultimate force in any sense.

We are not doomed to an ultimate conflict with no hope of resolution. The message of Scripture is one of victory—full, final, and ultimate victory. It is not our doom that is certain, but Satan’s. His head has been crushed by the heel of Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega.

Above all suffering and death stands the crucified and risen Lord. He has defeated the ultimate enemy of life. He has vanquished the power of death. He calls us to die, a call to obedience in the final transition of life. Because of Christ, death is not final. It is a passage from one world to the next.

God does not always will healing. If He did, He would suffer endless frustration, seeing His will being repeatedly thwarted in the deaths of His people. He did not will the healing of Stephen from the wounds inflicted by the stones that were hurled against him. He did not will the healing of Moses, of Joseph, of David, of Paul, of Augustine, of Martin Luther, of John Calvin. These all died in faith. Ultimate healing comes through death and after death.

Teachers argue that there is healing in the atonement of Christ. Indeed there is. Jesus bore all of our sins on the cross. Yet none of us is free from sin in this life. Likewise, none of us is free from sickness in this life. The healing that is in the cross is real. We participate in its benefits now, in this life. But the fullness of the healing from both sin and disease takes place in heaven. We still must die at our appointed times.

By His obedience, He redeemed His people for eternity. —R.C. Sproul

Any six-year-old child who has spent a few Lord's Day mornings in Sunday school is able to give an accurate answer to the question, "What did Jesus do for you?" Usually that child will say, "Jesus died on the cross for my sins." That's a true and profound statement, but it is only half of the matter.

If Jesus merely needed to die on the cross to save His people, He could have descended from heaven as a man on the morning of Good Friday, gone straight to Golgotha, died on the cross, risen, and left again. Our sin problem would be fixed. He did not need to be born to Mary in a stable, go through all the trials and tribulations of growing up in this fallen world, or endure the animosity of the Jewish leaders during His ministry.

However, Jesus did not live those thirty-three years for nothing.

In order for Him to qualify as our Redeemer, it was not enough for Him simply to go to the cross and be crucified. If Jesus had only paid for our sins, He would have succeeded only in taking us back to square one. We would no longer be guilty, but we still would have absolutely no righteousness to bring before God.

So, our Redeemer needed not only to die, but also to live a life of perfect obedience. The righteousness that He manifested could then be transferred to all who put their trust in Him. Just as my sin is transferred to Him on the cross when I trust in Him, His righteousness is transferred to my account in the sight of God. So, when I stand before God on the judgment day, God is going to see Jesus and His righteousness, which will be my cover.

By His obedience, He redeemed His people for eternity.

It is important, then, that we not minimize the work of Christ throughout His life by focusing too narrowly on the work of Christ in His death. Thus, my purpose in my new book, The Work of Christ, is to give a brief overview of Christ's sojourn in this world, looking at the major events of both His life and His death to show that He fulfilled a lifelong mission. It is my prayer that The Work of Christ will help you see that by His whole life our Lord wrought a complete salvation for His beloved people.

folly. The only thing we can be sure of is that death will give us judgment. The question is, do we have that faith by which we are linked to the righteousness of Christ and all the benefits of His ministry on our behalf, or will we stand alone at that judgment bar of Christ?

That’s a tricky question, but I think it’s a fascinating one and certainly one that many people are concerned about. We talk about foxhole faith, when people cry out in desperate moments of crisis or postpone to their deathbed the moment of committing their lives to Christ. Some people say that it doesn’t make sense for somebody who has been a Christian all their life to be in the same state as somebody who did as they pleased all their life and waited until the last second to get their accounts square with God.

There’s a parable in the New Testament in which Jesus speaks about those who agree to work for a certain wage, and then at the last minute some other people are hired and only work for a few minutes but they get the same pay. The first group is really bent out of shape, and they say, “What’s going on here? There’s no justice in this!” Does the second group receive the same salvation? Yes and no. They are brought into a state of salvation; that is, they escape the punishment of hell and enter into the kingdom if indeed that last-breath repentance is genuine. The requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God is to repent and believe in Christ.

The thief on the cross did it in the last minutes of his life, and Jesus assured him that he would be with him in paradise. There we have Exhibit A in the New Testament of somebody who actually did that and who was promised by our Lord himself that he would participate in Jesus’ kingdom. Certainly it’s possible for a person at the last moment of their life to repent sufficiently, believe, and be justified and enter into all of the benefits of membership of the kingdom of heaven.

