Why do people die?
Death is so common that most people treat it as simply part of being human. The Bible traces it to a cause outside of nature — and it also announces that death has met its match.
Death Came In By Sin
Death was not built into the world God made. It arrived as an intruder, and one writer insists we refuse every softer explanation of it:
W. W. FeredayDeath lies on people everywhere as the fruit of sin; it is sin's wages, as Romans 6:23 tells us. Had sin not intruded into God's fair creation, not a grave would ever have been dug, not a tear of bereavement would ever have been shed. Let us have no misunderstanding about this. Those who speak of their coming death as "the debt of nature" are simply hiding from themselves the real truth of their position in relation to God and His throne.
Man Was Made To Live
If death is not natural, then the human body dying is not a design feature that finally wears out. It is the removal of something God had first supplied:
The Bible TreasuryThe fact is that those who judge only from present experience are far from the truth: man was originally made to live. Death was sin's wages, not a physiological necessity. God had provided the means of prolonging his life if he obeyed, but firmly took that means away from him when he fell. For what greater misery, or moral contradiction, than an everlasting life of sin?
Adam's Sin And Your Own
Commentators put the weight differently when explaining why the sentence lands on each individual. One presses the reader's personal record:
Hamilton SmithHere then is the secret of death. There was no death for man until Adam had sinned. At the same time none of us can say we have to die merely because Adam sinned. It is true that sin came into the world by one man, and death by sin, but the Word goes on to say, "death spread to all men because all sinned." The sentence of death is in front of you because of the sins of your life that lie behind you.
Another points to those who die before they could ever sin at all, and reads death as God's refusal to let a corrupted life run on forever:
James BoydAdam brought in sin and death, and death passed to all his descendants regardless of their own personal disobedience. Babies die who have not sinned. It is impossible for God to allow man to continue for ever in a life of sin.
An Appointment No One Can Cancel
Medicine can delay death; it cannot repeal it. The reason is that the problem is moral, not merely biological:
L. M. GrantDeath is God's answer to sin: there is no other. Man may try to get rid of death, but he must first get rid of sin, and this he has neither the ability nor the desire to do. So whatever his fear or hatred of death, it is the one appointment he cannot avoid.
Scripture does not stop at the grave either. The same writer quoted above warns that for those who never seek God's grace and pardon, the death of the body is only "the prelude to 'the second death, the lake of fire'".
Death Annulled By Christ
The New Testament does not say death has been removed from the world — funerals continue. It says its power has been broken for those who believe:
F. B. HoleDeath has been annulled by His death and resurrection, and life and incorruptibility have been brought to light in the gospel. "Annulled," not "abolished," is the right translation. Death clearly is not yet abolished, but its power is annulled for those who believe in Jesus.
(Older translations of 2 Timothy 1:10 read "abolished death… and immortality"; the writer argues for "annulled" and "incorruptibility".)
What Changes For The Believer
Believers still close their eyes and are buried, so what exactly has been taken away? The wages of sin were never just the parting of soul and body:
H. H. SnellThere is a "sting" and a "terror" bound up with death that knows no rest or comfort. The believer is so completely delivered from these things that he can say, "O death, where is your sting?" — for the sting of death is sin, and it is removed by the precious blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin. The terror is gone too, because he knows that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So the believer's death is not called death in the New Testament, but falling asleep in Jesus.
Summary
- Cause. People die because sin entered the world; without it, no grave would ever have been dug.
- Not nature. Death is sin's wages, not a debt owed to nature — man was originally made to live.
- Reach. The sentence spread to everyone; writers differ on emphasis, some pointing to each person's own sins, others to infants who die without sinning at all.
- Limit. God will not let a life of sin run on for ever, and no human progress can cancel the appointment.
- Remedy. Christ's death and resurrection annulled death's power: for the believer the sting is gone and dying is called falling asleep.