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DEATH
Christ offers life, eternal life. Yet, the road to life is death.

Death is the indispensable condition of experiencing life. Scripture promises life through death, and knows life
on no other terms. Romans 6:13

Salvation

God’s gift is life/eternal life. (Romans 6:23) Those who have the Son have life. (1 John 5:12) Life/eternal life
is an existence in communion with God. John 17:3

Sin keeps humanity from God. Throughout Scripture, sin and death are coupled together as an offense and its
just penalty.

So, God came to us in Jesus Christ. He took our place, bore our sin, and died our death.

His death cannot do us any good unless we appropriate its benefits for ourselves. By faith inwardly we become
united to Christ in his death and resurrection. We have died and risen with him. Now, therefore, we must
reckon ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11

We are not immune to sin, but we must realize and remember that, being one with Christ, the benefits of his
death have become ours. We are “alive to God” - alive through Jesus’ death.

Discipleship

Jesus promises self-discovery, at the cost of self-denial, true life at the cost of death. Mark 8:34-35

We are to take up our cross every day (Luke 9:23), and if we do not do so we cannot be his disciple. Luke
14:27

Paul declares that he had been crucified with Christ, and that all who belong to Christ have crucified their fallen
nature with all its passions and desires. (Galatians 2:20; 5:24) “For if you live according to the flesh you will
die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13

So if we want to live a life of fulfillment, we must reject evil.

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Mission

Isaiah 42-53. The servant of the Lord is called to bring salvation to the nations, but first he must endure
mockery and persecution.

John 12:23-25. Jesus saw himself as fulfilling the suffering servant prophecies, and spoke of the necessity of
suffering in mission. Death is the way to fruitfulness.

John 12:26. As with the Messiah, so it is for the Messiah’s community, for “whoever serves me must follow
me.”

People receive life through the gospel, and those who preach the gospel faithfully suffer for it. Such is the
history of the Christian church. 2 Corinthians 4:12

2 examples - one relating to an individual, and the other to a whole country:

1. Adoniram Judson (Burma/Myanmar) - reached Rangoon in 1813. After 6 years of language learning,
preached his first sermon. First convert in 7th year. Took him 20 years to translate the Bible into
Burmese. Widowed twice, lost 6 children during his lifetime, and was constantly plagued with illness.
Spent nearly 2 years in a Burmese prison and in 37 years of missionary service he returned home to the
US only once. When he died in 1850, 37 years after arriving, he left more than 7,000 baptized Burmese
in 63 churches. Now, it is estimated that there are more than 3 million Christians in Burma.1

2. When the Communists took over China and expelled missionaries, it is estimated that there were nearly
1 million Protestant Christians. Today, it is estimated that there are 70 million.2

“The reason for the growth of the church in China and for the outbreak of genuine spiritual revival in many
areas is inextricably linked to the whole theology of the cross…. The stark message of the Chinese church is
that God uses suffering and the preaching of a crucified Christ to pour out revival and build his church. Are we
in the West still willing to hear?... The Chinese church … has walked the way of the cross. The lives and
deaths of the martyrs of the 1950s and 1960s have borne rich fruit.”3

Persecution

2 Corinthians 1:8-10. Death is found to be the way to life in physical persecution. Christians are promised
neither immunity nor deliverance. Instead, in the midst of death we can experience life.

2 Corinthians 4:10-11. We can experience both the death and the life of Jesus simultaneously. Even before the
resurrection takes place we experience the resurrection life of Jesus. Thus, “dying, and yet we live on.”
2 Corinthians 6:9

The truth at the core of Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church is power through weakness, glory through
1
Stott, Radical Disciple, 121-122.
2
Operation World estimates that there are 69.2 million, but accurate statistics are not available. See Patrick Johnstone and Jason
Mandryk, Operation World (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 2001), 160.
3
Tony Lambert, The Resurrection of the Chinese Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), 174, 267.
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suffering, and life through death. 2 Corinthians 12:9, 10; 1 Corinthians 15, etc. In the end Paul was executed.
Revelation 2:10

Today, it is estimated that ca. 200 million Christians worldwide live in fear of the secret police under state
repression. In more than 60 countries worldwide Christians are harassed, abused, imprisoned, tortured, and
executed on account of their faith. Yet “despite persecution, Christianity is growing rapidly in the world.”4

Martyrdom

Revelation 20:4. A special honor will be accorded to Christian martyrs in the new world.

In Romania, during the oppressive regime of Nicolae Ceaucescu, Pastor Josif Ton in one of his published
sermons told how the authorities threatened to kill him. He responded: “Sir, your supreme weapon is killing.
My supreme weapon is dying.”5

In Germany, during the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer met his executioners by saying, “This is the end - for
me the beginning of life.”6

Mortality

Physical death is “the last enemy to be destroyed.” 1 Corinthians 15:26

We affirm that “Christ Jesus … has destroyed death.” 2 Timothy 1:10; 1 Corinthians 15:55

The gift of life includes resurrection to glory, to Christ. We will be raised in resurrection bodies. There will be
an essential continuity, but the discontinuity is more striking. Like a plant from its seed, our resurrection bodies
will have new abilities. 1 Corinthians 15:35-44

The world is also to be regenerated (Matthew 19:28) into a new heaven and a new earth. The whole creation
will be liberated from its bondage to decay. Romans 8:18-25

Philippians 1:21-23. Paul’s philosophy of life and death: life means Christ. If life means Christ to us, by
analogy, then death will bring gain.

The best is yet to come!

4
Paul Marshall and Lela Gilbert, Their Blood Cries Out (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 8. Also see The Voice of the Martyrs at
http://www.persecution.com/.
5
As quoted in Stott, Radical Disciple, 127.
6
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, foreword to Letters and Papers from Prison (Fontana, Calif.: Fontana, 1959), 11.