Contrary to the false hopes encouraged by agnostic modern thought and modern medicine, the death of the body is only the beginning of sorrows for those who have been so foolish as to live apart from God and continue in sin. After death there is a day of judgment slated on the calendar of God; all must appear before His tribunal, and none shall be spared (2 Corinthians 5:10).

There is a remarkable difference between how an unbeliever and a believer look at dying, death, and the afterlife. For the unbeliever or the agnostic, death is mysterious and the afterlife is even more dubious. For the believer, death is not an extinction or a terminus but only a transition, a junction. Though solemn, it is demystified in Christ and the afterlife is the best life. Let’s consider this contrast.
After Death—Agnosticism’s Version
Sally, the hospice nurse, stood by Bruno’s bedside.1 Bruno was a prisoner with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), who had been transferred to the hospital with his fifth bout of pneumonia in the past six months.2 He was serving a life sentence for the murder of his elderly neighbor, who had attempted to stop him from stealing his narcotic pain medications. While incarcerated, he developed ALS, underwent a tracheotomy, and became dependent on a ventilator to breathe.3 Bruno had a choice: return to prison on the ventilator until suffering the next bout of pneumonia with the possibility of dying by suffocation; or, have the ventilator withdrawn, receiving medications to manage his respiratory distress, and dying in the luxury of a hospice facility. Needless to say, Bruno, who thought he was the victim of injustice, did not like his choices.
As he lay silent with expressive eyes, paralyzed, his right wrist handcuffed to the bedrail, and a prison guard by his side, Sally presented her case for hospice care: “Bruno, I know this is a difficult choice to make, but we will keep you comfortable after the ventilator is removed. You won’t have to go back to prison—you won’t suffer anymore.”
Sally was presenting the common view that what happens after death is in some way better than persisting in this present state, even for unrepentant murderers who see themselves as victims of the system. In Europe and America, it is quite acceptable to choose or create a self-customized hereafter. If one wants to believe in nirvana, reincarnation, a happy hunting ground, heaven, any combination of these possibilities, or else simple annihilation, the modernist will not object—provided the belief is not imposed on others. According to the modern mindset, no one really knows what happens after death. “What is emphatically clear is that everyone is dying, and one day, we will all die,” says the modernist, “so why not permit the imagination to wander when it comes to the hereafter?”
For many centuries the church was the predominant institution addressing dying, death, and what happens after death, not hospices and medical institutions that could be indifferent to or at odds with traditional Christianity. Following the beginning of the scientific age in the seventeenth century, the medicalization of death in the nineteenth century, and the increasing effectiveness of medical science in the decades that followed, the church was pushed aside. A paradigm shift occurred. The church is now on the periphery and modern medicine has shifted to the center. Moving into the twentieth century, many hospitals in the West, once Christian institutions in purpose, ethics, and practice, have become Christian in name only. Influenced by the rise of higher criticism, liberal theology, and the social gospel, these hospitals no longer affirm a supernatural-natural Christ-centered worldview grounded in Holy Scripture. In the twenty-first century, modern medicine is eager to fill the void left by the traditional, confessional, and biblical church.
Since the two absolutes of dying and death have become medicalized—that is, as aspects of human experience to be addressed by doctors and nurses rather than by ministers of the Word or one’s fellow Christians—it is not surprising to see healthcare professionals, like Sally, asserting an unqualified view of what happens after death to provide answers, comfort, and hope. This position is commonly referred to as agnosticism, which is derived from the Greek agnosis meaning “a state of unknowing,” that is, with respect to metaphysical questions such as the existence of God or an afterlife. Thus, an agnostic claims not to know matters beyond his or her ability to observe or quantify them. This approach to empirical or scientific facts has the appearance of humility. As a philosophical system, however, agnosticism is a proud and unconditional assertion in which all that can be known with certainty must be measured, tested, demonstrated, and verified by hands-on experience. Agnosticism is an outright rejection of non-empirical truth, which claims, without empirical validation, the impossibility of knowing truth outside the process of scientific investigation!
Two major issues stand behind agnosticism in the contemporary West: pluralism and the eventual failure of medical science to sustain life. In western democracies, citizens have a right to believe what they choose, so long as they do not act on their beliefs in violation of civil law and they tolerate other people’s beliefs. All of these personal views address the hereafter in some way, so agnosticism provides a vehicle for tolerance and affirmation.
