Freed From the Slavery of the Fear of Death

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."

Hebrews 2:14-15

We Christians do not live in slavery because of our fear of death. In talking with a young man recently, he says that death is the end of the experience of pleasure, therefore he does not want to live life with regrets about neglecting experiencing pleasure whenever he can. This shows that he is living in fear of death. Though, in an appearance he may say that he embraces death, in the end, he fears it most, which is demonstrated by his actions. If he did not fear death, that is, the end of all experience of pleasure, then he would not worry about having regrets; that is, if he did not fear death, then it would be irrelevant to maximize every opportunity, to live without regrets. But to live with regrets is to live in fear. To look back on your life and lament is to look ahead with fear. You regret and lament those now past opportunities of temporal experience because they may never come again. But if you did not fear death, if you did not fear the end of the experience of pleasure, then to look back in regret and lament would be irrelevant. It would be irrelevant to lament the passing of a pleasure because, ultimately, one who believes there is no afterlife, that even the pleasures of this life are irrelevant (and even then one could say suffering is the same as pleasure).

But it is precisely because of the work of Jesus Christ that we have hope. We have no fear of death because we can look at the grave and say, "you are not the end of me." Even more than this, Christians are ones who say, "More so, you bring into reality the greatest pleasure of my soul - being present with Jesus Christ." ("My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" Philippians 1:22) It is this reason that we see why Christ is the propitiation for us, namely, "in bringing many sons to glory." (Hebrews 2:10) And to what glory you ask? The glory of of God in Jesus Christ - "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." - John 17:24

There is more to the fact that we do not live in the fear of death. Those who have no hope of an afterlife live in fear of death, therefore they live constantly with the mindset "Carpe Diem" - or "no regrets" - or "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die". But this is not the way Christians are to live. For such a long time I have lived in such a way that I look back constantly at my life and the mistakes I have made and look to not repeat those same mistakes. My whole life, in its essence falls into the same trap as the humanistic hedonist - Satisfaction of temporal pleasures. I do not want to pass up on the temporal pleasures that may come, and sometimes will justify things that appear to my mind as eternal pleasures but in reality are temporal.

The point is that I do not need to live by looking back in regret at the mistakes and missed opportunities that I have had because eternity will supply me with the greatest expanse of maximizing my joy that is found in Jesus Christ. This is exactly what Paul is demonstrating in Philippians 3:13-16 - "But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained." As Christians, we are not those who look back and lament at the sin and mistakes we have made and then proceed on those grounds. We are not saying "I don't want to miss any future opportunities, so I'm going to look back and see where I missed them in the past and make sure I don't commit the same mistakes." We don't think that way because unlike the humanistic hedonist - the opportunity to multiply that joy will come again because death is not the end for our experience of joy. And that opportunity is only found in Jesus Christ. We don't need to look back and hope we don't pass it up when it comes, instead we need to do exactly what Paul calls us to do - "Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead".

The reality is that we have constant access to joy and glory, our enjoyment of it depends upon our view of attaining it. If we think we get it by constantly lamenting our past decisions and committing ourselves constantly to not repeating those sins and mistakes then we will never come to the present enjoyment of those pleasures, because our whole endeavor will be in what we are not going to do. But if we are constantly looking to Jesus Christ to satisfy us, looking through faith to see and lay the eyes of our hearts upon his glory, then we will not need to worry about missed opportunities for pleasure, only instead looking to the future of continual blessing of the experience of grace, glory and joy.

We are not held in fear of death because there is nothing that will bring our experience of joy to an end. There are, in the end, only those things that can increase our experience of joy, which is found in beholding Jesus Christ. We no longer need to live looking back in lamentation at our sin and mistakes, like what Paul lists in Philippians 3, because those moments are past and we can instead each moment indulge ourselves into the pleasure of beholding our Savior Jesus. There is nothing that can bring that to an end, not even death. And, like I highlighted before, not only does death not end our experience of pleasure, but instead, launches us into eternal blessed enjoyment of the constant multiplication of the experience of Joy as we, "see and savor Jesus Christ" - in the words of John Piper.

