The Tender Love A Father Has: The Christian’s Comfort, Even In Death (Part 3)

In our previous installments in this series, we began by considering the great aversion and discomfort our culture has when it comes to death. We noted the various unhealthy, unbiblical, and unhelpful coping mechanisms that are often employed in the face of death’s inevitable specter—from denial, escapism, sentimentalism, or awkward avoidance. We noted how death is God’s judgment on account of sin, yet at the same time, God in Holy Scriptures offers us a remarkably different—indeed, tender—perspective. It is my hope that this little series will contribute something of both a theological grounding for Christians to better grapple with the reality of death, and something by way of biblical hope and pastoral comfort as Christians face the last enemy (1 Cor 15:26).

Words of Enmity and Comfort

We noted at length in our first installment the remarkable language that Scripture uses when it speaks of Abraham’s death. In Genesis 25:8–9 we read, “Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him.”

Note especially that phrase, “he was gathered to his people” (Gen 25:8). This phrase is used of Ishmael (Gen 25:17), of Isaac (Gen 35:29), of Jacob (Gen 49:33), of Aaron (Num 20:24, 26), and of Moses (Num 27:13; 31:2; Deut 32:50). This tender, comforting language continues all throughout the Old and New Testaments:

God says to Hezekiah in 2 Kings 22:20 that he is going to be “gathered to his fathers.”
In Psalm 116:15, we are told, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.”
In Luke 16:22, Jesus describes death as being “carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.”
In Luke 23:43, Jesus tells the thief on the cross regarding his death, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
In John 14:2, Jesus describes to his disciples their future deaths in terms of the “many mansions” which he is preparing for them.
In Philippians 1:23, the apostle Paul speaks of his own impending death as a blessed departure, expressing his desire “to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”
In 2 Corinthians 5:8, Scripture tells us that death is “to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
In Philippians 1:21, Paul speaks of death as a gain.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 (in what is perhaps my favorite and most tear-inducing description), the believer’s death is described as having “fallen asleep” in the Lord and that believers, though dead, are but “those who sleep in Jesus.”

Are those not remarkably lovely and comforting pictures of death?

And yet, we have argued that death is a kind of foul intruder, though certainly under the sovereign governance of the Lord. On the one hand, death is the last enemy that must be defeated (1 Cor 15:26). Sin has brought death. Death is a judgment against sin. It is odious, miserable, and unnatural. Sin is an enemy, and, likewise, death is an enemy. Yet, on the other hand, death has become “but my entrance into glory.”¹

The Second Death

One pastor I listened to years ago pointed me toward Revelation 20:6, arguing that the transformation of the Christian’s understanding of death hinges on what John is driving at in this verse. Revelation 20:6 reads, “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

When John speaks of the “second death” in Scripture, what exactly is he talking about? In the Bible, the “second death” is a sobering shorthand for God’s final judgment and the punishment that follows for those who reject Christ. It is biblical shorthand for the everlasting death and misery that awaits the reprobate. The first death is the cessation and expiration of this mortal body and mortal life. The second death is the destiny awaiting the wicked on the great Day of the Lord—a day when God’s justice will be fully revealed.

Yet, for those who trust in Christ, the looming shadow of death adopts a radically different tenor. Death, that foul intruder into God’s good creation, has been transformed. How? Because Jesus himself faced the second death on our behalf. When he hung on the cross, he bore the full weight of God’s judgment—the punishment we deserved—so that believers would never have to. As a result, for those in Christ, physical death, or the “first death,” is no longer a terrifying plunge into judgment. Instead, it is a passageway into the presence of God.

Think back to Genesis 3:24, where God stationed the cherubim to bar Adam and Eve from returning to Eden after their sin. Death became a barrier, a consequence of rebellion that cut mankind off from God’s blessed presence. But Jesus changed all that. By enduring the second death, he tore down that barrier. As Dr. Douglas Kelly once vividly put it, when death tried to take on Jesus, “it bit off more than it could chew.” Through Christ’s victory, death for the believer is no longer the end but the beginning of everlasting communion with God.

A Father Who Knows Best

Despite death being an inevitable reality on account of sin and the Fall, how many of us have had the wind knocked out of our souls when we get the dreaded phone call? How many of us have been ravaged at a spiritual level when we receive that message alerting us to the death of a child, when we learn of that young wife succumbing to cancer, a young husband killed in war, a pre-born infant dying in utero, a beloved grandparent or friend taken suddenly in an act of tragic negligence on the highway? In those moments, the pain feels absolutely, horrifically intolerable. Our minds may be driven to dark places, supposing even that God himself has abandoned us, as if the Lord holds us at a cold, aloof arm’s length, distant from our sorrow. But Scripture tells a different story. God sent his Son into this world knowing he would die—enduring not just a physical death, but enduring even the second death, the judgment that we will never face if we trust in Christ.