Another primary factor already alluded to is the innate human need for answers, comfort, and hope. Dying and death are absolute—we are dying, and one day we will cease to be as we are now. This is mysterious, uncomfortable, and even dreadful. Someday medical science will fail us, when the doctor says he can do no more for us. After all the optimistic counsel from well-meaning healthcare professionals and hopeful state-of-the-art medical treatments, dying and death stand firm and fixed on our human agendas—then what? In modern medical practice a referral to hospice is made, and end-of-life experts come alongside to support individualized answers, provide comfort in the midst of suffering, and affirm one’s self-customized hopes for some good or life after death.
Death as a Natural Part of Life
In a similar way, modern medicine commonly promotes the view that death is a natural and normal part of human existence. Since dying is a process running parallel with life, in modern medicine the death of the body has become associated with the outworking of natural laws of life. In medical literature, one will often find dying and death associated with pregnancy and birth, or as a stage in a natural process, much like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon as a butterfly. This interpretation is rooted in the rise of evolutionary biology in the late nineteenth century. According to this viewpoint, no line exists between dying and the death of the body, because they are both the outworking of natural laws of survival occurring in the larger cycle of life. Thus, people facing death should accept and even welcome death with optimism as a transition to a self-customized hereafter.
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Sometimes we short change salvation, by thinking Jesus saves us and pays off our debt to God. We think of it like a massive debt we get into, so someone generously pays it off and we have a bank balance of zero, so we can start again without that debt hanging over us.  Too often that’s how we wrongly think about the salvation God promises.  Jesus pays our debt and gets us to zero, now I have to start earning God’s favour.  When I do good my spiritual account goes up, when I fail it’s like a spiritual direct debit.  God is pleased with me when I’m in the spiritual black.

What is Christmas all about?  We look forward to Christmas and all it brings, yet it’s hugely complicated and complex.  It’s like an articulated lorry.  Christmas is the cab, but with it comes the huge 44 tonne articulated trailer of expectations, traditions, and busyness that Christmas pulls around with it.  There’s the expectation of seeing the family – all of them at some point, of food cooked to perfection, of family time without conflict or needle, and certain family traditions that have to repeated year after year.
So often what comes with Christmas is what we mistake for Christmas.  So what is Christmas all about?  The angels sum it up beautifully “good news that will cause great joy for all the people.”  Christmas, the birth of Jesus brings not just a flicker of a smile, not just a temporary warm fuzzy feeling, not just joy but great joy, literally ‘mega-joy.’ It’s another of those great Christmas words.   It is on Christmas jumpers and cards and decorations; joy.  But what does it mean and how do we embrace it?  And how can we know great joy not just at Christmas?
Joy is a strong word.  It means to be glad, to be happy, to rejoice and celebrate.  And the Bible isn’t anti-joy, God isn’t a killjoy, the Bible is full of joy because God is the giver of joy.  It begins with God creating a world that is “very good” – overflowing with bounty and beauty.  And God puts Adam and Eve into that world to find joy in it.  That’s still true isn’t it?  Just think of 5 things that bring you joy, 5 things that make you happy?  Go on, stop and actually do it!.  They were all created by God because God is generous and provides things that bring joy.
As you read the Bible you see joy and rejoicing in all sorts of things.  There’s the joy of birthday and wedding celebrations.  There’s joy at feasting and celebrating victory in battle.  There’s joy in good wine.  Proverbs tells us a wise son bring joy to his parents.  In Song of Solomon there is joy and rejoicing in marriage and the intimacy it brings.  God is a joy giving God, every moment of joy we experience, from the joy of celebrating a last minute winner, to the birth of a child, or the joy of that first mouthful your favourite meal cooked to perfection, is given to us by a joy giving God.
But the Bible is also honest about the problem we have with joy.  Joy leaks.  It’s like a balloon or tyre with a slow puncture, it gradually lets us down.  In the world this side of the fall we’re tempted to seek joy in the gift when every gift was always intended to point us to joy in the giver.  And therein lies the problem, things bring us joy but that joy is only temporary.  We’re like a bucket with a hole, we have to constantly top our joy up to maintain any semblance of it.  Constantly seeking new joy.  But parties end, celebrations finish, our children aren’t always wise or delightful and nor are our parents, marriages are hard and so is intimacy, food spoils, wine turns, and reality intrudes.  Joy leaks.  And the danger is we become consumed by our search for joy, insatiably hungry for something it just can’t give us.
