Advances in medicine have given us many life sustaining treatments.  Many of the diseases and conditions that meant certain death a century ago are now routinely treated and imminently recoverable.  But along with these developments have also come ethical complications.  We now have medical technology that can sustain heartbeats and breath, when a patient might otherwise have died.  The sick and their families often must make hard decisions about advanced directives and “do not resuscitate orders.”  Or whether to seek live saving curative care versus comfort care.

With these capabilities have come questions about what it means to be dead.  It used to be straightforward.  If your heart stopped beating and you stopped breathing for two minutes, you were declared dead.  But with the ability to continue these artificially, health care providers have looked for other definitions such as the “cessation of all vital functions of the body including the heartbeat, brain activity (including the brain stem), and breathing.” 

But apart from the medical definition, man has always had deeper questions and concerns about death.  Man is quite aware of his soulfulness and recognizes instinctively that to be human is to exist in a unity of body and soul.  We can observe the physical dimensions of death in our earthly bodies, but is physical death the end of my existence?  If not, what is after death?  Can I prepare for death?  If so how?  Will I face annihilation or reincarnation?  How can I know what it will mean to be dead? 

Those who have experienced “near death experiences” speak of light and peace.  Ancient civilizations speculated on various ideas of the afterlife.  Atheists and materialists hold to a void of nothingness after death. And different Christian denominations hold a variety of views about what we experience after death.   But only the Bible gives us clarity about what death is and what it is not, what we will be and what we will experience.  And most importantly how we can prepare for what God has already prepared for believers.

Over the next few weeks, we will be considering what the Bible says about Heaven.  This discussion necessarily starts with what the Bible says about death.  Our catechisms note that Scripture teaches that death is not the end of life, but the beginning of unending life.

Q. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection.– Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q 37

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die? A. Our death is not a payment for our sins (Ps. 49:7), but only a dying to sins and an entering into eternal life (John 5:24; Phil. 1:21–23; 1 Thess. 5:9–10).-Heidelberg Catechism Q 42.

Eternal life, heaven, is the sweet promise for the believer in Jesus Christ. It sustains us in affliction.  Comforts us in grief.  Assures us as years fly by.  As our hymn declares,

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

But what will that fair and happy land be like?  Join us as we begin our survey of what Scripture teaches about heaven with an examination of death, what it is, what it is not, what we will experience and what we will be. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.