Reincarnation
In response to Charlie's comment on "Death & Resurrection":
I am, to an extent, "shooting from the hip" on this. Of course I must speak in generalities, just as your question does in assuming that non-Christians are terrified of death. I think I will propose two answers, but as to which is correct, if either are, might take some more thought.
(1) Scripture tells us that all men know God exists, and they understand in a dim sense their relationship to Him because of sin (the beach ball underwater analogy). The "un-believers" or "pagans" (as I was happy to see Bryan Clark refer to them in Sunday School) are those who live with a complete hatred towards God. It also seems to me that God gave us a sense of the eternal existence of our lives. It is typically the irrational and disregarded minds in society that believe existence ends at death, and they should be considered so (with the possible exception of our modern society, which parts of should probably be wholly disregarded). I would now put forth that all men know death will come, and that they will continue to exist in some form after death. Because of their knowledge of the existence of God, I also believe they know there will be some sort of judgment to come. Knowing they will face this judgment and be found guilty one day I believe is what terrifies them of death -- life is what keeps them from that judgment. Now, I might also say that due to the lies that sin repeatedly produces in our minds, that fear of death may be at different levels for different non-Christians. Funny though, I think it is some of the "best-behaved" non-Christians who have the least fear of death and the most deceptive hearts.
(2) This one may seem slightly more related to the original subject. The pattern of death and resurrection in our lives is one way that the gospel and Christianity are taught to us and lived out by us. As Christians, we daily experience the redemption we have in Jesus Christ; we have tangible forms already of the work God has begun in us, and these things encourage us to take hope for our salvation and redemption to be fully complete. In this way we anticipate death because of the gospel. A non-Christian has never experienced the redemption that is found in Christ, though the gospel is even worked out in their lives as they go through graduations, marriages, etc. The difference is that they never hear or see the message, though it is spoken to them, shown to them, and even lived out by them. We all know that life will not end at death, but as Christians we have hope in God's promises, we have hope in Christ. A non-Christian does not have this hope, so death will bring them into the unknown with only the lies of their heart to encourage them as the go. That would give me a fear of death also . . . and might make some sense of the term "passing away". "Passing away", with its usual connotation, seems to have a lonely, eternal goodbye sense to it.
Next question: Mourning? Well, this is a subject I still have a lot to learn about. It is obviously biblical, godly, and healthy to mourn the actual death of loved ones, but I believe it would carry over to these smaller "deaths" also, maybe. This subject still confuses me though. What I usually hear, and makes sense, is that we mourn death because "death" is "not the way it's supposed to be". We live in a world corrupted by sin and under God's curse, and death is a result of that, and for this we mourn over the state of corruption we have brought on ourselves. But we also mourn knowing full well that redemption for the world has already begun and will one day reach full completion in the coming of Christ. So here's where it gets tricky: Is the "death and resurrection" God brought Adam through to create Eve related to the same death that later ended Adam's life? This is tricky because one is pre-fall and one is post-fall. The first death seems to be God's way of choosing to do things apart from sin, though we know the second wasn't quite as ideal. I think the "maturing factor" has to play itself out somehow, but I am not sure how yet. One thing I will add to this though, is that maybe even more important is the celebrations that should accompany each of these deaths and resurrections. This is a little more easily seen I think.
Lastly, the first semi-rational descriptive word that came to mind for these phases or stages of death and resurrection in our lives is reincarnation. We are saying that we die in some particular way, and we are then brought back to life with some literal change from the previous life, some more mature form. Maybe James Jordan is really Buddhist underneath it all. Maybe Bozeman is taking its toll on me.
Please give me some input to work with on all this . . .
I am, to an extent, "shooting from the hip" on this. Of course I must speak in generalities, just as your question does in assuming that non-Christians are terrified of death. I think I will propose two answers, but as to which is correct, if either are, might take some more thought.
(1) Scripture tells us that all men know God exists, and they understand in a dim sense their relationship to Him because of sin (the beach ball underwater analogy). The "un-believers" or "pagans" (as I was happy to see Bryan Clark refer to them in Sunday School) are those who live with a complete hatred towards God. It also seems to me that God gave us a sense of the eternal existence of our lives. It is typically the irrational and disregarded minds in society that believe existence ends at death, and they should be considered so (with the possible exception of our modern society, which parts of should probably be wholly disregarded). I would now put forth that all men know death will come, and that they will continue to exist in some form after death. Because of their knowledge of the existence of God, I also believe they know there will be some sort of judgment to come. Knowing they will face this judgment and be found guilty one day I believe is what terrifies them of death -- life is what keeps them from that judgment. Now, I might also say that due to the lies that sin repeatedly produces in our minds, that fear of death may be at different levels for different non-Christians. Funny though, I think it is some of the "best-behaved" non-Christians who have the least fear of death and the most deceptive hearts.
