Toward a Theology of Death

A discussion with some friends last night reinforced the need for us to articulate an evangelical theology of death. We have learned to speak of death in unhelpful, trite ways.

I have attended far too many funerals (one would be far too many). I hate them. I hate coming to grips with my mortality. I hate how everyone smiles and tries to be friendly when they want to cry. I hate how I don’t know whether to hug someone or to avoid conversation with them. I never know what to do when I am near a casket. Is it wrong to pretend it is not there? Is it weird if I look at it too long? It is possible that there is nowhere that I am least comfortable than at a funeral.

I suspect that it is this discomfort that causes us Christians to say trite, unhelpful things. We say things like, “This is a time of celebration.” Is that true? Is a funeral a time of celebration? I am not sure I want to celebrate.

The last funeral I attended was for a friend of mine that died tragically in a car accident. He was much too young to die. I was a part of the ceremony. It was not a celebration. It was a tragedy.

I think Paul has a healthy theology of death. He calls it “the last enemy to be destroyed” (1 Cor. 15:26). It is interesting that we find ourselves straining to celebrate at funerals, believing that God wants us to be happy, when God calls death an enemy. Death is an enemy. Death is an enemy. Death is an enemy. Maybe if I write that enough we’ll actually start to believe it. We could go a long way toward developing a theology of death if we stopped trying to celebrate a thing which God calls an enemy.

At that funeral, death won. I couldn’t pull my friend out of the casket so that we could joke around one last time. The enemy, death, had a victory. When death wins, I don’t celebrate. I mourn. There is nothing good about it. It was never supposed to happen. Spirits were never supposed to be separated from bodies. It is a perversion. It should make us mourn.

We don’t mourn, though, like those with no hope. Death is an enemy. However, we know that death doesn’t win in this story. Death will be destroyed. When the perfect comes, there will be no more death. I will never have to stand beside another grave coming to grips with my own mortality. Death will be destroyed. When that happens (and only then) we can join Paul in the refrain, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

When people die, Christians should not celebrate, they should mourn. However, they should mourn with hope because God is going to fix this place and one day, the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.

Gracious Living

The Christian message flies in the face of conventional wisdom. It is centered on an idea of grace that, as Bono put it, ‘travels outside of karma.’

Forgive others as Christ forgave you. This is the command that we are given. However, we often decide this road is too difficult. We settle for a road that is much more wise and safe and intuitive.

Something hit me tonight about living out the gospel of grace. Living graciously means expecting others to fail and resolving to handle them graciously and lovingly when they do, rather than with judgment. It would be revolutionary if people really lived this way.

When someone says something hurtful to us, we should have expected that this would happen and resolved to be humble and gracious, responding without judgment. When the same person does it again, we should respond in precisely the same way. When we are undermined, slighted, misunderstood, laughed at, ignored, and mocked, we should not be greatly surprised. We should respond graciously and without judgment.

Common sense tells us this is a stupid way to live. This is why no one (not even most Christians) actually lives this stuff out. It means we get taken advantage of. Common sense says if someone hurts you, you must keep them at arm’s length. It is unwise not to protect yourself. Human reason tells us that if a woman cheats you, do not trust her. It is foolish to be cheated again. It is foolish to become a doormat for others.

If you lived this way, you would get taken advantage of. That is for sure. Then again, this is exactly the way that God forgives and moves toward us graciously. God expects that we will fail and He resolves to move toward us graciously when we do. To live out the gracious gospel, we must resolve to do the same. It is unsafe. It means we will be taken advantage of.

The world would be revolutionized if we actually lived this way. We must expect others to fail, to disrespect us, to slight us, to hurt our pride, to misunderstand us, to cheat us, and to otherwise wrong us. We must repent of our constant need to vindicate ourselves and make ourselves appear great, and resolve to graciously move toward people who will fail us.

This is living graciously. This is forgiving as we have been forgiven.

Journey to the Death

Am I willing to imitate Christ? Am I really willing to live as he lived? A study of the phrase, “Son of Man” in the Gospel of Mark reveals to me that I have no desire to truly live out the Gospel.
Mark uses this phrase in three major ways throughout his Gospel.

The first is to discuss his authority. Jesus had authority to forgive sin, as was demonstrated by the healing of the paralytic man in Mark 2. Jesus was the Lord over the Sabbath as we see later in the same Chapter.

After using the phrase twice to discuss Christ’s authority in the first two chapters, Mark doesn’t use the phrase again until 8:31. This is about the time that the journey to Jerusalem starts. Within the context of the Gospel of Mark, this is the journey to Christ’s death.

