I am dealing with a terminal illness and am tired of the suffering and pain this is causing me and my family. I am scared to die, but is it a sin to want to die so I can go home and be with Jesus?

It is definitely not a sin to desire to leave this world at God’s time and be with Jesus. That, finally, is the goal of our faith. It would be good to review what Scripture says about Christians and death.

Longing for heaven

The apostle Paul longed to be with God in heaven. When Paul was first imprisoned in Rome, he wrote to the Christians in the city of Philippi. He confessed that he was conflicted over the thought of continuing his life on earth or joining his Lord in heaven. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (Philippians 1:21-24). Paul also spoke of “longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling” to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:2). The apostle Paul found joys in his earthly life as a child of God, but he knew there was something much, much better awaiting him, and he looked forward to that.

Job, in the Old Testament, did as well. When he thought of his new life with God, he exclaimed, “How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:27). If you agree with Job, it is because you also agree with the writer to the Hebrews, who compared this life to the next in concrete terms: “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

While you and I look forward to the perfect life that is to come, we recognize that our life is in God’s hands (Psalm 31:15), so we do nothing that would hasten our death.

Looking at death

Death is inevitable for us all unless the Lord returns visibly to this world on the Last Day before we die. The thought of death can be unsettling even for Christians. Death is an unnatural intruder into God’s perfect world; death was never a part of God’s design for life. Death is “the wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). The unnatural origin of death, along with not knowing what it is like to take a final breath, can generate fear.

What we want to remember is that Jesus has taken away every reason for fearing death. Jesus, after all, lived and died as our perfect substitute and then rose triumphantly from the dead. Those people in the Bible who were raised to life eventually experienced death as the end of their earthly life. Jesus rose from the dead as “the firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:23). He was the first person to die and rise from the dead—never to die again. And as the firstfruits, that means there will be others like him. Christians who die will be raised to life on the Last Day and will never experience death again.

So take heart in the works and words of Jesus. They give us sure confidence for the future.

Author: James F. Pope
Volume 106, Number 9
Issue: September 2019