Should Christians be Sad When a Fellow Believer Dies and Goes to Heaven?
Written by Derek J. Brown |
Friday, May 12, 2023
Christians should grieve over the death of a fellow brother or sister in Christ. It is good and right to feel the weight of sorrow when our beloved fellow Christians are taken home. It is not a grief without hope (1 Thess. 4:13), but it is a grief, even a “sorrow upon sorrow.”
If we are citizens of heaven, awaiting a future of glory and an eternal inheritance—someday to be forever in the presence of Christ and again among our earthly brothers and sisters—then why should we grieve over our brethren who die and go on to heaven before us?
Isn’t it a sign of earthly-mindedness to grieve over such things? Isn’t it unspiritual to be sad when a fellow Christian dies? If so, wouldn’t it then be even more unspiritual for a Christian to rejoice when a fellow brother or sister is healed and allowed to live longer here on earth? The answer to all these questions is a resounding “no.”
“To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
The apostle Paul proclaimed, “To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). He reminded the Philippians that they were citizens of heaven, someday to receive new bodies like the body of their Lord (Phil. 3:20). Yet, Paul was also grateful to God for sparing his brother and fellow worker Epaphroditus from death.
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Is God Still Good?
Fundamental to all Christian ministry is the need to help people face reality: the reality of God, the reality of ourselves, the reality of life in a fallen world. Aspects of this reality are painful, even beyond our comprehension. But they are nevertheless aspects of reality. The cost of failing to face reality is serious: it can result in dishonoring or even blaming God; some may even give up their faith because they can’t reconcile difficult realities.
Here’s a provocative thought: being a Christian can make one more, not less, prone to depression.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not denying the hope-filled, joy-giving spiritual reality of Christ’s work by his Spirit in our lives (Romans 15:13). Nor am I giving up on wanting others to know that reality for themselves. But as a believer for 33 years, and as an ordained minister for over 25, I can only say that depression has been an unavoidable feature of my discipleship (though by no means its totality, thankfully!). Not to mention many friends with similar stories.
Depressive illness is an affliction of the mind and heart. It disorients and confuses us, causing firmly held beliefs to be shaken or distorted, especially when those beliefs don’t seem to match up with our experience of life. But why do I say being a Christian can exacerbate, rather than alleviate, depression? How could my discipleship possibly open myself up to that?
Facing Reality
Fundamental to all Christian ministry is the need to help people face reality: the reality of God, the reality of ourselves, the reality of life in a fallen world. Aspects of this reality are painful, even beyond our comprehension. But they are nevertheless aspects of reality. The cost of failing to face reality is serious: it can result in dishonoring or even blaming God; some may even give up their faith because they can’t reconcile difficult realities.
Let me give you an example. Consider these three core realities revealed in Scripture, as declared by the psalmists:God is all-powerful and active: “The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty. . . . Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved” (Psalm 93:1).
God is perfectly just and holy: “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works” (Psalm 145:17).
God is infinitely, eternally good and loving: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 106:1).“Fundamental to all Christian ministry is the need to help people face reality.”
So far, so good. Taken individually, there’s nothing especially provocative or problematic about these wonderful and comforting truths.
However, when a Christian is battling depression — a mental darkness I visualize as a grim cave — this combination of truths can make trusting in God difficult. That’s when it’s hard to see how it all adds up.
Hard to Trust in Hard Times
If God is all-powerful and perfectly just and infinitely loving, it seems logical to assume that a simple click of his fingers could restore me to my right mind. Jesus did that very thing to someone, after all (Luke 8:35). But it just doesn’t happen like that. So where is God?
Alongside personal suffering, how about all those horrors in the daily news? As I write, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (a country I have come to love deeply in recent years) is six months in. Colossal rainfall has caused flooding across one-third (!) of Pakistan. Civil war has returned to Ethiopia. And so on.
If God is all-powerful and perfectly just and infinitely loving, it seems logical to assume that a simple click of his fingers could make all the horror vanish. But it doesn’t. So where is God?
Hence my opening provocation. You see, the problem for the Christian is not one the atheist — or for that matter, the vaguely religious person — shares. We believe that all three statements about God hold true simultaneously. To risk understatement, this combination of truths is hard to cling to amid suffering, when they appear irreconcilable.
So, the doubts grow. Specifically, Christian doubts.
