The confidence in facing death comes from our union with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. As the God-man, Christ’s victories become our victories through faith. When the shepherds bowed before the babe lying in a manger, they weren’t bowing to a mere earthly king who would scourge their physical enemies. Even though they may not have anticipated the fullness of the resurrection and ascension, the little town of Bethlehem was ground zero for death’s inevitable demise. To defeat death, God passed through its shadows. Born of a virgin, the spotless lamb walked the paths of righteousness that lead right into the mouth of death where he blasted off the gates of hades (Acts 2:27). Where he went, so we are empowered to follow—through death into life.

In my first year as a youth pastor, my mentor told me that ministry is just helping people die. These words bounced in my head as I paced the empty hallway to room 472. All the precise and prepared answers learned in seminary can easily fly out the window when it’s just you, a dying saint, and your Bible. Have you stood beside a perishing soul? What you say next—what I had to say next—exposes our theology. In those moments, we come uncomfortably aware of the depth of our faith.
Do we believe what we believe we believe?
Will that Christian close their eyes in this life and truly awake in paradise? Do we really expect to see them again? If we haven’t settled these questions in our own conscience, our shepherding from this life to the next will confuse rather than comfort.
Death is ugly. And the Christian has a complicated relationship with it. In one sense, death reminds us of the horror and consequences of sin (Rom. 6:23). On the other hand, dying is, as Charles Spurgeon said in his comments on Psalm 23, the porch to heaven. To reach those green pastures—to be with Jesus in paradise—we must traverse the valley of the shadow of death.
So, in a believer’s final moments, do you expound on the punishment wrought by death or the shining sea waiting beyond? One may produce fear, the other hope, but both are true. I want to offer an attitude that gets the best of both. The attitude Paul assumed, and the attitude displayed by Christ—mockery. Paul mocked death on the basis of Christ’s resurrection:
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”“O death, where is your victory?O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:54–57).
Mocking death reveals a confidence in Christ’s incarnation and resurrection. The slayer of death began his triumph in the manger and continues his victory march until he will plunge the final enemy into the lake of fire (1 Cor. 15:24–26, Rev. 20:14).
Though Dead, Yet History Speaks
Reading church history brings us into conversation with those who’ve gone before us into death.
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The PCA would profit by constantly remembering the focus of its vision. What has been its call as a church and as a denomination? What has been my call as a pastor and elder during the time God, in His providence and mercy, has granted me to use and fight in this life?  These questions are important as we are seeing the decline of historic denominations such as the Church of Scotland and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. These cases show the consequences of abandoning the focus of our task in favor of other agendas. There are definitely many organizations and groups in the world that can excel on these social agendas. The paradox is that when churches adopted social agendas in an attempt to become relevant, they instead became irrelevant and therefore had to close their doors.

