What is death?

Death is easily the greatest mystery of all time. It’s the one mystery that can only be solved by experiencing the mystery itself. Yes, some have come back from the dead and told their stories. And some are certainly true. But for most of us the wall of death is impenetrable.

A thought experiment:
What if you could pay for your choice of death simulation: a virtual death.[1] One that would give you a “scientifically-verified” realistic death experience, and be guaranteed to survive? A few of the choices could be:

• death by parachute failure
• death by gunshot wound
• death by guillotine or electric chair or hanging
• death by old age
• death by crucifixion

We do get glimpses; we do get metaphors and similes. And the scriptures give us the story of death’s beginning, middle, and its ultimate demise.

You may be asking: this subject seems a little too morose to focus on; why would you write about death? Of all people it’s Christians that should be the most unafraid to think and speak of death, that is, without being weirdly morbid. Jesus Christ has overcome death; we do not need to fear death or avoid it. It is a fact of life; we will die.[2] Is a fascination with death unhealthy? Yes, but it’s prudent to candidly ask questions about it and to remember our mortality. Assiduously avoiding it like a taboo is unhealthy.

In this article I won’t be discussing what happens after death, but I hope to encourage us by looking squarely into the face of death, seeing its power, and reminding ourselves of the much greater power of Christ’s victory over it. I won’t be able to completely unravel the mystery of death, but I will try to describe its basic profile. Here’s my quick stab at a definition:

death — the consequence of distrust in God that produces a disabled mentality of falsely-presumed autonomy, the slow degradation of the body, and the spiritual power that facilitates, hastens, normalizes and uses that mentality and degradation to capture human beings in a state of bondage and fear.

Here it is in diagram form:

The birth of death

How life and death originated is clearly told in the first story of the Bible. Here is God’s now familiar warning to Adam:

. . . but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” — Genesis 2:17

Question is: was God warning of the consequence of eating the fruit or of his judgment for eating the fruit? In other words is death fundamentally a consequence or a judgment or both?

The words: “in the day that you eat of it” gives us a clue because obviously Adam and Eve did not physically die the day they ate the fruit. But in some way, they did die that day. Yet how did they die? Let’s read the direct aftermath of the eating:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden . . . and [they] hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. . . . And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? — Genesis 3:7–11

The first thing they notice is quite a strange thing to report — they suddenly become aware of their nakedness. But how would they have the concept of nakedness if they had never worn clothes? Somehow they did. But nakedness speaks of exposure and vulnerability. Their loss of trust in God – their childlike, implicit trust – the thought that God may no longer protect them, provide for them, defend them, meant that they would need to protect, provide and defend themselves. They suddenly realized they were on their own — and it was a presumption of overwhelming burden. So death involves this loss of trust in the living God. Death is losing God, or at least the belief that they had lost God and that they must fend for themselves. So it was not just their objective nakedness, it was their newfound awareness of themselves — their newfound self-awareness and self-consciousness, and their sudden inadequacy for their future.

Remember that the garden that God had put them into was a wonderland, a non-stop parade of epiphanies and revelations of animals, plants, flowers, landscapes, bugs, critters, mountains, rivers, vistas, and much more. Their original vision had been outward, but then suddenly their vision turned inward, inward onto themselves.

Their vision had been completely outward due to their awareness of God’s wonderful provision, of his nearness and care. And it was the way things just . . . were — full child-like faith, simplicity and openness. The awe factor must have been off the charts! But then suddenly they were tempted by the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, that perhaps God couldn’t be trusted. So they withdrew, hid themselves from the source of all things, thought they needed to take matters into their own hands, which then grew into an independence and an assumption of being on their own.

Now let’s go back to the question: how did death originate? Was it a consequence, a judgement or both?

Did they eat the fruit because they had lost their trust in God?
OR
Did eating the fruit cause them to lose their trust in God?
OR
Did eating the fruit simply demonstrate that they had lost their trust in God?

They lost their trust in God when they chose to believe the lie. So eating the fruit only demonstrated their loss of trust in God. There was no magic in the actual eating of the fruit. Death then is simply the consequence of not trusting God. He had warned them but they ultimately did not believe him.

