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The Bible tells us that we are in bondage to the fear of death for all our lives. Even on a sunny morning when love and life seem so strong, the fear is somewhere in the shadows of our mind. Elsewhere, the funeral cars are going to the cemetery. Solitary faces look out of the windows, faces that are red-eyed with tears, or blank with disbelief, bitterness and anger. Each is alone with his or her thoughts and no one can reach into that darkness to take it away, in spite of kind arms reaching out to embrace in sympathy.
To find some of the answers to the questions about death, a good place to start is to look at life. We take life for granted until it is gone. But what is it, where did it come from, what does it mean for us? |
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How can we recognise or define life?
Biologists who study life look for four elements. They note that something alive |
- breathes
- feeds
- moves
- responds to stimuli
- reproduces
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Have you seen how we become concerned when someone stops eating or drinking? We try every means to tempt them; we want them to hang on to life. We all recognise something that is alive without the biologist having to tell us. In the same way, we all recognise death. Even a child knows when its goldfish has died. We know when the flowers in the vase have died.
Life and death are opposites and can be seen and understood.
Have you ever seen little calves playing - head-butting, bucking and kicking out with shiny little hooves, or watched the gangling curiosity and quivery alertness of puppies, with their sideways walk and tiny tails where the tip does not quite move with the rest of their body? They will grow up. They themselves will have young. This is life. |
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Where did it all begin?
In order to find out about the first life in this world, we have to look to the Bible, to the first chapters of the first book - Genesis. There is no other explanation to the origin of life anywhere else in the world and, as we are powerless to generate life, we need to examine this record. Unless we know the beginnings, we cannot fully find comfort through the pain at the end of life.
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The Bible record.
The basis of these pages is the Bible only, and it is hoped they will show you what God, the Giver of life, says about life and death and the hereafter. The pages will cut away the many superstitions and stories that have built up around death in most of the cultures of the world.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Here is the foundational text in the Bible to explain where life came from. In just 27 words we have a clear picture of our beginnings and how our life originated. We can see that we are something very |
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