I think death is something we don’t think about enough. Either we obsess over it, or forget it; I find neither to be right. But one thing that gives me hope is reading about Paul’s perspective on death in 1 Corinthians 15 (selected passages):
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as He has designed, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body.
-1 Corinthians 15 (BSB)
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
Talking about death, the Bible rephrases the question we have. Our question might be, “Why do we have to die?” Shouldn’t, in Jesus, we have eternal life? But echoing Jesus’s words, 1 Corinthians follows the thought that to have eternal life, we must die. To live spiritually, we die to sin. To live physically, we die to our mortal bodies so we can be raised again.
The resurrection is why we have hope in death. It makes us think of ourselves and our lives as a shadow of things to come: we are seeds now. We only see part of the picture. Between who we’re meant to be and who we are is death.
Everything in the Earth is temporary, and that goes for our bodies, too. To live eternally means dying temporarily. And I think that Jesus, when talking about our salvation, is clear that being saved to his Kingdom isn’t a one-time experience–it’s a process of trusting him, putting faith in him, and becoming like him.
Stay inspired,
thoughts of a wanderer 