While reading the Heidelberg Catechism today, I found this gem of a question and answer:
If Christ died for us, why do we also have to die?
Our death is not a satisfaction for our sins,1 but only a dying to sin and entering into eternal life.2
1. Romans 7.24; Psalm 49.7
2. 1 Thessalonians 5.9-10
In other words, seeing that God is just and holy he must punish all of mankind’s sins which he did sufficiently in Jesus dying on the Cross. Our dying is not part of this punishment, but rather the Final and Complete Healing. We die to our old sinful bodies in a very real physical sense, before we enter into eternal life with Jesus in the New Heaven and the New Earth, where our souls and physical bodies are re-united once more, but in a perfected expression, no longer tainted by sin, but in perfect union with God.
The Western phobia of death denies the very real beauty of death for the believer. The Bible shows that each day as we get older, we are one day closer to meeting the sovereign and most beautiful being in all creation, the Uncreated Creator, the being in whom all things have their start and end, and whom we shall ALL meet face to face. For someone who has put their trust in Jesus for their salvation rather than the own good works or character, this day is far from dreadful. It is a joyful and beautiful crossing over the ‘great divide’ where billions have gone before us, and where each one of us, too, will go.
