Dying in Christ
C. S. Lewis wrote in Time and Beyond Time that there are things that exist beyond time that apply to each one of us. However, it was in the 20th century that philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, questioned the existence of God. His father was a German Lutheran preacher who died when Nietzsche was four. Nietzsche lived on and become famous for writing Thus Spake Zarathustra. He is remembered for the word Übermensch. By it he implied that there could be a super race. The idea of a super race influenced major thinkers and leaders in the 20th century. He died from insanity at an early age, but his ideas live on in the minds of people.
Interestingly, Doris Lessing, 1919-2013, came a few years later than Nietzsche. Her first novel was The Grass Is Singing, imagining a solution to the racial tensions in colonial South Africa. Perhaps she is best known as the author of Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. Her life epitomized a self-made woman who broke free from the mind-set about woman.
In 1922, T. S. Eliot published his long poem, The Wasteland. Man had lost his way and can’t help from continuing to do so. What C. S. Lewis is best known for is having been an atheist; he distinguished himself as one of the great religious thinkers in the 20th century.
R.C. Sproul, 1939-2017, an apologist, wrote that people who live in the present also have a past that they are aware of at the same time that they have a future that is not altogether clearly known. Birth leads to death that leads to life beyond the grave. Christians live in the hope that a certain conclusion to the future is promised by God. Here hope is described by the metaphor of the anchor. Hebrews 6:13-20 Like a ship moored in open water held stable by an anchor, our souls are held firm by the promises God has laid up for His people.
Faith in Christ’s incarnation, atonement, resurrection and ascension are the visible evidences of the invisible things being accomplished in us. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we become justified in the eyes of God. We then live our lives daily, in every way, in every place, by a faith that what God had begun in us He will finish. This is called the way of sanctification.
When we accept Christ He becomes the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 This is what is meant by the finished work of Christ.
Christians are brides in waiting. Until Jesus returns as Lord and King of all, the whole universe will be groaning together in travail, waiting for the redemption of the sons of men. See Romans 8:18-23
In spite of the atrocities, the sins against humanity done by man’s inhumanity, the universe is moving to its end. The issues of heaven, hell, the resurrection of the dead, Christ’s second return–all fall under the scope of eschatology, eschaton meaning the end times, not the end of everything.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? 1 Peter 4:17 kjv
Created by the God of the universe, every human being will live forever. Where is determined by whom we place our faith in, other gods or the one true God. There are no other choices. Death is the penalty we all must pay. It is the wages of sin, the sin that each of us is born into. I think about death and beyond a lot these days at the age of ninety-one. We have friends who have lost their spouses and are suffering a living death living in the memories of what once was that can never be changed. There are those who have lost their children long before their time and live in the anguish of this. As a pastor, I have presided over the funerals of beloved parishioners, some of them very young. There was a child of two, crushed under a huge tractor tire. His father had parked his tractor by the house and gone in for afternoon coffee. Not seeing his little son had fallen asleep in the path of the tire, he crushed him as he drove away.
Personally, I struggle over what it means to die in the Lord. The book of Revelation written by Christ, dictated to the Apostle John, speaks of this sobering fact of timelessness, what C.S. Lewis referred to as Time and Beyond Time. Some of the seven churches John was writing to were becoming wrapped up in their own time, their own lives, their own concerns and were becoming lukewarm and distanced from the eternity of timelessness. Time was running out for them to give heed for the things that would soon take place—the time was drawing near. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Revelation 1:3
In his blog in 2015, Jack Wellman writes about the future implications of the Book of Revelation. “At the end of the age, the time when the kingdoms of man come crashing down and the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, this will mark the climactic end of the history of humanity entombed in its own mind. Then the timeless God takes over forever. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” Revelation 21:3
However, when the “books” are examined if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of eternal fire.” Revelation 20:15”
Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
Revelation 14:13
To die in the Lord means to have lived one’s life in worship of the one true God. I quote from a pervious blog.
C. S. Lewis said parents need to know what the spirit of worship means so they are able to allow their children the opportunity to worship of God in their daily lives.
Maybe somewhere out there in “cyber space” someone, just someone, might be moved by the spirit to make time in their cluttered lives for family worship. It can be simple; calling on the presence of the Triune God; maybe a short hymn; reading the Word of God together and reading words from a favorite devotional. If there be time, let their children ask questions about God and be prepared to answer their questions. Have them look up a scripture passage and let them tell what they think it means and guide them into a fuller understanding.
Children are souls that thirst for God. Do not neglect the short time given to let the Spirit dwell among you. Start somewhere before it is too late. “God is spirit, πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24 God is love. If you as a parent treasure the glories of Christ, you will be given the strength and power to glorify Him in the presence of your children. If you are eager to know Him, that spirit will be passed on to your children. When your faith, day after day, enfolds the greater wonders of Christ, by virtue of its spiritual nature, it will set aflame the fire of faith in your children.