In a way consequences are judgments from God since God is the one — the only one — who could set up the cause and effect world. His warning could have been: ‘Don’t jump off the cliff, for in that day . . . ‘

How then does the fruit of the tree enter into this equation?

It was the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that tempted them. But what did this fruit represent? It represented the consequence of the awareness of good and evil. So what did the knowledge of good and evil give them? It gave them the false presumption that they must choose independently, which turned out to be too much for them. Consequently they died — inside, and felt alienated from God.

Analogies of death

Has God given us any likenesses of death? The answer is: yes he has! And he has so impressed it on us that it’s impossible to miss it. He’s even built it into our very being. You are faced with this ‘mini-death’ every night of your life when you ‘go to sleep.’[3]

Even Jesus used sleep as a metaphor/euphemism for death:

These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. — John 11:11–14

It should be perfectly obvious to see the similarities between sleep and death, but here are a few of the likenesses:

Sleep	Death
inevitable	inevitable
lose control	lose control
lose consciousness	lose consciousness (apparently)
become motionless	become motionless
happens at the end of day	happens at the end of life
feel tired before	feel tired/old before: senescence
involuntary	involuntary
dreams	alternate/complementary reality[4]

Sleep is given to us as a sign of the inevitability of death, but also of the promise of resurrection.

But let’s go a little deeper.

Whereas sleep is a likeness of physical death, so the garden of Eden was a likeness of protection from spiritual death. Remember that God prepared a garden for Adam and Eve as a protective bubble and warned them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tree was off-limits, but not simply because God was testing them. The tree is named the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for a reason. The tree is a symbol. God wanted to shield them from evil and for good reason. We also do this with our own children.

With our children we try to protect them as long as we can from the awareness, presence, and effects of evil. Especially when they’re very little we create a bubble of protection. For at least the first year or two of life, all good parents are very careful not to expose them to any form of evil. And providentially, children are largely oblivious to evil anyway due to their naiveté and childhood amnesia.

But why do we (it’s a universal) protect our children from the awareness or contact with evil?

• because they have no ability to understand it
• because it may cause trauma, even permanent traumatic memories
• because it may create insecurities and fear
• because it may cause them to doubt our ability to protect them
• because it may cause them to react irrationally, hastily, even violently, which may in turn create more violence and hurt and trauma.

So in the garden God wanted to protect his new creation from evil. All they knew was good, but good has no name until it’s confronted/contradicted by evil. The tree then represented the knowledge of both good (now so named) AND evil.

What is life? | Life: death’s inversion

Before we can more thoroughly define death, we have to see into the depths of life and what God originally intended for us, and what Jesus the Messiah came to restore. To start let’s list some words that we instinctively associate with life:

vitality	alive	vivify	energy
vim	vigorous	movement	animation
breathe	quicken	virility	action
keen	vigor	flourishing	birth
invigorate	vivid	vivacious	growth
bloom	vibrant	spirited	fruitful

This could start to sound like new age mysticism if it were not for the risen Christ’s familiar words:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. — John 10:10

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” — John 11:25–26

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. — John 14:6

Then Jesus himself defined life – eternal life, that is, the eternal kind of life; the life that is the God-kind of life. This is the life that Jesus came to restore to us:

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. — John 17:1–3

This is real life. There is no substitute. It can practically appear in countless ways, but the internal life is the core, from which an abundant life flows. This kind of knowledge of God comes from a depth of intimate conversations with God the Father.

Imagine that at the core of your being you were absolutely convinced that the living God loves you and is for you, that he is all-powerful, that he knows you intimately, including all of your weaknesses and sins, that he is with you (not remote), that he thoroughly understands and knows what is best for you, and that he stands and presides over the entire earth as the risen Christ.

Now imagine how your life would be infused with joy and peace and compassion and fearlessness: being ‘strong IN the Lord and IN the power of his might.’[5]

This is not some impossible, dreamy fantasy; this is what is actually available and should be normal for all of God’s children. This is the kind of simplicity and intimacy that comes from walking with God like Adam and Eve initially enjoyed. And it is why God warned them not to partake of the tree that represents the awareness of good and evil.

