One day I will go into death. I will leave the family and the friends I love so dearly, and I will go on, and this will happen to you. Now, what preparation have you made for this? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick, and Colin, it’s true that at some point we’ll all taste death. So what kind of preparation should we be making? Here’s the one thing that is absolutely certain in my future. I don’t know anything else is certain in my future, but I do know this. I’m going to pass through death. If Christ does not come again, I’m going to stand in his presence, and I want to be ready for what that involves, and I want to have some understanding of what death actually is as well. So let’s think about that. What is death? Well, there are two things that make us who we are. You have a body, you have a soul, and in God’s wonderful creation, he’s knit the body and the soul together. Death is such an extraordinary undoing of our nature because it’s the separating of the soul and of the body. I try and explain this to children. Now, here you are at a funeral. This body is going to be laid in the ground, but there’s a soul, and the soul goes into the presence of Jesus if that person belongs to the Lord Jesus by faith. So this is really important for us to understand, really important for us to communicate to our children, for folks to understand what life is, and for folks to understand what death is and the eternity that lies ahead. That’s what we’re hearing about today. The message is called, What Happens When You Die? If you can, I hope you’ll open your Bible and join us in Luke chapter 23. Here’s Pastor Colin. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And when he had said this, he breathed his last. Now, friends, this subject of death is relevant to every person in this room today. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes again, all of us will experience this. You will go through what we are talking about today, so it is immediately relevant to you. It could happen this coming week. It could be later this year. For some who are younger, it may not be for 70 or 80 years from today. But it will happen to you. And you might think that on this holiday weekend, the subject of death is very remote from all the things that concern and interest you in the activities that you have planned for this weekend. And I promise you the truth that we are looking at in the Bible right now is more relevant by far to you than anything else that will occupy your interest or attention over this holiday weekend. Here we are on Memorial Day and we remember those who have gone into death. What happened to them? Where are they now? What can we say about them? One day I will go into death. I will leave the family and the friends I love so dearly and I will go on. And this will happen to you. Now, what preparation have you made for this? This great and climactic, greatest thing in your personal experience, how deeply have you engaged in thinking about it? What have you done to prepare for it? This will happen to you and you do not know when, but you know for sure that it will. Now, everything that you need to know for facing death is in these words of the Lord Jesus Christ that are before us today. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And I want simply to gather what we can learn from our Lord Jesus Christ around four words. Spirit, Father, hands and commit. Very simple. Let’s begin with this word spirit. Jesus says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, my spirit. Now, these words of Jesus remind us that death is a temporary separating of the spirit from the body. And I use the word temporary in this definition because of course the Bible teaches the resurrection of the body. On the third day the tomb was empty. Jesus rose from the dead and the promise that we’ve read from scripture is that those who belong to him will share in his resurrection. Christ will clothe your spirit with a body that is no longer subject to sickness and decay or death. He will clothe your spirit with a body that is adapted to sustain eternal life. But that will not happen until the day when Jesus Christ returns in glory. And so until that day when a believer dies, his or her soul is separated from their body. Think about this. The spirit, the body, it goes back all the way to the story of creation. And you remember what God did at the creation, the very beginning of the Bible. He forms a body from the dust of the ground. And there it is, lifeless, this corpse as it were that’s lying on the ground, a body. It is from the dust of the ground. It could be chemically analysed, a thing. And then what God does is he breathes the breath of life into it and Adam becomes a living being, a person. That tells you who you are. Who are you? You are a body, spirit, unity. And God has given life by the fusion of body and spirit together. Your body belongs to the earth. It can be analysed as it were chemically. It decays and one day it will die. But your spirit, your spirit goes on forever. Now as we think about this, that you are in your very nature a body-spirit union, the Bible gives us some pictures to help us think about this. Let me give you a couple. For example, in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 6, Solomon says, remember God before the silver cord is severed. And now he’s using a picture here. He says, think of this body-spirit union in this way. It is as if there is a silver cord that ties your spirit to your body. And you can think of death like this. It’s like the cutting of that silver cord. And when that happens, your spirit and your body separate. And there is no longer the life of your spirit in your body. What happens to the body? Well, it becomes like a glove puppet when the