Precious in the Lord’s sight is the death of His faithful servants (His saints, Jesus’ followers, His loved ones). (Psalm 116:15)
The Pain of Death and Loss
Liz Shepherd is a Boston artist, and her sculpture, “The Wait,” was done when her father was dying. Liz spent long days at his bedside, feeling the fragility of life and the pain of loss. Her artwork explores the artist’s search for meaning and the aftermath of grief. “The Wait” includes four large empty chairs and reminds me that we can feel empty and helpless when loved ones pass away.1 King David prayed, “We are foreigners and strangers in Your sight, as were all our ancestors. We live here only for a short time, and then we disappear, like a shadow. We know that we will die one day.”2
John Blanchard said, “We were born on the Earth, we live here, and we cling to the Earth as long as we can. Yet as Christians we do not actually belong here at all. Our permanent home is in Heaven with Christ.”
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
Old Testament Teaching on Eternal Life
Thank God, Christians do not grieve like the rest of humankind, who have no hope.3 Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the Lord’s sight is the death of His faithful servants.” Believers’ deaths, like their lives, are significant and important to God. He numbers all the hairs on our heads and stores up all our tears in a bottle.4 Old Testament believers also had assurance of eternal life with God after death.
Job said: I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the Earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see Him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!5
Isaiah prophesied, Your dead will live, LORD. Their bodies will rise—let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy—Your dew is like the dew of the morning. The Earth will give birth to her dead.6
Daniel, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said, Your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the Earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise [toward God] will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.7
Eternal life does not begin when the Lord’s believers die. It begins when we first trust and follow God as Savior in this world, and then it continues into the world to come. Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and all the Old Testament believers trusted in God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ, who was promised, but who had not yet come in their lifetimes.8 Yet they still received the benefit of Christ’s saving work in advance of His incarnation. God takes care of everything. So we pray along with the hymn:
Be near when I am dying, O show Your cross to me!
And, for my comfort flying, come, Lord, to set me free.
These eyes, new faith receiving, from You shall never move.
For those who die believing die safely in Your love.9
Jesus’ Resurrection Guarantees Eternal Life
The New Testament reports over and over that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Jesus, in His resurrection body, appeared first to the women, then to the apostles, then to more than 500 followers, then to others.10 It wasn’t a myth or legend. It was a fact in history. Even the Jewish historian Josephus, writing near 93 AD, attested to the historical Jesus, His miracles, and His resurrection.11
R. Fowler White wrote: “The military of ancient Rome really blew it when it came to Jesus’ resurrection. The troops who guarded His tomb could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble by just giving up His dead body. One problem: they never did. They didn’t because they couldn’t. And they couldn’t because Jesus’ resurrection was and is a well-attested fact, perhaps the best-attested fact of antiquity.”12 White quotes more evidence and reasoning to back up his strong claims, and I agree with him. Do you, beloved?
Christ’s resurrection from the dead has swallowed up death in victory, and His followers can say: “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”13
New Testament scholar Stephen H. Travis wrote, “Christ’s love firmly grasps all who die in faith, who will not be conscious of any passage of time until the moment when Christ returns. Likewise, we are not conscious of time passing between our going to sleep and waking up in the morning… To hope means to look forward expectantly for God’s future activity… The Christian hope is not a matter for tickling our minds but for changing our lives and for influencing society.”14
Asleep in Jesus
Sometimes the New Testament says that believers have fallen asleep. Jairus’ daughter died, and Christ was coming to resuscitate her. He said, “Stop wailing. She is not dead but asleep.”15 The Lord said the same after Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days. He said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going to wake him up.”16 The same kind of language was used in the book of Acts when Jesus’ believers died.17
In 1 Thessalonians, Paul writes, “For we believe that Christ died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s word, we who are still alive, who are left until the Lord’s coming, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.”18
Paul is not just being polite or using an understated way to say that people died. He’s reminding us that another, better life awaits Christ’s followers with Him after this life is over. When we die, believers’ souls enter Heaven immediately. When Jesus returns at the end of the age, our perfected souls and resurrected bodies will enter the New Heaven and New Earth to be with God and His people. So just as sleep is a transition from one day to the next, Christ’s followers transition from life on Earth to life in Heaven with Jesus.
I do not believe in death. I believe in dying. I believe that when I die, I shall simply pass from one room into another. I shall go from the land of the dying into the land of the living. (George MacDonald, 1824-1905)
Prayer
Lord Jesus, help us to trust You as our Shepherd so that we lack nothing. Lead and guide us along the right paths and refresh our souls. Even though we walk through the darkest valleys, help us to fear no evil, because You are with us. Cause Your goodness and love to follow us all the days of our lives, so that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.19
Notes (various Bible translations, including my own): 1 I am indebted to “Precious Departure” in Our Daily Bread for pointing me to Liz Shepherd’s artwork. 2 1 Chron 29:15. 3 1 Thes 4:13. 4 Matt 10:30; Ps 56:8. 5 Job 19:25-27. 6 Isa 26:19. 7 Dan 12:1-3. 8 John 5:46, 8:56, 12:41. 9 Stanza 4 from “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” translator: James W. Alexander (1829). 10 Matt 28:1-10; John 20:1-18; 1 Cor 15:3-8. 11 Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ (2025) by T. C. Schmidt. 12 “Media Bias and the Resurrection of Jesus,” ligonier.org, April 6, 2009. 13 1 Cor 15:55. 14 Christian Hope and the Future (1980). 15 Luke 8:52. 16 John 11:11. 17 Acts 7:60, 13:36. 18 1 Thes 4:14-15. 19 Prayer builds on Psalm 23.