State of the Dead
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Child dedication
Child dedication
Adeline Dianne Hutcherson, 10-06-17
Caius James Hutcherson, 12-07-21
Today we have the privilege of dedicating to the Lord two young members of our congregation. Adeline and Caius Hutcherson. Adeline will be turning five in October, and Caius is just a few days away from four months old. He was born on December 7, last year.
Rhonda and Brian are going through all the normal new baby experiences. And just like Mary and Joseph who brought Jesus to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord shortly after He was born, Rhonda and Brian are bringing their children to dedicate them to the Lord.
Rhonda and Brian, there are two aspects to this dedication. The first is a recognition that Adeline and Caius are God’s children, and not your own. You dedicate them back to God because He has given you these children as stewards. And so the second thing is a dedication of yourselves as parents to guide your children to the Lord and protect them.
So lets first start with you.
Rhonda and Brian, do you commit, by God’s grace, to help Adeline and Caius know God as their Father and to grow up in faith? Do you dedicate yourselves to do as the Bible commands, to “raise up” your children to follow Christ? Do you promise to give them every spiritual advantage in your home, your church and Christian education? Do you dedicate yourselves to Adeline and Caius to share all their good times and bad times, and to love them always?
—we do—
Before we dedicate these children, I want to turn to our church family and invite you into this service. Will you join with Rhonda and Brian in a commitment to help these children grow up in the Lord?
—we will—
**Jason takes baby Caius in his hands (or puts his hand on his head), and prays a prayer of dedication for both children.**
**Family all sit down**
The Boy who Came Back from Heaven
The Boy who Came Back from Heaven
In 2010 Tyndale House published a book called, “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.” It was written by Kevin Malarkey about the experiences of his son, Alex, after they had recovered from a car accident. Alex had brain and spinal cord injuries, causing him to be a quadriplegic and putting him through years of surgeries and physical therapy. The book tells the story of out of body experiences that Alex had, and stories of when he went to heaven and saw God.
You may already know how this story goes. After being published in 2010 the book sold a million copies and inspired a TV drama. And then in 20011, the 11-year-old Alex told the world he had made it all up. In 2012 Alex’ mother wrote several blog posts saying her family is not in agreement with the content of the book. And in 2015 Alex wrote an open letter to bookstores asking them to remove the book because it was all a lie. Here’s part of what he said,
"Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short. I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to Heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth...”
What happens when you die?
It’s a question that humans have asked ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden of Eden. And it’s a subject that every human has experienced or will soon experience through the loss of a loved one, or through their own end-of-life journey.
There are three main ideas that the majority of humans believe about what happens when you die:
You turn into compost and stay in the ground forever
Your soul goes up or down — heaven or hell.
You come back again and again in a never ending cycle
These prevailing ideas of death and the afterlife are based on scientific assumption, ancient Greek myths, and eastern philosophies. Notably, you can’t find any support for these beliefs in the Bible.
I’m proud of Alex Malarkey for pointing us in the right direction for finding truth. Listen to the rest of his open letter:
“...The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible. It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible... not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough. In Christ, Alex Malarkey.”
Is what you believe about death biblical, or is it just a bunch of… malarkey?
Let’s go to the Bible and find out what it says about death.
If you’re hearing this discussion for the first time, please feel free to chat with me after or send me a message (my contact info is in the bulletin). I’d love to interact more about this.
Hope after Loss
Hope after Loss
Before we look at any Bible verses about death I want to recognize that this subject isn’t just a theological idea—it touches the core of our being. Most of us here have lost someone that we care deeply about. That pain of loss doesn’t go away, even if the sting lessens over time. The Bible recognizes this reality and more than teaching doctrine, the Bible provides comfort and hope.
Look at 1 Corinthians 15:54-55
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?”
How is death swallowed up in victory? If there is a life after death is it the circle back kind of life, or the up or down / heaven or hell kind of life? Or is there an even better story to be told?
What makes a human?
What makes a human?
The first question we need to ask is: do we have a soul, or are we a soul?