Distinguish Between Doubts
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about doubt. Some claim it is sinful for Christians to doubt at all, which is pretty awkward if you’re like me and have battled various doubts for as long as you’ve believed. Others seem to revel in doubt as if it is an intellectual virtue, perhaps because they can’t bring themselves to commit to believing anything with conviction.
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Freedom Isn’t the Ability to Do Whatever We Want, It’s the Ability to Pursue What Is Good
If Jesus frees you, you will be free of your sin. You will be free of your guilt. You will be free of the punishment you deserve for all your rebellion against God. You will be free to pursue what is good. You will even be free to be full of joy and thankfulness even at a time like this.
Do you want freedom? Do you feel like the government has crossed a line? Do you feel restricted, perhaps even enslaved? Do you feel forced to do things that you wish you didn’t have to do?
Do you long to be free?
We typically think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want to do.Perhaps our concept of freedom is wrong.
In the past, freedom was defined as the ability to pursue what is good.
We don’t want people to be free to murder each other. We don’t want business owners to be free to lie about their products. We don’t want absolute, unbridled, unrestrained freedom. We want freedom that is directed towards good.
We want the freedom to earn a living for our family. That’s a good thing.
We want the freedom to serve all sorts of people at our shops without having to turn away the unvaccinated. That’s a good thing.
We want doctors to have the freedom to advise their patients on the best medical decision for them. That’s a good thing.
But there’s a problem.
Are any of us truly free?We might feel like the government is enslaving us at the moment – and that is true in many regards. But the truth is that we are all by nature slaves of a worse master than the government. Jesus put it this way: “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
Jesus is telling us that by nature none of us is truly free. We all sin and, therefore, we are all slaves to sin. None of us is able to pursue and do what is good.
We are restrained in our sin by the consequences or by the shame of what other people might think but if we were all left without restraint – in total, unbridled freedom – we would find that we sink into dreadful sin.
Richard Wurmbrand lived in communist-era Russia. He was a Christian pastor who was imprisoned for his faith.Read More
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Richard Dawkins’ Cultural Christianity
Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Monday, April 15, 2024
Dawkins is the beneficiary of a political and legal system shaped over centuries by Christian principles of justice, human nature, and more. He appears blissfully unaware that he is sawing off the very branch suspending him safely above the mob of Islamists, radical leftists, and others, ready and willing to dispense with classical liberals like himself who only (rather ineffectively) impede their advance and triumph.Perhaps to the surprise of many, Richard Dawkins, famed “New Atheist” of yesteryear, in a recent radio interview called himself a “cultural Christian.” He was quick to clarify that he is “not a believer” in the actual teachings of Christianity, but nonetheless told the interviewer “I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.” This exchange was prompted by the discomfort Dawkins felt in the build-up to Easter seeing England full of lights celebrating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
Beyond mere aesthetics, Dawkins also stated that he likes to “live in a culturally Christian country” because it is kind to women and tolerant of homosexuals, whereas Islam is fundamentally hostile to both. The tenets of political liberalism happily coincide for Dawkins with a basically Christian culture, though in reality, the specific form of tolerance Dawkins takes to be the Christian culture of Britain is a twisting of the Christian virtues of kindness and love. What is particularly striking is how the rise of militant Islam, combined with the rapidly increasing numbers of Muslims throughout the UK (and all of Europe for that matter), is what prompted Dawkins’ reflections on Christian culture.
Islam is a militantly intolerant religion, but it is also a confident one. Islamic teaching—as wrong as it is—provides its adherents with an understanding of why they exist and how they should live in the world. It gives them meaning and purpose. Political liberalism is impotent in the face of Islam because political liberalism has no positive vision for life. It puts forth certain rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and so forth. Yet, it is unable to tell you why you should even want to live, what you should desire to be free to do, or how you can find happiness. Some of those rights, properly understood, are good and important as far as they go. No one may kill or imprison anyone else without cause; in general, it is best to let people live their own lives without massive interference from others, and so on. Islam, however, has a positive vision for all of life, which is why it is bulldozing every existentially empty competitor in its path.
Dawkins, I’m sure without realizing it, is the heir to many more benefits of Britain’s Christian past than he realizes. In the interview, he primarily focused on the outward, mostly aesthetic, trappings of Christianity, as well as his conflation of Christianity and progressive social mores. But consider just a few of the much more foundational things citizens of nations formerly shaped by Christianity enjoy, though often take for granted. The English, as also their American cousins, are subject to a long history of defending the concept of impartial justice.
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