Northern Light

Death is an Enemy Not a Euphamism

She was just twelve weeks old when we brought her home fourteen years ago. She and her brother, Bentley, had been a litter of two bred specifically by my brother-in-law in hopes to provide us with a “doll face, teacup Yorkie.” She was the best! As a puppy she would sit at my feet and look at me to be picked up. I would bring her to my lap and she would immediately stretch out on my forearm and bury her nose in my elbow and sleep while I read my Bible in the mornings. We loved each other for every one of those fourteen amazing years.

Yesterday, she died.

She did not “cross over the rainbow bridge” or “pass away” or any other euphamism we insert to avoid telling the real, hard truth. Lucy, my dearest non-human friend, took her last breath and died.

I don’t know whether the pets we love will be in heaven or not. There is no decisive verse that I can find in Scripture that provides a concise and definitive answer to that question. I do know I loved her and she loved me and that “Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8a, ESV), so there’s that.

But, I want to tell you why, the day after she died, I am rejecting using a euphemism for her death.

We seem to like to avoid the truth about death and use our words and figures of speech to hide death’s true nature. We speak of death as we would a doctor: “Well, at least she is not in pain anymore.” As if death can offer something unachievable in life, like healing. We speak of death as though death is a savior: “She’s in a better place now.” As if death can somehow deliver us from the joy and hope and possibility and beauty life lays out before us like a smorgasbord on a cruise ship. We say, “Ah, finally, she has passed into peace.” As if death can solve all the challenges that come with living in a spiritually corrupt, imperfect, sinful world.

But death is none of these. Death is not a doctor to heal our intractable diseases, not a savior to rescue us from our environment of pain and fear, not an escape from the hard realities of real living. The Bible speaks clearly to the question. Death is not a euphemism but an enemy.

1 Corinthians 15:26 (ESV) ²⁶  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Death is no friend of ours to finally do us good when all else fails. Death is an enemy that stalks us, haunts us, threatens us, and finally defeats us. Death is not a benefit of life but a punishment for sin:

Romans 6:23 (ESV)  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Death came into the world because of sin. God gave the first human He created a law. God the Creator said, “Of all the trees of the garden you may eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden you shall not eat; for the in the day you eat of it, you shall die.” And we know from God’s word they did find that tree and were seduced into eating its fruit and their faithless disobedience initiated spiritual and physcial death for themselves and all their posterity. Death is the just and right punishment imposed by our Righteous and Just and Holy Creator on disbedient, sinful rebels.

The very existence of death serves as a warning. Hebrews 9:27 informs us that it is given unto every man once to die and then comes judgment. The same biblical author a chapter later points out

Hebrews 10:26-29 (ESV) ²⁶  For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷  but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. ²⁸  Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. ²⁹  How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

Death does not befriend us. Death warns sinners, people who by nature and choice have rejected the love and grace of their Creator, they will face Him at the end of their lives. Death warns us that unless action is taken all will not be well for us. Death testifies it is no doctor, no savior, no escape, no friend. Death is an enemy, an applied punishment, a warning to deal with God on HIs terms before He in justice deals with us on the terms of sin and guilt we present.

What ought we to do in light of death? What can we do in light of death? Let me be clear.

Romans 3:22-24 (ESV) ²²   . . . For there is no distinction: ²³  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Everyone sins. Everyone is a sinner. Everyone falls short of the glory of God, the standard of our Creator for our existence, therefore we are all subject to the punishment of death. No one escapes. But, God has made a way for us to deal forthrightly with our sin. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live on our behalf in our place the life of innocence and love and faithfulness we were created to live but because of our sin nature, cannot live. This same Jesus who succeeded to live that sinless, innocent life, died on the cross in our place on our behalf. He, alone, did not deserve death yet He died for us all. He accepted the punishment your sin, my sin, deserves. Jesus died to put death to death.

God declares that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus will be forgiven, their guilt will be extinguished, the sentence of justice will be removed from them and replaced with mercy and grace. Only then will death resolve to a mere doorway, an occasion, grievious but hopeful.

The pain of death, the fear of death, the hardness and horror of death, do not shy away from death and attempt to make it other than it is: an enemy, a punishment, and a warning. It is not death that saves us but God through the life and death of Jesus Christ who saves us who cannot save ourselves. Trust Christ, confess your sin to God, commit your life to Christ and live in faithful expectation of eternal life in Christ and you will have gained a true appreciation for the role of death. The death of Christ spells the death of death. Put your faith in Christ.