Beloved, we serve and worship a God who gave up his most precious, costliest treasure to the cold pangs of death. The Father gave his Son to experience death for us. Our compassionate and sympathetic High Priest does not relate or sympathize with us in the abstract or merely theoretically, but truly, having gone through an experience that was all too harrowing and real. As Paul writes in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” The Father did not spare his Son—his well-beloved, his only-begotten Son, the king of angels, the darling of heaven—but gave him over to death for us.

See how the late Donald Macleod strikingly puts it:

Even in the darkness [of Golgotha] God was, “My God,” [to Jesus] and though there was no sign of Him, and though the pain obscured the promises, somewhere in the depths of His soul there remained the assurance that God was holding Him. . . . Yet with all these qualifiers, this was a real forsaking. Jesus did not merely feel forsaken. He was forsaken; and not only by His disciples, but by God Himself. It was the Father who had delivered Him up to Judas, to the Jews, to Pilate, and finally to the cross itself.

And now, when He had cried, God had closed His ears. The crowd had not stopped jeering, the demons had not stopped taunting, the pain had not abated. Instead, every circumstance bespoke the anger of God; and there was no countering voice. This time, no word came from heaven to remind Him that He was God’s Son, and greatly loved. No dove came down to assure Him of the Spirit’s presence and ministry. No angel came to strengthen Him. No redeemed sinner bowed to thank Him. . . . Even in the anguish of Gethsemane, distraught and overborne though He was, He had been able to [say “Abba, Father”] (Mark 14:36). But not here . . . now Abba is not there. Only El is there: God All-mighty, God All-holy. And He is before El, not now as His Beloved Son, but as the Sin of the World. That is His identity: the character in which He stands before Absolute Integrity. It is not that He bears some vague relation to sinners. He is one of them, numbered with transgressors. Indeed, He is all of them. He is sin (2 Cor 5:21), condemned to bear its curse; and He has no cover. None can serve as His advocate. Nothing can be offered as His expiation. He must bear all, and El will not, cannot, spare Him till the ransom is paid in full.²

This changes everything about how we face death. Yes, it remains the “last enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), but Christ has already conquered it. For the Christian, death is not a mystery to fear. Death is an enemy, yes, but it is a felled, de-fanged, impotent, and hapless enemy. God ordained death as a consequence of sin, and his Son endured it as judgment in our place. There is nothing about death that God does not understand. That is why the words of the Twenty-Third Psalm are so precious to us: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps 23:4). Death may unsettle us, but we serve a Savior who has gone through death itself—plunged into its depths, drinking its damning cup down to the dregs—and he now abides in us and with us (John 15:4), taking us by the hand and escorting us right through death’s once-fearsome portal. Never for a moment forsaking us or leaving our side, he ushers us right through. Death may menacingly sneer all he likes, but the believer can almost saunter through that dark vale with a quiet, near-smiling confidence, because it is the death-experiencing, death-conquering Christ, the One to whom death must bow, who ushers the believer in, saying, “Enter into the joy of your master.”

Lord of Life and Death

Jesus said he laid down his life so we might live; he came that his people “may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10–11). This glorious truth does not negate or erase the pain of loss, not in the least, but it surely anchors the believer in hope—feeble though it may feel, it is a hope that is indefatigable and will not disappoint (Rom 5:5). Our Good Shepherd, who once was dead and is now alive forevermore, holds the keys to Death and Hades (Rev 1:18). He who holds the keys has command of the door, does he not? Jesus is Lord even over Death and Hades; they bow to him, and at his command, they swing wide to welcome his blood-ransomed sheep through to the glory that awaits

The wages of sin is death, but through Christ, God’s gift is eternal life (Rom 6:23). For those who trust in him, death is not a punishment but a passage, a portal, a transport—the sovereign God’s errand-boy, doing his bidding for the good of his saints—to the abundant life for which we were created.

There is more for us to explore regarding what happens after death, the hope of Christ’s return, and the promise of the new heavens and earth. We will consider those matters in more detail when we return next time to our ongoing series on the Christian’s comfort, even in death.

Notes

Christian F. Gellert, “Jesus Lives, and So Shall I,” Trinity Psalter Hymnal (The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2018).
Donald Macleod, From Glory to Golgotha: Controversial Issues in the Life of Christ (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2021), 64–65.

You can find this whole series here.

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Post authored by:

Sean Morris
Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.
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