(2) This one may seem slightly more related to the original subject. The pattern of death and resurrection in our lives is one way that the gospel and Christianity are taught to us and lived out by us. As Christians, we daily experience the redemption we have in Jesus Christ; we have tangible forms already of the work God has begun in us, and these things encourage us to take hope for our salvation and redemption to be fully complete. In this way we anticipate death because of the gospel. A non-Christian has never experienced the redemption that is found in Christ, though the gospel is even worked out in their lives as they go through graduations, marriages, etc. The difference is that they never hear or see the message, though it is spoken to them, shown to them, and even lived out by them. We all know that life will not end at death, but as Christians we have hope in God's promises, we have hope in Christ. A non-Christian does not have this hope, so death will bring them into the unknown with only the lies of their heart to encourage them as the go. That would give me a fear of death also . . . and might make some sense of the term "passing away". "Passing away", with its usual connotation, seems to have a lonely, eternal goodbye sense to it.
Next question: Mourning? Well, this is a subject I still have a lot to learn about. It is obviously biblical, godly, and healthy to mourn the actual death of loved ones, but I believe it would carry over to these smaller "deaths" also, maybe. This subject still confuses me though. What I usually hear, and makes sense, is that we mourn death because "death" is "not the way it's supposed to be". We live in a world corrupted by sin and under God's curse, and death is a result of that, and for this we mourn over the state of corruption we have brought on ourselves. But we also mourn knowing full well that redemption for the world has already begun and will one day reach full completion in the coming of Christ. So here's where it gets tricky: Is the "death and resurrection" God brought Adam through to create Eve related to the same death that later ended Adam's life? This is tricky because one is pre-fall and one is post-fall. The first death seems to be God's way of choosing to do things apart from sin, though we know the second wasn't quite as ideal. I think the "maturing factor" has to play itself out somehow, but I am not sure how yet. One thing I will add to this though, is that maybe even more important is the celebrations that should accompany each of these deaths and resurrections. This is a little more easily seen I think.
Lastly, the first semi-rational descriptive word that came to mind for these phases or stages of death and resurrection in our lives is reincarnation. We are saying that we die in some particular way, and we are then brought back to life with some literal change from the previous life, some more mature form. Maybe James Jordan is really Buddhist underneath it all. Maybe Bozeman is taking its toll on me.
Please give me some input to work with on all this . . .
posted by Brian | 6:15 PM
4 Comments:
Your comments made me think that part of the reason we - all people - know that we have life after death is because we have seen that process repeated our entire lives. To believe that we are just done when we die is against everything we know, have seen, and experienced.
A couple other comments on mourning. I don't like saying we mourn because death is "not the way it is supposed to be." I think we mourn death because we value life. We value life because we are not gnostic. Also, I think we mourn death because not only do we love life, but we loved that person and now that person is gone. We mourn our loss, we celebrate the life they lived, and we remember what God did through them.
Regarding the Adam part, seems like the first death deals with maturity and the second death deals with punishment. Could it be that the death that ends this life deals is actually two different types of death? For a Christian it is a final mortification of the flesh and thus a major step in maturity; while for the pagan it is punishment? I think we see these two types of death played out in our life. For example, take two kids in two different situations. John is getting married, and Joe is being sentenced to life in prison for killing his mom. Now assuming I am not a male shovenistic pig, I can say John is dead in all respects as a single person, but is being "resurrected" into a fuller life. Joe, on the other hand, is dieing to a life of freedom to spend his life bound in a cell (never mind that he now has cable TV, steak for dinner, and unlimited library and weight room access). Anyway, I think there are two different types of death that occur throughout our lives on this earth. Because we see these two types of death, there must be two different deaths that end life on this earth.
But as a Christian death is always good because it either matures us or kills our enemy. This seems to reiterate that for us death has been defeated, for it is always good.
Charlie -
Your first comment on the repetition of death and resurrection I agree with completely. I thought of writing something similiar in this post but wasn't sure how to fit it in at the time.
Your comments on mourning were very helpful for me, too. When Blake was killed in an avalance back at the beginning of the year, the idea of death not being the way its supposed to be was brought up quite often; and for the most part, it seemed to make sense. Why did Jesus mourn for Lazurus if He knew he was going to raise him from the dead? What also helped me respect this idea was how well this church handled and grew through this tragedy.
On the other hand, I am attracted to your comments as much or more; and I believe they explain things a little better. There seems to be an understanding of "loving life" that I know and can see is so important and yet fail to fully grasp yet.
Your explanation of the two types of death makes sense also. I wasn't sure I wanted to split it that way, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might work. The key, I think, is to remember your last paragraph of what death always is for a Christian. I'm trying to think of other means like death that God uses to sanctify and to punish. Could "work" possible do this also? We know Adam had to work before the fall and after, yet in many ways working after the fall is drastically different. This is assuming that death would have only been used as a way to mature God's people if sin had never entered the world.
The idea of there being two types of death that end this life also seems like something that would fit right in with the theology Paul gives us as he often contrasts between the children of Satan and the children of God.
Do we ever learn anything without getting to apply it? No. So I am now in the process of applying our discussion on mourning. My grandpa died Wednesday afternoon and I will be headed home saturday. If you feel like joining me, I will be in Cd'A Sat.-Mon. As they say, there is more wisdom in a house of mourning than a house of feasting. May it be.
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