During a recent discussion with a friend, the topic of ‘death leading to life’ was brought up and how essential it is in the Bible. In looking at what feels to me like a more and more lifeless world, the connection between the state of the world and this principle came to mind. I believe that one of the biggest problems we have today, whether in politics, schools, family life, men, or women, is that there is a growing inability to produce life because of a growing unwillingness to die. Where is no death, life cannot be brought forth, and those who most depend on others to die (citizens, children, spouses) suffer for it.
What is meant by dying
Death as we generally understand it is the physical cessation of life, but in this article I’m using the term death as a way of speaking about a principle of denying ourselves, whether it be hopes, needs, desires, preferences, or expectations.
This might be best illustrated by a few examples:
- The judge who dies to his desire for self-enrichment rejects a bribe offered to him and makes a just ruling, acquitting the innocent party.
- The agreeable person who dies to his desire for always being liked informs a co-worker of an embarrassing habit which he wasn’t aware of.
- The soldier who dies to the desire of self-preservation does a brave act that ensures the survival of his troops.
In the examples above, a person or group of people received ‘life’ because someone else ‘died’.
Why is dying necessary?
From these examples and our own lived experience, we know that there is a tendency in human beings to desire things for themselves at the expense of others. Or, with reference to things like drugs, even at our own expense.
When God created the world, He created man to be a life-giving being just as He is. However, since the fall our human nature has become corrupted by sin and we don’t seek life according to God’s ways. This inevitably leads to death, and although the story of the Bible is in one sense God’s plan to restore life to mankind, the surprising turn is that He uses death to accomplish this. From God’s perspective, what we inherited from Adam (the ‘flesh’) must die so that we can have the life of God again:
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.
Rom 6:4, ESV
A witness to Christ
Let’s suppose every person in the world decides tomorrow morning to immediately start dying to themselves for the sake of others. Such a change would bring about unimaginable good to the world. However, even such a wonderful thing, if it ended only in the improvement of society, would still ultimately amount to nothing of eternal value.
Since creation was not built primarily for us as human beings, but rather through and for Jesus Christ, we must understand how this principle points us to Christ. In other words, even though we will find it helpful to build our lives and societies on this principle, we would still miss the point if we miss the true substance to which it was trying to direct us.
The first and most obvious way that this points us to Christ is by preparing us for His life, death and resurrection; the ultimate act of self-denial that has been a source of life for countless people all over the world. The cross is the substance to which all death-to-life shadows point, and to miss it is to miss the true life which it offers.
Then there is the implication for His followers. In light of this principle, it should make sense why Jesus tells those who desire to be His disciples to take up their cross (an instrument of death) on a daily basis in order to follow Him. We must decrease so that He can increase (John 3:30).
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mat 16:24, ESV
We need each other to die
In the body of Christ, we also need each other to die so that we might be a life-giving community. Few men illustrate this better than the apostle Paul, who through his ministry introduced many people to the gospel. Yet he often described his ministry using ‘death’ language:
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Phil 3:10 ESV
So death is at work in us, but life in you.
2 Cor 4:12 ESV
I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day
1 Cor 5:31, ESV
Likewise, he exhorted others using the language of death:
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Rom 8:13, ESV
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Col 3:5, ESV
When Paul speaks about putting things to death, it’s often contrasted with something that will bring forth life. Even where the language of death is not explicitly used, the principle remains of putting away (i.e. dying to) the things that lead to death and increasing in the things that lead to life:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Phil 2:3-4, ESV
No person needs to be taught to count himself as more significant than others, or to look only to his own interests, since that is what we inherited from Adam. Putting this inheritance to death enables us to become life-giving again.
The reward
Not only does dying to ourselves unlock life for others, but if we die for the sake of Jesus (Matthew 16:25) we are also promised to have what is truly life, life as God intended it, eternal life. And as we continually go through the process of dying and experiencing the power of His resurrection on the other side, we are prepared for our final act on earth, our final death. Standing at death’s door, we can then proceed through with the trained expectation that life awaits us yet again on the other side.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12:24, ESV