However, Paul speaks of those who make it into the kingdom by the skin of their teeth. I think a “deathbed” believer would be in that category. We tend to think that all that matters is getting there because there is an unbridgeable chasm between getting into heaven or missing it altogether. Yet Jesus tells us to work and to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven because he promises emphatically that there will be rewards dispensed to his people according to their obedience and their works. You don’t get into heaven by your works, but your reward in heaven will be according to those works, according to the New Testament. What that says to me is that although people can make it by the skin of their teeth by repenting in their last dying breath, nevertheless, their degree of felicity will not be nearly as great as that of those who have been serving Christ faithfully for many, many years.

There is a range of answers to that question. One answer is that Christ is delaying His coming, so to speak, in order to give people an opportunity to repent. The second is that Christ came into the world to overcome sin, to overcome death, and to overcome Satan, but He also came into the world so that sin, death, and Satan would be overcome in our lives. That overcoming is a progressive reality for us, not an instantaneous reality.

So, for example, think about the notion that Christ defeated sin. Paul teaches in Romans 6 that when we’re united to Christ, we’ve died to the dominion of sin, but sin hasn’t yet died in us. One reason sin hasn’t yet died in us is that growth in grace is a necessary part of the Christian life. We can also say Christ has defeated Satan, and yet Satan still troubles us. Why does God allow this? He allows this because He wants to see us progress in grace because He is our Father.

So, you might think about it this way: the father who removes all challenges from his children, or to put it another way, the father who has a fabulous amount of money and says, “This is your inheritance, and I’m going to give it to you now,” would not be a wise father. He wants to see his children grow into that, and that’s what the heavenly Father wants to do.

Sometimes He takes away some of our friends much earlier than we would want, and we sometimes wonder why. Perhaps it is because He simply wants them in heaven, or perhaps it is because He has some mysterious purpose, but characteristically, He wants to see us grow from being infants to being spiritual adults, and we can’t do that without learning how to overcome the enemies of sin, death, and Satan.

Think about it this way: if we were immediately taken to heaven and there was no challenge of facing death and releasing everything we have, everything we are, everything we love, and the people we love into His hands for His care, there are many things about learning to trust Him that we would never discover. So, there are flashes of illumination both in Scripture and our experience about why He has sovereignly patterned the Christian life this way.

of Jesus Christ by the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit, glorifying God and enjoying Him now and at the hour of our death? For the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away—blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1).

The Christian marketplace is filled with T-shirts, tracts, and trinkets that speak of how to have the ideal Christian life. Every year, Christians spend millions of dollars on self-help books and “how-to” guides for living an abundant life. For the most part, Christians are told that if they want to be really great Christians they simply need to follow a few easy steps.

In truth, every Christian, who has not been seduced by the superficial tactics and magical pixie dust of childish Christian gurus from evangelical Neverland, knows full well that there is more to living the Christian life than reading the latest Christian self-help book. It is somewhat ironic that one of the greatest books ever written on Christian living is John Owen’s classic The Mortification of Sin, a book dealing with the Christian’s death to self and the book after which this issue of Tabletalk has been published.

The thesis of Owen’s book is founded upon the Apostle Paul’s admonition to mortify the flesh: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13, KJV). How strange to think that the path to life is through death—the death of our sin and the denial of ourselves (Luke 9:23). In fact, the very foundation of our justification is in the death of death itself in the death of Jesus Christ, and the foundation of Christian living and sanctification is in the death of self in the death of our sin. Therein lies the simplicity of the Christian’s abundant life in Christ (John 10:10).

What makes us different from the watching world of sinners is not that we don’t sin but that we hate our sin, repent of our sin, and earnestly seek to mortify our sin that has been taken to the cross and placed upon our Savior who atoned for our sin—and all this for the glory of God. In his preface of The Mortification of Sin, Owen wrote, I hope . . . that mortification and holiness may be promoted in my heart and in the hearts and lives of others, to the glory of God; and that in this way the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things.

While many Christians suppose their spiritual growth is monitored on some sort of heavenly growth-chart, we only grow as we become more and more convinced of God’s holiness and the absence of true holiness in our own lives, mortifying sin and living obediently coram Deo, before the face of God, for the glory of God on account of God the Son in whom we died and in whom we have been raised to abundant life.