The answer begins in the Garden of Eden. Turn to Genesis 2 with me:
Genesis 2:7 (ESV)
then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Here are the scientific building blocks of a human:
dust + breath of life = living creature
That word, “creature” is translated from the Hebrew word, nephesh. This is a word that is translated in various places in the Bible as life, person, creature, or soul. When someone reads a translation that says, “man became a living soul,” they often think of a modern definition for soul. But lets go back and look at the text and let it tell us what it means.
God formed man from dust, breathed in the breath of life, and the man became a living person. Adam didn’t have a person, he became a person. He didn’t have a soul, he became a soul.
There’s another problem if we put our modern definition of a soul onto the Bible: the Bible teaches that all the animals are nephesh—living creatures / souls. Just look at Genesis 1:24
Genesis 1:24 (ESV)
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
God spoke and all the animals became living creatures—living souls.
I once heard a Christian speaker explain the fundamental aspects of a human using a lamp with a shade on it. The body—skin, muscles, bones, etc—is like the lampshade, he said. While the soul is like the light bulb underneath. He said that the body will eventually die, but because the soul is eternal it never dies. The only question, he suggested, is where your soul will go when you die.
The Bible never uses the lampshade illustration, but it does tell us what happens when we die. It says that the same thing happens to all humans and even to animals, no matter their religion or beliefs or even their moral condition. Let’s look at it in Ecclesiastes 3:
For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
Everyone, even the animals, goes to the same place—dust.
But then Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, asks a question:
Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?
Who knows? Let’s keep reading in Ecclesiastes 12 where he answers his own question:
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;
For the rest of the chapter Solomon uses one idiom after another to describe that evil day—the last stages of life and finally death, which he describes as:
The silver cord is snapped
The golden bowl is broken
The pitcher is shattered at the fountain
The wheel is broken at the cistern
Those idioms might not be as common today as they were in Solomon’s time, but its clear that he’s talking about the experience of death. Look at verse 7 to find out what Solomon believes happens when all creatures — humans and animals—die:
Ecclesiastes 12:7 (ESV)
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
The word for spirit here is ruach which means “breath,” and is the same word we saw in Genesis 2 when it says that God formed man from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life.
The formula for life in Genesis 2 was dust + breath = living person.
The formula for death, according to Ecclesiastes, is living person - breath = dust.
But what about that breath that returned to God. Was that the light bulb of the person—the personality and consciousness of someone who loves God?
The answer is, no.
Remember, Solomon was clear in Ecclesiastes 3 that the same thing happens to all humans and even to animals. Creature - breath of life = dust. So if the breath or spirit of all creatures goes back to God does that mean they are all saved and praising God In heaven?
When we read “breath” or “spirit” depending on your translation, be careful not to put your own assumptions and definitions onto those words. The Hebrew word, ruach, that means breath or spirit comes from the idea of the throat or neck, through which you breath and eat food necessary for life. It‘s a word that describes our capacity for life which is a gift from God. When we die that capacity for life goes back to God. In Hebrew there is no idea of a sentient floaty thing stuffed into our physical bodies.
The prophets are completely in agreement that there is no consciousness past death. Ecclesiastes 9 tell us that:
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
The dead don’t know anything. They have no reward or punishment. They don’t love or hate. They don’t have a single part in anything that happens on the earth.
You might wonder if they don’t have a reward “under the sun” because they’re up in heaven worshiping and praising the Lord.
No. Psalm 115 compares death to silence:
The dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do any who go down into silence.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
No praising the Lord in heaven. No knowledge of anything happening on earth. No more plans or ideas.
What we have learned so far is that people don’t have a soul they are a soul, made up of dust and God’s breath of life. At death, the breath of life returns to God who gave it, and the rest turns back into dust. At that point we become a dead soul, a dead person. We’ve also discovered that there is no consciousness after death, just silence.
The Grave
The Grave
But doesn’t the Bible talk about people going to hell when they die?
The subject of hell is a bit beyond the scope of our study today, but I will say this. We get our modern understanding of hell from ancient Greek mythology. It was the Greeks who taught that hell was ruled by the god, Hades, and that souls were tormented there after death. But this concept is nowhere in the Bible.
In the Bible we will read that dead people are “in the grave.” In the Old Testament the word for grave is often Sheol. And when you translate Sheol into Greek they used the word Hades. Both words mean the grave.
So, what’s happening in the grave? Well, 36 times in the old testament authors use a phrase like this to describes death:
1 Kings 2:10 (ESV)
Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.
