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Tuesday, March 18
... Then also the ones who fell asleep in Christ perished ... (1 Corinthians 15:18)
A Puritan pastor lay dying. His secretary wrote a letter in his name to a friend, closing with the words, "I am still in the land of the living." The pastor read over the letter and said, "Change the last line to say, 'I am still in the land of the dying, but I hope soon to be in the land of the living.'" Our culture knows less of death and life than did he. Consider our euphemisms for death: we "pass away" or "depart," we have "gone on" or "passed on." We fear death, because it is the great unknown. It is the window whose curtains we cannot draw back, the wall we cannot climb, the river whose distant shore we cannot see.
Tomorrow is promised to none. Does that fact encourage or frighten you today?
What God's word means
If there is no physical resurrection, not only would the Corinthians be without salvation today—their loved ones would be without it eternally. The ones who fell asleep refers to all who have died. In Christ shows that Paul has in view those who have made Christ their Lord and thus died in faith. They believed that they would be raised from the dead in keeping with Jesus' promise (John 11:26), but in fact they perished ("were utterly destroyed, ruined, lost").
"Falling asleep" is a common biblical metaphor for death (see 1 Corinthians 15:6, 20, 51):
• "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2).
• "The tombs were also opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised" (Matthew 27:52).
• "'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.' . . . Jesus had spoken of his death" (John 11:11, 13).
• "And falling to his knees [Stephen] cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And when he had said this, he fell asleep" (Acts 7:60).
• "David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption" (Acts 13:36).
• "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 Thessalonians 4:13; see verses 14-15).
• "They will say, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation'" (2 Peter 3:4). This metaphor conveys several important messages: (1) Death is not nal. Those who sleep will awaken, as will those who die. (2) We are alive even when we appear to be dead. Just as those who are asleep are inactive in our world but active in their dream state, so with those who have died. (3) Death is not to be feared. We go to sleep each night, con dent that we will awaken in the morning. A Christian should view death in the same way. (4) Death is defeated by life. Sleep has no permanent hold on us; nor does death. (5) Death is redeemed by God. Just as sleep prepares us for greater service and vigor, so death leads to eternal life in paradise.
Why Easter matters
Without the resurrection, facts 1 and 2 would be bad news, not good. We would step from death into eternal death in hell. Without Easter, facts 3, 4 and 5 would not be true. We would fear death, for it would lead only to permanent separation from God with no possible redemption, ever.
Because of Easter, John Donne was right:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
How to respond
I once preached a sermon on the need to be prepared every day to meet God. That evening, an elderly woman thanked me for my message and told me she had spent time that afternoon confessing her sins to God and making sure she was right with him.
The next morning, she had a heart attack and died. The next day, I received a thank-you note from her in the mail. She had written it the previous Sunday and placed it in her mailbox in case she did not see me that night. I read it the next day at her memorial service.
None of us knows when death will take us from this world. But, thanks to Easter, all of us can know Who will be waiting for us on the other side. How does that fact encourage you today?
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