What Happens When I Die?

I think this is a question that everyone thinks about, even if they say they’re unconcerned: what happens when I die? People create wills and trusts, hoping that what is left behind is cared for (though we know that either things will be fought over, or discarded, in many cases). Some people think we go into a nothingness, or we go into a void (I think that is wishful thinking, personally; such folks hope to live a life of some meaning after raising as much Cain as they wish, but really, life is pointless if this is all there is, isn’t it?). If such a thing is true, then we should do whatever we want, and damn the consequences! There’s no accountability, this is all there is! Eat, drink and be merry (though we could also do a lot worse) for tomorrow we die! Some people think that if you are good, you’ll go to an afterlife. Many try and appease whatever gods they follow, but, generally, those gods are made in the image of the person seeking: they say “I’ve lived a good life, I did what I was supposed to do,” and other such empty phrases like this to try and appease their own conscience. Even in Christendom, people take the Living God and trade Him in for the discount version: one that feels good as opposed to the One who created all things.

If we’re honest, most of what we consider for life after death is guess work. And I think we do it because we really don’t want to be accountable. We close our eyes to the feeling of emptiness inside ourselves, and we blind ourselves to the fact that there is a just God and He holds everyone to account. When we die, we will meet God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; everything points to a designer, and even scientists who tried to explain everything through an evolutionary lens are beginning to point to something that brought everything out of nothing. God exists, and since he does, He must hold us accountable for everything we do. It’s called justice.

So, what hope do we have? If God holds us accountable, and we have broken His law (which we all have), what hope do we have? We all deserve a just punishment, and since God cannot be in the presence of sin without destroying that sin-covered thing, we will all be sent away eternally! Where is our hope? How can we be restored to the image He created us to be?

I’m glad you asked! God is not merely a God of justice, but mercy. He looked upon us in our helpless estate, knowing our default destination apart from Him is Hell. He sent His Son to live the life we could not, and poured the wrath we deserved on Him instead of us on the Cross at Calvary. Jesus took the punishment we deserved, dying for the sins of the world, but on the third day, rising again, conquering the just consequence of our actions! Because Jesus is alive, we can live. Because He is at the right hand of the Father, we have been given the opportunity to be with Him forever! God no longer sees our sins, but sees the Son! How do we get in on this Good News?

We follow Jesus and are born again. That is what Baptism is: I die to myself, being crucified with Christ (I give my old life to Him), I am buried with Christ (that is, in the water), and I am raised again a New Creation in Him. But it doesn’t end at the baptistry. Since I am born again, I must be new. Christ must live in me, and I in Him. I must be regenerated, leaving my old life behind so that I can follow Him in to the next one!

Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.