In 1991 I was sitting in a training class at work, only vaguely paying attention, and I remember contemplating the thought:

            ‘What if God is not good.’

I immediately felt a wave of nausea and felt cold and empty inside. I could feel the tentacles of despair start to close in on me.

I caught a glimpse of Adam’s feeling of dread.

I knew I could not linger in that state. Before too long I turned back in faith to the Lord, and though the experience initially caused me to doubt God’s goodness, it was also through that experience that I learned to seek the Lord for himself, not for what he could give me. He himself became my hope, my joy, my life.

Jesus gave us another picture of his kind of life. It is to be connected to him, to abide in the vine. Here are his words:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. — John 15:5–8

Life is belonging and knowing that you belong. It is abiding, staying, remaining, lingering in the Vine — Jesus himself. In abiding we learn to live in a different ‘default’ or normal state.

So death and the process of death starts way before physical death. Perversely the death process becomes what we think is life, but it is not. God intended for us to experience his life connected integrally to our life — this was to be our ‘default position.’

But what does this mean? Is abiding in the vine — in Jesus — a mystical experience, some kind of trance state, an altered state of consciousness, a life disconnected from the daily cares of life? No. Abiding in the vine is simply living in communication with and a deep awareness of him; it means realizing you are not alone, even when you are alone; it means acknowledging in simple, practical ways that you are depending on him.

To reach this awareness of abiding and the endless growth in it, requires us to develop habits of prayer and meditation, the habit of serving others without expecting anything in return, and the intentional cultivation of other spiritual disciplines.[6]

What is death?

If you’ve read this far you may be saying to yourself: ‘Okay, finally! But isn’t it perfectly obvious what death is?’ Yes, except that, as I mentioned earlier, God had told Adam unequivocally: ‘. . . in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.’ Yet Adam lived to the ripe old age of 930 (Genesis 5:5).

So the question is again, in what way did Adam die at the beginning of his life?

Some would answer that Adam and Eve died spiritually, which I think is true. But let’s be clear — what does that mean? Normally spiritual death is described as some kind of separation from God, that because Adam and Eve sinned or rebelled or disobeyed God’s command, God cut them off. And as evidence of that they point to the banishment from the Garden of Eden. But let’s read what God actually said:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” — therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. — Genesis 3:22–24

God banished Adam and Eve from the garden and from the tree of life to prevent them from partaking of it and living forever. Apparently eating from the tree of life would have put them into some kind of intermediate zombie-like state — dead yet never actually physically dying: that is, internally dead, but outwardly never dying. God had to ensure that the internal death, the subjective death of separation from God, actually produced a literal separation of soul and body, so that the body would eventually disintegrate. So in that sense, death was a kind of mercy.

Death is not just an event; it’s a mentality and a process that culminates in what we call death. First is a condition, a state of mind, a darkened inwardness of soul that implicitly trusts in self, not God. It’s a deep and unnamed sense of loss and vulnerability. This condition becomes the default posture in life. And because practically everyone else has the same condition, we instinctively assume it’s normal. But it is not. It is the mentality of death.

For many people, especially in their youth, this mentality is more easily ignored or compensated for. But as we age we reluctantly become more aware of our mortality until finally the process of death becomes impossible to ignore. Our bodies start to break down and then ultimately that process reaches a climax, and the mentality and process reach its logical conclusion: we physically die.

Yes of course, death can happen suddenly by injury or genetic disease or deformity; it can happen by famine, ritual sacrifice, or murder. We are not immortal gods. But at least in the western world, most of us will die because of complications of old age — senescence.[7] And it’s well known that this universal process of death has a clear pattern. During a person’s last days they will go through a series of predictable stages. Every death is different but generally the death process starts a few months before. The stages are:[8]

One to three months prior to death	Withdrawal — processing of our life Sleep increases Less communication with others Loss of appetite
One to two weeks prior to death	Disorientation and confusion Sleep, can’t seem to keep eyes open May see loved ones who have died Agitation Breathing changes
One to two days or hours prior to death	Sometimes a surge of energy Restlessness Slower breathing patterns Glassy eyes Purplish hands and feet Non-responsive
Last moments	Breathing stops or is often followed by one or two long-spaced breaths. Sometimes a great inhalation followed by one last exhalation.