When he uses the phrase this time, it is referring to the suffering of the Son of Man. This is the main way the phrase is used in the Gospel. Christ is going to suffer and die. He says this three times. Three times it is followed by the disciples misunderstanding and desiring power.

The third way Mark uses the phrase is to speak of the future glory of Christ. Christ will come again on clouds. Mark paints a picture of him splitting open the clouds and judging the world.

This, in essence, is the Gospel of Mark. The Son of Man, the authoritative one as the creator and King of the universe, humbles himself and suffers. He suffers unimaginably. His friends betray him. His Father pours wrath out on Him. His creations kill him.

After this, he goes to glory. He is glorified and sits at the right hand of the Father.

This is the journey he invites us on. To be honest, there are many times I don’t want to go. The Gospel of Mark is a journey to Christ’s death. The entire time, he tells his disciples they must be willing to journey to the death with him. Most of them did.

Jesus is looking for a few ‘ride or die’ people that go with him to the death. The call is a call to follow Christ to his cross. The promise is a future glory that is beyond imagination. I wish the journey were as easy as a walk down an aisle to receive Jesus. I wish the journey were a prayer to receive Jesus. I wish it were a few worship services, ten percent of my income, and a small group bible study. I could take that journey.

Instead, the journey is a call to follow to the death for a promise of future glory. This is the journey we’re called on. You in?

The Sun Will Come Out

I sit at the local coffee shop (if you want to call starbucks a local coffee shop), staring out the window at the sunlight. It kind of feels like California to me. Every time someone opens up the door the cool breeze blows against my back. It feels wonderful.

It is hard to believe that just this morning it was so foggy that I couldn’t see more than 30 feet in front of me. Now, the fogginess of the morning is a distant memory.

I wonder if this is what it will feel like in the next life. Compared to the end of the story, we get a foggy glimpse of God. We have a tiny representation of His grace. We have the down payment, the Holy Spirit, which is a guarantee of what is to come.

Even having this down payment, we see horrors. We see the fog. We see death, destruction, and terror. We have doubt and insecurity. We struggle to believe. We struggle to see God through the dense fog.

One day, though, the sun comes. The fog never returns. We will stand in the presence of the Almighty. Today, we are in fog. Tomorrow, the sun comes out. Come, Lord Jesus.

What is Faith?

Salvation by grace through faith is something that Christians have believed since the conception of the church. However, I think there may be a problem with our understanding of the word ‘faith.’ What does it mean to put faith in God? What were the New Testament writers getting at when they used the term? How did the readers understand the concept? How is that different from the way the term is understood today?

I was talking with my friend Matt about this idea. He was pointing out to me that the way that ‘faith’ (Greek: pistis) is used in the New Testament seems to be vastly different than the way we understand faith today.

We tend to define ‘faith’ as an intellectual assent to facts. If someone is asked if they have faith, they may say, “Yes. I believe in God.” What they mean by this is that they believe that the world was created by God. They may believe that Jesus is God. They may even believe that Jesus died and rose again for their sins.

This is not an incorrect understanding of ‘faith.’ However, it is helplessly incomplete. Faith includes believing certain truths. However, faith is most often used to describe loyal devotion or commitment to a person or cause. This is how the word was most often understood in Greek literature.

We have overemphasized the intellectual aspect of faith to the point that we have ignored the idea of loyalty and commitment to God. In my opinion, this has led to two fatal errors.

First, there are many people who profess faith in God because they intellectually assent to the things that are written in the bible. They say, “I believe in God,” and yet they show no loyal devotion to his purposes on this earth. To the readers and writers of the New Testament, this was not faith at all. To profess faith without complete, unswerving devotion would be like professing to be a square circle. This is why James tells us “faith without works is dead.”

Second, there are many others who are continually wondering where the line between doubt and unbelief should be drawn. An overemphasis on the intellectual aspect of faith has led people (like myself) to continually question if they ‘believe strongly enough.’ The truth is, faith will always involve doubt. By definition, faith includes uncertainty. Any faithful person who is honest with herself will say that there are times when she wonders if she is wrong. Continual battles of trying to make herself believe stronger are unhelpful. Instead, she needs to focus on being completely committed with an unswerving devotion. This involves belief, but does not stop there.

We must learn to define faith in a more complete way. While the intellectual aspect of faith is important, it is not all that Christian faith entails. Christian Faith entails unswerving commitment to the purposes of God in the world.