1 Kings 11:43 (ESV)
And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.
And in case you think it’s only righteous kings that get to sleep,
Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more evil than all who were before him.
1 Kings 16:28 (ESV)
And Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab his son reigned in his place.
Over and over again the death of a king is referred to as sleeping. And where were they sleeping? Buried with their fathers.
Just to make sure we understand this concept, let’s go to the New Testament:
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
Peter can point to the bones of David and say with confidence, “David is right there in that tomb over there.” That’s where he and his fathers were sleeping. So too, we can be confident that the grave is where everyone else who has ever died is also sleeping.
Sleeping
Sleeping
Sleeping sounds a lot different than dead. Why does the Bible say that they are sleeping? Let’s let Jesus tell us that.
In Matthew 9 Jesus went to the house of Jairus who’s daughter had died. When he came into the house Jesus told the mourners who had assembled to Matt 9:24 “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” The girl was obviously dead, but Jesus said she was sleeping. Why? Because of what He would do next:
But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.
Jesus raised her from the sleep of death. The reason he calls it a sleep is because there’s a resurrection coming. Let’s look at one more text just to make sure we have this right:
John 11 tells the story of a friend of Jesus, Lazarus, who got sick and died. Jesus delayed when he heard that Lazarus was sick, but when the time was right Jesus told the disciples:
Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
John 11:11–12 (ESV)
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
They weren’t catching the drift, so Jesus made it extremely clear:
Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
They made their way to Lazarus’ house and found the family mourning their loss. Martha and Mary were upset with Jesus for not coming before he had died, but Jesus comforted them with this thought:
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Death is a sleep, not because there is something inherently alive in each of us—some eternal spark that exists apart from God, but because Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
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We could get into all sorts of interesting conversations about the subject of death in the Bible. People ask about what Gehena is, or what about all the texts that talk about eternal burning. All that stuff is important, and if you have questions about any of it, please catch me afterwards and we’ll set up a time to study together.
Conclusion
Conclusion
For now, let’s focus on one certainty the Bible gives us. First, we have all sinned:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
And second, the wages of sin is death:
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do you remember back in the Garden of Eden story, God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden because he didn’t want them to eat of the tree of life and live in sin and evil forever.
But Jesus said there is a solution for the problem of sin and death:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus is the answer to death.
In Revelation Jesus said about himself:
Revelation 1:17–18 (ESV)
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
He has the keys and he can bring those who have died and were buried in the grave back to life. This is what is so dramatically different for a Bible believing Christian than the rest of the world. The Bible gives us hope in the resurrection. Not a false hope that our loved one might come back as some random person or cow. Not a false hope that our loved one is right now up in heaven watching our every move, or down in hell being tormented. The hope the Bible gives us is that our loved ones who have died are sleeping until the resurrection. This is the way Paul put it:
1 Thessalonians 4:16–18 (ESV)
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The resurrection is our hope, our encouragement, our comfort.
But what about those who refuse to trust in Jesus for salvation? What will their eternal reward be?
We don’t have time today to talk about judgment or hell but we can be sure of one thing, whether someone died an evil dictator, or a righteous believer, they are all sleeping until the resurrection. No one is being tormented in hell right now. Jesus said it this way.
John 5:28–29 (ESV)
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Paul said in Hebrews 9:27 that,
Hebrews 9:27 (ESV)
it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Everyone dies, and everyone sleeps. And then there will be a resurrection. Those who love God will be raised to life to see Jesus coming in the clouds, and those who choose to pursue life without God will be raised to face the final judgment.
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The Bible doesn’t teach that the dead go up or down—heaven or hell. It doesn’t teach that there is an indefinite cycle of death and rebirth. It teaches that all are sleeping until the resurrection. The only question is, which resurrection—the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of judgment?
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ultimately there will be a final death For sin. The Bible talks about it as the 2nd death; a death from which there is no resurrection. A final separation from God.
But the hope of all who fall asleep in Jesus in the first death is that death will be swallowed up in victory. That we will see the face of Jesus.
How can we have that hope? What assurance do we have that Jesus will come back to raise us from the grave?
1 Corinthians 15:20 (ESV)
Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
———
Please stand as we sing Christ the Lord is Risen Today (166)