The Unnaturalness of Death

As a doctor, I have seen my fair share of death. And although I have heard some people mention that a particular death was peaceful or even beautiful, I have yet to see one that I would personally describe that way. All the deaths that I have witnessed were difficult, troubled, filled with anguish, and emotionally traumatic (for the patient’s family and for me). And I believe that this latter response is, in fact, the appropriate one—there is no such thing, really, as a “natural” death. In fact, death was never supposed to happen and, deep down, we sense this. It is somehow a violation of the natural order of things and our response of grief, betrayal, and loss give some evidence of this.

Death & Fruit

On a theological level, death was caused by the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Once I can remember an atheist speaker belittling the biblical account of Adam and Eve. He made the Genesis account into his personal satire and cartoon. And he laughingly believed that the crux of God’s anger was about a missing piece of fruit—as if for the first time since the beginning of eternity, God had to do without His daily fiber. Please let me clarify why this response is wrong and ridiculous.

From God’s point of view, placing the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was God’s way of allowing Adam and Eve a vital choice: either willing submission to His good and loving authority or rebellious, man-centered self-autonomy. Theologians say that Adam and Eve had “the possibility to sin” (posse picare), and the essential question facing them was this: who will occupy the throne within man’s heart? God or Self? When Adam and Eve chose the fruit of the tree, what they did, from a spiritual perspective, was to commit calculated treason and grievous mutiny. Instead of placing their good and loving Creator on the throne of their lives, they chose themselves as the center of their lives. And the rest of human history is a disturbing and bloody and depressing footnote to this Original Sin.

Death was a consequence because Sin turned the substance of man’s soul from spiritual iron into perishable wax. And wax does not mix well with the blazing fires of God’s holiness.

Adam and Eve chose sin. Now it was God’s turn to “choose.” And the remainder of the Bible dramatically retells how the God of the Universe, out of tremendous and indescribable love, unfolds His perfect and eternally ordained plan to get us “back home” by replacing the soft wax of our hearts with the solid iron of Jesus Christ.

Amazing Grace

The hymn Amazing Grace is one man’s testimony of how God brought him “back home.” Most of us know John Newton’s moving story of a slave trader turned minister. But what we sometimes forget is that there is, in fact, something of John Newton in all of us. Although John Newton was in the debasing business of selling people, he himself was also entrapped by his own greed and bigotry. And until God frees us from our slavery, we too are bound and enslaved by the master of Sin. In fact, whether we realize it or not and whether we like it or not, we are always at the beck and call of uncontrolled anger, covetousness, lust, pride, or idolatry—just to name a few evils. In fact, Christianity teaches that without God’s interviening grace man will always be a slave and he will never be the master of anything with eternal significance. Even when he solely desires to be his own master, he will perpetually gravitate towards willing slavery to Sin. The question, consequently, will never be, “Will I be a slave?” The question will always be, “Who is my master?”

During a tumultuous, ship-sinking storm, Jesus Christ became the captain of John Newton’s ship. And, thereafter, John Newton was given a new hope, a new purpose, and a new destination—no more wandering without direction on an endless sea. But more importantly, on a distant shore, a day finally arrived when his ship came in. And John Newton finally found his way back home… back to Eden.