My father was a veteran of World War II, the son of a small-town country preacher, school teacher, and sheriff, the son-in-law of the automobile manufacturer Preston Tucker, a fellow college graduate of Sam Walton, the leader of one of the first grass-roots movements to campaign for Ronald Reagan for president, and a father who grieved for many years over the loss of his first son who died at eighteen years of age. My father was a great man, but he never seemed to overcome the grief he experienced. I never understood the grief my father experienced over the loss of his first son until I was faced with a similar loss. The grief I experienced began with news that came early on a Sunday evening in September — my father had died. I was sixteen years old.

I didn’t know how to grieve. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry over his death until years later when I cried out to God asking Him why he had to take my father away from me. It wasn’t until I entered my twenties and began to learn what manhood is all about when I realized how much I needed my father. It was then, while in college, that I began to deal with the grief that had set in several years before. It was then that I understood the truth of Paul’s words to the Thessalonians when he wrote that we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). The way we grieve is different because the hope we possess is different. Our hope is not in ourselves. We would fail just as our first father failed, sinning against his Father, bringing grief and shame not only to himself but to the entire human race. For in Adam we all sinned, and in Adam we all died (Rom. 5:12). As a result, we suffer with grief every day of our lives — grief over the loss of others, over the sin of others, and over the sin within us.

However, our grief cannot even begin to be compared to the grief of the one who knew no sin. The Man of Sorrows became acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3) so that He might bear our grief and carry away our sorrows (v. 4). All this was done so that we might know our heavenly Father who loved us and gave His only-begotten Son, laying on Him the iniquity of us all, so that we might live eternally coram Deo, before His face, loving Him and enjoying Him forever. The first man sinned and grieved only for himself, but the second Man knew no sin yet grieved for us so that we would not grieve forever.

Some of Jesus’ contemporaries thought of His death as the execution of a criminal. Others saw it as an act of political expediency. Today, R.C. Sproul teaches that the Bible gives us God’s own interpretation of the cross of Christ.

God finds no enjoyment in the destruction of the wicked. But because He is good, the Lord will ensure that justice is done. Today, R.C. Sproul reminds us that even in His benevolence toward sinners, God will never negotiate His holiness.

Sometimes Christians can become more fixated on the details of Christ’s second coming than on the Christ who is to come. Today, Sinclair Ferguson offers an unexpected suggestion to help balance our view of the Lord’s return.

and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb. 9:27–28)

Christ has resolved mankind’s crisis of alienation. Furthermore, Christ not only satisfied the just wrath of God and washed our sins away by His blood, but He “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” on the cross (Gal. 3:13). He purchased us by His blood and paid the penalty for our sin to present us to God as His own precious and prized possession. We are not our own, and we certainly are not under the power of death. We belong to God in Christ.

Third, by the power of God we are translated from the kingdom of darkness (and death) and brought into His marvelous light (and life): “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). And nothing—not even physical death—can snatch us out of His hand. Jesus said: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:26–29)

In life and even through death, we are secure in Christ.

Conclusion

There is much mystery in death, and the shadowy notions we have now of what we will experience when it comes time for us to pass into eternity can be unsettling. One writer reflected poignantly: “The great mystery of death, how it swallows up the lesser mysteries of life which are so perplexing! Reader, in that narrow hour we shall touch them all; and the great revelation will come next after, in the light of the Throne.” But for the Christian, the comforting promise is that what awaits us after death is an eternity of blessedness in the life-giving presence of God, at whose “right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).

What is glorification? At what point does God make His redeemed people incorruptible? Today, Ken Jones explains the meaning of glorification and the ultimate hope Christians have as they await Christ’s return.

Sin creates separation, and that separation is vividly evident in physical death (Rom. 6:23). Death separates husbands from wives, parents from children, and friends from friends. While believers possess the sure hope that all who are in Christ will be physically raised at the second advent (1 Cor. 6:14), that doesn’t negate that the death of loved ones is deeply painful and disorienting.

The following resources, curated by the Ligonier editorial team, seek to bring comfort and strength to believers walking through the suffering, loss, and grief associated with illness and death.

Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in the Christian Life by R.C. Sproul In this classic book, Dr. R.C. Sproul argues that pain and death have a purpose in the Christian life. Rather than being surprised by suffering, we should expect difficulties as we live in a fallen world. The first half of the book addresses the topics of suffering and dying, while the second half addresses life after death. This book can provide counsel and comfort both for the suffering as well as for those ministering to the suffering.

Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian by Guy Prentiss Waters We often try to avoid thinking about death, but the Bible addresses this reality head-on. In this book, Dr. Waters provides biblical answers on death, dying, and the afterlife, seeking to instill confidence for the believer in the face of life’s final battle through faith in Christ’s victory. This resource can serve Christians who are fearful of death, facing their own death, or seeking to care for a dying friend or family member.

What Happens after Death? by Richard Phillips  This pamphlet provides a brief overview of how Christians can come to grips with death. After exploring how Jesus and noted Christians in history have responded to death, the author provides an explanation of the experience of death, the final judgment, and the eternal state in order to impart biblical clarity on these issues.

Grief Undone: A Journey with God and Cancer by Elizabeth W.D. Groves This book recounts the story of how the author and her husband walked through his terminal cancer diagnosis. Honest yet hopeful, it shows how faith transforms suffering by looking to the God who is with His people. The book also serves readers by modeling healthy and God-honoring grief.

Dying and Death: Getting Rightly Prepared for the Inevitable by Joel Beeke and Christopher Bogosh In this book, the authors contend that meditating on death and dying can be a profitable endeavor. Divided into three sections, part one provides a theological overview of dying and death. Part two looks at Jesus’ dying and death, identifying the comfort that it gives believers. Part three transitions to contemporary concerns with ethical issues related to dying and death.

have also been incredible) was unavailable. A group of them, on their own initiative and without our asking, even organized themselves and cleaned our house during the worst of it. The support and care that the body of Christ offers its hurting members is a gift to help us endure gloomy days.

Death and disease don’t surprise Him. He’s numbered our days (Ps. 139:16), so He’s always accomplishing His good purposes for us.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4). “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). These words of life comfort us in dark days.

Ten years and four children later, I’m cancer-free. After many surgeries and with more on the way, our youngest son is developing well. Though there remain many unknowns, he appears to have one of the least severe cases of his syndrome. But death still lies ahead for me and for us all. Let us face our fear of it with courage, because Jesus has already faced death for us and won.

might have honest, earnest conversations with our friends and family about the root of our confidence in the face of death’s approach. We could commit our thoughts to letters or recordings. But one thing we must do is make sure that our lives line up with what we claim to believe. This does not mean, of course, that we come close to living lives of perfection. But it does mean that there is evidence that the grace of Christ has taken up residence in our lives (see Rom. 8:1–11; Gal. 5:22–23).

Whether you are serving your loved ones by preparing them for your death or whether you are grieving the loss of a fellow believer, you need the same thing: the gospel of Christ. This means that we need to commit to hearing the gospel preached every Lord’s Day. It means that we are spending time with fellow Christians to encourage one another in faith and godliness. It means that we are regularly spending time in the prayerful study of, meditation on, and application of Scripture. Preparation for death never begins at death—whether someone else’s or the imminent arrival of our own. Preparation for death begins right now by drawing close to Jesus Christ and finding grace in Him to face death and to encourage others who will face death.

: I have drawn inspiration for this approach to the passage from the Puritan Thomas Case, Mount Pisgah; or, A Prospect of Heaven. Being an Exposition of 1 Thess. 4:13–18, in The Select Works of Thomas Case (1836; repr., Ligonier, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria, 1993). My outline, however, differs from that of Case. : It is possible to translate verse 14 thus: “God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.” If so, Paul would be making the point that he makes in verse 16 in verse 14 also. : Paul is not saying declaratively that Jesus will certainly return in the lifetimes of his readers. He is saying, rather, that the return of Christ (the exact time of which has not been revealed to us, Matt. 24:36; 1 Thess. 5:3) is imminent—that is, it could happen at any moment. When it does happen, the sequence of events described by Paul will transpire.

How does baptism help us bear witness to Christ in our lives? Today, R.C. Sproul draws an important connection between this sacrament and our call as Christians to participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Major historical events have a way of marking our memory, yet the mark gradually fades. Today, R.C. Sproul contrasts this with the way that the Lord’s Supper helps Christians to continually remember the death of Christ.