Do not fear death, it is not the end. Do not look back in regret because new opportunities to have the grace of God poured out on you is coming each new moment. Turn your eyes then to Jesus Christ and look full in his wonderful face.

The Use of Images and Artwork in Worship

Few will agree with me on this, but hopefully my reasonings will appear rational and reasonable and using scripture appropriately.


The function of the images and colors of the Old Testament were in the use of the prefiguration of the coming Messiah - Their use was in what the writer of the letter of the Hebrews tells us: "10:1 For since the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near." Many might argue for much of the adornments, artwork, and images that are placed in our places of worship, that they draw them near to God in their worship - such are many other religions in their use of images and even idols to draw them near in their affections to the worship of idols. They argue for their presence in our places of worship from the fact that in the Old Testament, the Temple was adorned with carved images of palm trees, angels and so on. Because the people of the Old Testament used them, therefore, God accepts them and then we find people using such logic to justify using images, artwork and crosses plastered everywhere.

If I may digress, such is the state of modern american Christianity - of inundating nearly every item with a cross - our cars, our doors, our walls, our churches inside and out, our skin, any personal item we own from keys to bags, everything we own is covered in the image of the cross. But I inquiry into this: how many of those who have these images saturated on all the external possessions they have, how many have the cross submerged into their hearts, inundating every crevasse of their soul, affecting all the inward faculties and emotions, thoughts and deeds that flow out of them. The cross as it adorns anything we own means nothing, it applies no special power, God is not more pleased by the adorning of the tool used to crucify his Son by us to "speak" to the world of our dedication to him.

I say, leave your images at the store, and soak your soul in the deep mysteries of the cross revealed to us in the scriptures. The the invisible will transform your being, not the external images, which only conform you to their external regiments. If you seek glory, you will not find it in a key-chain, in a sticker or in a image in front of the stage at your church - you will find it here on earth in the unseen, invisible glory of Christ as he is given to us in the scriptures.

I return from my digression

Those Old Testament "copies" were exactly that, copies. Their function was to point to realities - namely, Jesus Christ in his Person, Divine preeminently, and Human functionally. And now, we fall into the same error that many fall into - returning to the old manner of coming to Christ, namely, through Law. Too many Christians find their acceptability before God based upon their performance and accretion of duties. This is the error that many of the Pharisees fell into, and even Peter himself, as Paul confronts so clearly in the book Galatians. In a similar manner, many Christians return themselves to images to invoke, most often, an emotional response to Christ as he is poured out. The problem is is that the emotional response to Christ is not needed through beholding some image of the cross, or through some painting that displays some sort of human concept of glory. Our emotional response is only and alone to be found in faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot look to images to provide for us some emotion, the reason for this is that 1) at its core it is idolatry, and 2) once the image is removed, the emotional response will fade soon after.

This is the sickening state that many churches are entering themselves into. I dare say that many allow themselves all sorts of "copies" and images into their worship services and have unwillingly qualified them as permissible objects to lead towards worship. Hence, i have run into many who think - "If I can use all sorts of objects and mood-setting equipment to "enhance" my worship experience, is it then not permissible to allow even the use of drugs to "enhance" my worship experience?" (I have encountered this question on multiple occasions)

The truth is that Christ in his person has satisfied all those copies - the reality has come and now dwells eternally in heaven. We live by faith here, we will live by sight in heaven. The reason we do not erect images here on earth is because the true image, Jesus Christ, has already appeared and now dwells in heaven. To set up anything now is an idolatrous work of man. If you desire to direct your physical eyes to something, then you are at a loss, we walk by faith in this life. It is in heaven that we will see our King (see my previous post). I say then, as I did earlier, soak your soul, direct your heart to the scriptures, where the glory of Christ is most magnificently displayed to those of us who live by faith. If you separate yourself from the word of God, you separate yourself from seeing the glory of Christ as it is faithfully portrayed to us by the Apostles. Do you wish to have your emotions drawn towards Christ? Set your faith upon the Divine person of Jesus, and see the glory that flows from all his magnificent works that fill the pages of the Scriptures.