The joy we experience is meant to point us not to the gift but the giver.  But because of sin we tend to forget the giver in pursuit of the gift.  In the garden the real joy was relationship with God, but it is easily lost.
That’s not unique to us, it’s a universal problem.  It’s the problem of Israel.  They knew great joy.  They knew the joy of being saved miraculously from slavery, and brought through the Red Sea – we tend to think seeing a miracle would change everything but Israel are proof it doesn’t – because they soon grumble and moan and fixate on gifts not giver.  They’re given a land with houses built, vineyards dug and cities walled, but they soon become fixated on the gifts, trying to fill their bucket but unsatisfied because they forget the giver.
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Like the Prodigal’s father, our Father felt great compassion on us, and with our True older Brother, welcomed us back into the home at His own expense (Luke 15:20). And that expense would cost our compassionate Father the ultimate expense, the life of His one and only Son in crucifixion (Romans 5:6-8) in order to make us alive together with Him in His resurrection (Ephesians 2:4-5) and to bring us back to the Father we had sinned against totally clean; wholly forgiven (1 Peter 3:18).

One of the questions I have often been asked as a pastor is why God allowed sin and misery into the world. If He is all-knowing and all-wise and even has the ability and power to do all He pleases, then why did it please Him to create a world that would nose-dive so fantastically into the turmoil and futility we experience because of sin? Couldn’t He have done it differently? Wasn’t there a better way? 
These are essential questions that require careful answers. Thankfully, many careful answers have been given throughout church history, which we should borrow from when answering this question. For instance, many have said that God created the world, knowing full well what would happen in it because the story of sin and redemption manifested His glory more excellently than a world without a fall. Think about it this way, in a world without sin, human beings and all of creation could never get to know God in all of His fullness. While sin would not be present on a sterilized earth, there would be aspects of God that we could never understand, such as His mercy, justice, grace, forgiveness, and compassion. Without sin, there is no reason for God to be merciful. Without rebellion, there is no need for grace. This means, at least in part, that God allowed the world to fall into sin and misery so that He could showcase the fullness of His being to lost and lonely sinners, which brings Him unimaginable glory. 
Understanding this, and while I am fully aware that there is more to say in matters of theodicy, we can be grateful to God for our sins. Because my sin put me in a position of need that only God could meet. My sin created a disease that only God could heal. And while we ought never to sin so that grace may abound, my sin introduced me to a savior who has offered me abounding grace that now causes me to hate my sin and pursue Him. Thus, even in the wretchedness of sin, even in our mortification of sin and hatred of sin, there are peculiar comforts and joys available to those who know the compassions of God. 
And that is what I would like to talk about today. If you are new, we are in a little series on the attributes of God, talking about who God is, what He is like, and how we may know Him. Today, we look at His compassion towards sinners. 
God Is Compassionate by Nature
God is compassionate by nature. He does not decide to become compassionate when a situation arises. He is compassionate as a fundamental quality of His being and person. For instance, Paul says that He is the “Father of compassion” and the “God of all comforts” (2 Corinthians 1:3). This requires that He doesn’t just possess these things as if they were commodities, but He is these things in all fullness and perfection. His compassions exist on a level of robust density and purity that they are beyond our ability to comprehend or even withstand without the aid of a mediator. For instance, when the God of perfect compassions passed in front of Moses, letting all His goodness be on display (Exodus 33:19; 34:6), he needed to be hidden in the face of a rock and covered with the Lord’s own hand in order to live and tell the tale. God is so unimaginably good that even His goodness threatens our unmediated flesh. He is merciful and gracious (Psalm 86:15), slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8), but His holiness and justice require that we repent and return to Him because He is compassionate (Psalm 116:5; 119:156; Joel 2:13)
God Is Compassionate to All People
While God’s most extraordinary and intimate affections are reserved for His children, the Lord is kind and compassionate to all people (Psalm 145:8-9). Think about it this way, everyone on earth has sinned and is in rebellion against God (Romans 3:23). And since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), God would be perfectly just and righteous to eliminate the entire human race without so much as batting an eyelash. So, the fact that billions of people loathe God every single day, either in heinous acts of rebellion or in failing to thank Him for every stolen breath of His mercy, has allowed them to live on in morbid ingratitude.
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