WHAT'S IN A WORD?

Last year death claimed many notable African-Americans. Among these were opera singer Robert McFerrin, Sr., father of jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin; R & B singer Ruth Brown; Gerald Levert, son of O'Jays singer, Eddie Levert and passionate crooner known for his crude gyrations; CBS newsman Ed Bradley; energetic keyboardist and somewhat singer Billy Preston; former heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson; Earl Woods, father, mentor, career crafter and best friend of Tiger Woods, world's #1 golfer; famed photographer and film-maker Gordon Parks; baseball Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett; Coretta Scott King, wife of assassinated civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; soul singer Wilson Pickett; macho, smoothed-voiced Lou Rawls and the #1 workout man in show business, James Brown.

I recently heard two Clark-Atlanta University radio announcers lamenting the passing of many of these. As they remorsefully reviewed the list of the departed ones, I was attracted by the term they used for death: these personages did not die, they observed, they transitioned. An interesting euphemism, I thought. I must admit, I had never heard this before and then I started thinking, what does the Bible say about death? A few comments are in order:

1. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body, Eccl 12:7; Job 34 4:14, 15; Lk 23:46; Jn 19:30; Acts 7:59; etc.

2. It is an intrusion, and an unnatural separation because it was not in the original divine design for man; it is a consequence of the Fall. Scripture emphasizes the psychosomatic union of body and soul or body and spirit, cf. for example, Gen 2:7; Mt 10:28; etc.

3. It is man's enemy, his last enemy which will have been fully and perfectly subjected to Christ's cosmic rule at the eschatological resurrection, 1 Cor 15:26-28 and Heb 2:7-10, 14, 15 fulfilling the Messianic Ps 8: 5, 6.

4. When Adam committed cosmic treason by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, he experienced death in two other dimensions:
spiritually -- he and all those descending from him by ordinary generation lost communion with and are alienated from God, Gen 3:8-10; Eph 2:12. This is a condition consisting of "the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his own nature, which is commonly called Original Sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it." Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 18

judicially -- all are guilty in Adam, Rom 5:12, and are justly under God’s wrath, Eph 2:3. They are already condemned by God, Jn 3:18, whose wrath now abides on them, 3:36, and will receive the ultimate judicial punishment, the second death, when Christ returns, Rev 20:11-15.

But, is there a transition? Yes, there is, for death is in fact a change or changeover, a shift or a move, to another location. It is the continued conscious existence in another realm. Paul comforts believers by stating that “.. to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Phi 1:21. He assures us that his departure would usher him directly into the presence of Christ, 23. Elsewhere he says that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:8. So a transition from one location to another does take place.

However, I may hasten to add that this transition is only into the state between death and the Parousia, the Second Coming of Christ. In this intermediate state of body-less existence, the believer groans to be clothed (literally to be “further clothed” or to be “clothed upon,” Derek Thomas, "The Eschatology Of The Westminster Confession and Assembly" in Ligon Duncan, ed., The Westminster Confession Into The 21st Century Vol. 2, 328) with ".. a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.. longing to put on [his] heavenly dwelling" 2 Cor 5:1, 2. The believer's ultimate article of clothing is not received in a mere transition but in a glorious transformation which will occur when Christ “.. will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Phi 3:21. It is for this ultimate glory that the believer in this intermediate state groans, as indeed, the entire cosmos, subjected by the sovereign God to a state of futility after Adam's sin, groans to be clothed anew from on high, Rom 8:18-24.

For the believer therefore, death is also a friend that ushers him into the very presence of God. This hope is firmly grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.


What about the unbeliever? Scripture doesn't say much about his intermediate state but "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment," Heb 9:27, gives us an accurate idea. The overwhelming New Testament evidence regarding the afterlife of the unbeliever is directed toward his ultimate condition in hell, which is described as a place of utter darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, Mt 25:30; eternal fire, 18:8; a hell of fire, 9; unquenchable fire, Mk 9:43; deathless worms, 48; etc.

Yes, the Bible affirms that earthly life does transition into eternal existences: the one, a glorious transformation, the other, an unimaginable torment. There is no tertium quid, no third option: the ultimate destination of man is either heaven or hell.

Such doctrines as annihiliationism (the extinction of all unbelievers); reincarnation into other rounds of existence; psychopannychia (soul sleep) and so on, are wishful but futile fabrications of the fallen mind which seeks to mitigate the gravity of sin and to diminish the holy justice of God. These are bad words; avoid them. But words like separation, intrusion, enmity, guilt. condemnation, and so on, are good words; use them. What's in these words? Sound theology.