Please note that the Editorial Board of Presbyterian Polity does not necessarily endorse all views expressed on the blog of this site, but the editors are pleased to present well-crafted position papers on issues facing Presbyterian churches and denominations. What follows is one such paper for our readers’ consideration. ~ The Editors
As I am heading to the 51st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) this year in Richmond, VA, I am remembering last year’s excitement of the Golden anniversary. The most encouraging part of the 50th GA was the recommitment to the foundational principles of the PCA . Most of the discourses given by the representatives of the PCA Committees and agencies emphasized the need to remain loyal and faithful to the Bible and the Westminster Standards. 
While we must be confident that good intentions and efforts continue in the PCA this 51st year, we must also be vigilant in keeping our denomination’s first love. Commitments and recommitments tend to wear off and to decrease with the passage of time. Consider, for example, the excitement of the  2017 GA concerning racial reconciliation. For good or for ill, it is evident that today this is no longer crucial and in the best of cases has become a secondary issue in the PCA. One may argue that this won’t happen on a central issue such as confessionality, but the example of large denominations losing their fidelity demonstrates the importance of considering what we can do to press on. Allow me to share some of my suggestions to keep alive our first love.
Gratitude
First, we must have a spirit of gratitude. Showing gratitude to God and to our denomination decreases any spirit of dissatisfaction that we may have. When we lack gratitude for the PCA, we may run the risk of becoming overly critical and negative which can sometimes produce unnecessary confrontation. A heart that is grateful to be part of the PCA will prompt us to have a spirit of gentleness and wisdom. Gratitude will develop a spirit of tranquility and ‘gentleness’ in those who are siding with the truth and that know its victory. This temperament is also one of the qualities which is required of an elder (Titus 1:8) and is an important characteristic that must be applied when participating  in our church courts.
Hence, we must be grateful to God for the strengths of our church and its accomplishments. We not only have encouraging statistics of growth, but have also made some progress in protecting our denomination from temptations to compromise doctrine and morals. The rejection of the doctrinal error of Federal Vision in 2007 and the rejection of the moral error of Revoice in 2023 are two recent examples of this progress. Furthermore, the PCA has made significant progress standing against Side B homosexuality and the various methods it uses to advance in today’s world. I know these types of actions which clarify the PCA’s position moved some to leave the denomination because these leaders’ recognized that their ideas aligned better with other denominations. However, we can be grateful that our denomination did not fall into the trap of becoming soft and tolerant in evaluating its ministers in their consistency with biblical doctrines (FV) and morals (Revoice) and spurs us on to greater fidelity in the future.
Repentance & Self-Examination
On the other hand, gratitude and celebrations must be balanced with a spirit of repentance from our sins. This requires self-examination in light of the Word. We must keep an autocritical and repentant spirit that goes deep and applies to our own corners and “tribes” where we are laboring. While it is easier to criticize our denomination as a whole, it is more complicated to criticize our own tribes and our own organizations in our local sphere of influence. What are the blindspots of our local organizations and ministries? Is my practice consistent with the Bible and our Standards? In which sense may my accommodation to this world be deceiving me in realizing and confessing my sins of commission and omission? 
Accountability
If we recognize our shortcomings, we must also recognize that we all have a tendency to go astray. Therefore, just as it is important to maintain accountability within our local sphere, so also do we need to maintain accountability within the denomination. As repentant sinners – but still sinners – we tend to fail and to justify our failures, but our denomination can correct this with a good system of accountability. I think we need to move beyond the excitement of 50 years and ask how we can evaluate the consistency of the denomination to confessional fidelity. We must appreciate the discourses and the commitment of the chairmen of our committees and agencies, but we must keep them accountable. Usually the reason provided against accountability is the idea that we must think the best of our brothers and the best of our committees, agencies, and missions. While it is true that we may run the danger of becoming overly suspicious,  we must also reject the tendency to predict the outcome of our denomination in a historicist fashion.
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But what about us? We might not be calling evil good, but we do call what is good evil, do we not? For what is it when we call wine evil when God himself says it is a gift that gladdens the heart and is for us to enjoy? What is it when we sniff at people enjoying a nice meal in a restaurant to God’s glory when the Lord himself tells us food is his gift to us. Indeed, Jesus came eating and drinking and got called a glutton and a drunkard. Sounds rather like what many like to say about these things in the church today.

We had our annual church trip to Southport the other week. Despite all our warnings, there were still folks who had never been who were surprised that it was a seaside town where you can’t see the sea. There’s a lot of beach, but the sea is a long way out and is rarely seen very far in. We were there at high tide and even at the end of the pier, you still need binoculars to see the sea – the pier ends surrounded on all sides by sand. Admittedly, it sort of defeats the point of a pier – which was supposed to take you out to sea – but then it’s better than Wigan Pier, which isn’t anywhere near a beach or the sea!
We also had a good laugh when a dear sister came back with a big bag full of shells. We thought John Piper would be proud. As her pastor, I affirm it is absolutely fine for her to do so. She likes collecting shells and she did it to the glory of God. I am convinced she has not wasted her life, for it consists of more than shell collecting (even if she glorifies God as she does it).
We can be a bit gnostic about these sorts of things. “Spiritual” activities are not wasting our lives, non-spiritual things (whatever they are) might be. Collecting shells might be a bit frivolous and something of a waste, John Piper tells us. I don’t know what he would make of someone collecting shells and sharing the gospel with someone as they did it? Does it become valuable then? What if someone in your church loves collecting shells too, and you can go with them and disciple them while you do it? Have they wasted their lives or has the time been redeemed? These sorts of things get so confusing.
I am well schooled in this sort of thinking having grown up in a sabbatarian family and dealt with even stricter sabbatarians. Nowhere is the need to discern the spiritual from the profane more necessary than determining what activities may, or may not, be acceptable on Sunday. It can hardly be surprising that sabbatarianism pushes into a form of legalism so frequently because it roots itself literally in the Mosaic law. How can it end up being anything else?
But we push this gnostic thinking to all sorts of things. It’s fine to enjoy a walk in God’s creation but not enjoy his creation on a plate in a posh restaurant. We can enjoy reading the Bible, but if we read a novel that is profane. Watching a sermon on your smart TV is just about acceptable, but watching your favourite TV show is less acceptable.
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