We Know How Far We Will Tread With Jesus

I put a post up a few months back called "How far will you tread with Jesus?" This is not a response, but a fuller picture of that previous post.

"Christ in me
Christ in me
The hope of glory"

From the song "Be My Everything"

The greatest pinnacle of the Christian faith is that Christ has resurrected from the dead. Without it our religion is reduced to nothing - "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." - 1 Corinthians 15:17. It is from this foundation that we can endure and face any trial or persecution that we will ever encounter in this life. The reason we can endure under any trial, even the persecution of someone killing us for our faith, even being tortured for faith in Christ, is that the torture is temporary, and death is not the end.

Our hope of facing persecution is not based simply on the fact that we will be rewarded in heaven for our perseverance through all the trials that come, but is based on the fact that they do no definitively end our fellowship with Jesus, but only bring us speedily towards our savior, and if they end in death, bring us immediately into the presence of the One whom we long to find ourselves before. The grave holds no power over the children of God - it is merely the means by which we shed the prison-like body of sin, and are brought into the presence of the Lord. Christians are not those who fear death - but instead embrace it. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” - 1 Corinthians 15:55.

We have confidence that we can stand under the trial of persecutions and even torture or even someone killing us because it is not the end for us. Christ dwells in us, and if he dwells in us then he has power over death. Since he has power over death, we can confidently enter those trials with faith and hope in our Savior, that he can conquer what we ourselves in our own strength could never conquer. We have hope because, like Stephen, before he was stoned to death, we will look upon our Savior in glory - "But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' " - Acts 7:55-56.

We can stand at the grave sites of all the saints we know who have died and look with joy, knowing, "They rest not here, they are alive, at this moment looking upon Jesus, beholding the glory of Lord, receiving the 'eternal weight of glory' (2 Corinthians 4:17)"

Christ in me
Christ in me
The hope of glory

A Response to Suffering

The miseries and sufferings are not to be held in comparison to the sufferings of our savior, especially as he was led to the cross, and hung there upon it. The world rejects God because they cannot deal with a God who allows such a magnitude of suffering to be poured out on this wicked world. Little do they know the great condescension and love of God in the unfathomable greatness of the magnitude of wrath and suffering that He poured out on his Son on the cross. The sufferings that men endure in this world, however great they are, still mere men yet endure them. Though they bring them near to death, as David and Job so clearly demonstrate, they cannot be compared to the degrees and multiplication of the kinds of sufferings that our savior endured which no mere human could endure the magnitude of their weight.

Men curse God for the death and sicknesses unleashed on the world, yet they reject the complete outpouring of his wrath on his Son, which none of them could endure. We receive in limited measure the mighty wrath of God, Jesus received the mighty wrath of God in measure without limit. We cannot complain, nor can we lift any accusation against God on account of suffering and evil, since He himself is the recipient of evil and wrath, and that to its fullest extent. And because of this we cannot say to God that he is unjust or not understanding, but instead, he completely and wholly identifies and sympathizes with every kind of suffering we may ever encounter or currently endure. He is not a God who stands in heaven and mocks us because of our poor, dilapidated estate, but He is one who came down, became weak and small like we are, and marched himself willingly to the greatest demonstration of the outpouring of God's wrath that all creation has ever seen. He is a God who calls out to us to lay aside our prideful prejudices against him, to repent and find shelter underneath the cross of Jesus - underneath Him who absorbs the whole wrath of God on our behalf - who suffered incomparably beyond what our natures could even begin to comprehend.

For anyone who angrily raises their doubts against God on account of evil and suffering in the world, let them raise their doubts against this: that the Son of God - Jesus Christ - has come into the world and born the sufferings and wrath we see poured out daily, and calls all people everywhere to repent and come to him and to have the mighty Niagras of wrath turned into the great shining rays of the sunlight of grace to be poured out on them. When one truly understands this, they will never again complain about the wrath that God justly pours out on the wicked world. Their lips will speak simply of the wonderful graces of God poured out on those who love him.