For The Sake of the Gospel # 18
Life after Death: Part One

There is one thing of which we can be sure, of which there is no doubt, one thing about which we can all agree. Sooner or later, each one of us will die. While there are many options in life, there is no option when it comes to death. Sooner or later, we will die. Given the inevitability of death, what can we say about death? It is, to be sure, the end of life as we know it. But is it the end of life?

For many people, life after death is another one of those myths we need to shed. The hope for life after death, we are told, belongs to an earlier more naïve age. But we live in a modern technological world. We know that heaven is not “up there.” We know, so we are told, that death marks the end of life. So live each day to the fullest. Enjoy the life you have; for there will be no life after death.

For us who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, however, death is not the end of life but the beginning of a new kind of existence—the kind of existence the risen Lord Jesus Christ already enjoys. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before we can talk about new and eternal life, we need to talk about death.

It is not easy to talk about death. Death, after all, is what St. Paul calls the last and greatest enemy. Death is not what God intended for us. Death is the result of another great power and force, which St. Paul’s calls “Sin.” In Romans 5, St. Paul explains it this way. The power of Sin entered the world through Adam’s transgression, and with the power of Sin came the power of Death. Death, then, is the consequence of Sin. Death is eternal separation from God.

If we look at death from a purely human point of view, it is a terrifying reality. It is more than the end of life as we know it. It is the end of our existence. It is the moment when we fall into nothingness.

But if we look at death from a Christian point of view, we begin to understand death in another light. To be sure, death retains all of its terrifying power. It remains the last and the greatest enemy. But it is the enemy that God has conquered and overcome through the death and resurrection of his own Son. Through his own death, Christ has destroyed the power of death over our lives. And through his resurrection from the dead, Christ has made it possible for us to enter into the resurrection life that he already enjoys.

So is there life after death? If we live in Christ, whom God raised from the dead, the answer is yes. After death, there is resurrection life, the very life that Christ already enjoys because God raised him from the dead. But what is this resurrection life? What will it mean for us? To answer these questions, I will devote my next three columns to what Paul says about the resurrection of the dead in 1 Corinthians 15.

Your homework for the coming week is to read 1 Corinthians 15.
Fr. Matera