I saw my own dad go through these stages and I will never forget him telling me a day or two before he died, characteristically of him in his matter-of-fact way: ‘See you in heaven.’

Death: a cultural and spiritual power

But death is not just a personal mentality and process. It’s also a massive cultural and spiritual power. This power has grown and confronts us on many levels until today we live in the midst of a mature culture of death. We are surrounded by this monstrosity that threatens to assimilate us. Here are a few of its tentacles:

abortion	euthanasia	robotics	AI
mass destruct weapons	homosexuality	transgenderism	evolution
transhumanism	perpetual wars	divorce	eugenics
sex trafficking	torture	vaccines	pedophilia
drug trafficking	forced migration	addiction	extortion
suicide	racism	pornography	medicalization
lockdowns	genocide	EMFs/electro-smog	chemtrails
GMOs	industrial waste	fluoridation

The one thing that all of these cultural sub-powers have in common is that they all facilitate, hasten, glorify, or normalize human degradation and death.[9] Death with a capital D is the power that we cannot overcome. But there is One who has overcome it:

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. [10]

Until Christ’s resurrection, death was the one power that swallowed up everything. It was invincible. So this is the irony. It appears that sheol — the grave/death — literally swallows people up into the earth. We dig a grave and then cover them up. But now death itself is buried — ‘swallowed up.’ Death has died! Death is dead!

This was the meaning of the resurrection — the controversy we see between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in resurrection: that God was going to remake the world even though death apparently wins. They knew that God was way more powerful than death and that he could and would resurrect us and restore everything in the end. When you think about it, obviously nothing can defeat God, including the power of death itself.

God’s plan was not to stop death, to invalidate death, to cancel or nullify death, to slow death, or to make death less painful. His plan and his action was to completely overcome death by dying and then rising again after death. Why? Because death had to be defeated by a man. It was man that was destined to die and it was man that had to overcome it:

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. — I Corinthians 15:20–22

Conclusion

Why then talk of death? Because we need to see death for what it is. We need to see it as the result of losing our trust in God and the consequences of that. We need to bring it down to size. We need to put death in its place. For too long it has terrorized God’s people and paralyzed us with its empty threats. Death is defeated! Death is dead! We no longer need to fear it. Christ Jesus has answered the call of humanity’s greatest enemy and has defeated it once and for all. And in its place he reopens the gates to the Tree of Life.

---

[1] In 2023 at least one artist attempted to create a death simulation, but definitely not ‘scientifically verified’: https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/you-can-now-experience-how-death-feels-through-virtual-reality/

[2] Yet we’re told that there will be those who ‘are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord.’ I Thessalonians 4:15

[3] See also my article: LIE: Sleep is a waste.

[4] Although my purpose is not to go into what happens after death, our dreams are apparently an indication that our consciousness will continue after death, although it will take a different form.

[5] Ephesians 6:10

[6] I highly recommend two classic works on the spiritual disciplines: Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines, and Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline.

[7] Senescence now has been thoroughly medicalized to the point that these stages may be masked so that most people die in a hospital or hospice care. That used to be a rare thing, but now it’s rare for anyone to die at home. These stages of death used to be much better understood.

[8] Taken from the popular booklet by the palliative nurse Barbara Karnes: Gone From My Sight, the Dying Experience.

[9] I’ve written about this elsewhere on this site. See for example, What is the mark of the beast? part 1, part 2, and part 3. Also see: LIE: Fear and anxiety are unconquerable.

[10] I Corinthians 15:54–56, quoted from Isaiah 25:8: “He will swallow up death forever,/ And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; / The rebuke of His people / He will take away from all the earth; / For the Lord has spoken.”