hand is taken out. It’s limp there. It’s on the ground. It can do nothing. It has no life in it. Then Solomon uses another analogy. He says, remember God before the pitcher is shattered at the spring. He’s using another picture. He says, think of it this way. He says, your life, it’s like a jug filled with water. And your body is like the jug and your spirit, you think of it as being like the water. Now imagine that the jug is smashed. Then what happens is that the water flows out. The two separate. That’s what death is. So, remember God before the pitcher is shattered at the spring. Death, in other words, is the separating of what God has joined together. And that is why it is such a fearful thing for us. It is the undoing of our nature. It is the dismantling of what God has put together. Now, having thought for a moment about that, I want you to notice what Jesus says here. He does not say, Father, into your hands I commit my body. What he says is, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. My spirit. Now that reminds us of this important truth. You have a body. But the body is not who you are. Your body will die. Your spirit will go on. That’s why Paul says, for example, the life that I live in the body, I live by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and gave himself for me. That’s Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. Your body isn’t your life. Your life is in the body. That’s the phrase that Paul uses. Now, your body is very important. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit. If you’re a Christian believer, the spirit of God lives within you. But as you think about it, while it is important to care for your body, it is far more important for you to care about your spirit. The body will one day be discarded. The spirit, your spirit, will go on forever. So some of you in this culture that candidly is obsessed with the body, some of you may spend enormous amounts of money and great deals of energy and time developing the body on your path to make sure that you’re the fittest guy alive at the age of 90 and all of that kind of thing. Well, I commend you for that so long as you are investing more in the care of your spirit. Here’s how the New Testament puts it. 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 8. Physical training is of some value. It’s of some value, so it’s commended. It’s not knocked in the Bible. It is of some value. But godliness, that is the radical pursuit of a Godward life, is of value for all things holding promise both for the present life and for the life to come. So, you see, whatever you do in terms of the development of, or the care of, the exercise of your body, and that’s a good thing. It is of some value. Understand that that body, however strong, is going to die. But what you do for the care of your spirit has greater value because it has value not only in this life but also for the life to come. It holds promise for both. So you look at that, you think about that. The priority is obvious. It’s obvious. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. We’ve got to pause the message here. It’s called What Happens When You Die? This message was originally part of a series called Seven Words from the Cross, but it’s also been one of the most requested and downloaded messages of the past year. We went back and checked what have been the most listened to messages, and this one was in the top ten. We’ve taken those ten and put them together on CD in a series called Listener Favorites 2023. This audio series is our gift to you when you commit to a regular gift to open the Bible of five pounds or more each month. It’s your generosity which keeps Pastor Colin’s teaching on this station as well as making his teaching available online and all the other ways that we can share the good news of the gospel. So as a way of saying thank you for supporting this work, we’d love to send you the CD set Listener Favorites 2023. You can find out more or give online today at openthebible.org.uk. Now back to the message. Here’s Pastor Colin. It’s over 30 years since I gave this engagement ring to Karen, the love of my life, and she’s loaned it back to me to use it as an illustration just for this single hour. I will never forget, of course, having purchased it in the city of Edinburgh, my home city, and then traveling on a train 500 miles to where her home was, and I had this thing in a box, the most valuable thing I had ever bought or possessed, and I had it in a pocket, and I had my hand in the pocket on the train just about every hour of the journey, and eventually got to the marvelous moment of giving that to her now over 30 years ago. By the way, this is not the original box. I have no idea where the original box is actually, but this is the ring. Listen, would it not be very strange if the ring was put in the drawer and the box was put on display? Oh, look at the box, look at the box, look at the box. No. A day will come when the box is discarded. It’s a box. One day when your body lies in the ground, God will secure the jewel, and it will be safe in his hands. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, says our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Spirit. Now here’s the second word that I want us to think about. The first is the word spirit. The second is this marvelous word father. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Now, Jesus says father. Have you noticed this in the first word and the last word that he spoke from the cross? What was the first word? Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing. What is the last word? Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Now, between these two words in which Jesus invokes and apprehends the father, what do you have? You have that awful cry of dereliction in which out of the abyss of darkness, Jesus cried out, not father, but, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There’s no father language there. Now, in this series, we have understood why. The Bible speaks about death in two distinct ways. There is death, as we’ve discussed it so far, which is the separating of the spirit from the body. But there’s also in the Bible what is called the second death. And the second death, referred to four times in the book of Revelation, is the judgment of God in which sinners without Christ are cast body and soul into hell. Now, Jesus experienced the first death and the second death at the same time. He died a double death on the cross. That is the significance of what’s been at the heart of this series. We’ve been learning that in the darkness, Jesus endured for his people all the dimensions of hell on the cross. In fact, strictly speaking, he experienced the second death before he entered into the first. He endured all the dimensions of hell on the cross. This is the teaching of the Bible. That Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sins. That he bore these sins in his body on the tree. That the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. That is what was happening in the darkness. He entered into the pain of hell, and in that utter darkness, of course, the love of the Father was beyond his reach. And so he’s no longer saying, Father, but in that hell of darkness, he’s saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That is what hell is. But I want you to see today how marvelous it is that it didn’t end there. You will not leave his soul in hell, the Old Testament says. Christ endured hell. He came through it. He came out of it. And now he says in triumph, having exhausted the wrath of God on behalf of all his people, with justice perfectly satisfied, with atonement fully made, he says, It is finished. Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit. You see the significance of this. The hell is over. The price is paid. The infinite agonies endured by the Son of God are passed. And now the light of the Father’s love shines on him again. Hugh Martin, a great writer on the subject of the atonement, makes this point very beautifully. He says, When you think about it, the justice of heaven, and the injustice of earth, and the hatred of hell, all conspired against Jesus together at the cross. You think of what he endured. He’s got the wrath of God that is being poured out on him, and at the same time he’s got the hatred of the dark demons of hell being shot towards him, and he’s got this awful injustice of earth that is causing him to be fixed to this cross. The justice of heaven, the injustice of earth, and the hatred of hell, and they’re all conspiring together against Christ. That’s the utter darkness that he’s in. Heaven, earth, hell, all against him. Hugh Martin says, When you think about that, here is the glory of Jesus Christ, that his action outlasted and outlived them all. You see, the wrath was spent, the justice was satisfied, and there he still is, and what’s he doing? He’s saying, It’s finished! He’s there! He’s come through it! He’s accomplished it! Jesus was not overwhelmed by death. It did not overcome him. It was not that he ran out of strength. Remember, he says, No one takes my life from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. Friends, Jesus’ life was not taken. Jesus’ life was given, given, given on the cross. That’s the significance of what we’re seeing right here. He’s making this choice. Father, now the atonement is done, it’s finished, and so, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Spurgeon says, Jesus died of his own free will. That’s a great statement. He laid down his life. And I think that is the significance of the fact that he calls out with a loud voice. Do you see how Luke records that? It’s very significant. He calls out in a loud voice. Now, many of you have cared for someone who has died. And if you think to the experience of being by the bedside of someone who is dying, have you ever heard of someone whose last word was spoken with a loud voice? If you’re able to speak with a loud voice, you’re able to go on living a little bit longer, aren’t you? What happens when someone dies is that they become weaker and weaker, and their voice becomes fainter and fainter, and the last thing that you hear them say will be no more than a whisper, and then, and then the breath is gone. So Jesus died in a way that’s different from anyone else, because he is the son of God. He enters into death, but he’s not going into death in defeat. He’s going into death already in triumph. He’s come through the second death, and now he’s going into the first as the victor. Marvelous. And Mark tells us that when the centurion heard this last word of Jesus, you imagine this man, and he’s seen scores of people dying, and they’re all the same. They gradually get weaker and weaker and weaker, and at first they’re shouting, but then they get quieter, and then they can’t say a word, and then they’re gone. This centurion’s seen that a hundred times. But here’s the Lord Jesus Christ, and he’s hardly said anything, only these six words in six hours, and now he’s saying, It is finished! Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! And he breathes his last, and the centurion says, Surely he is the son of God. I never saw anyone die like that. Death did not overcome him. He laid down his life. He gave himself into death. Next time, we’re going to look at why it’s so significant that Jesus gave himself unto death. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and the message called, What Happens When You Die? It was originally part of a series called Seven Words from the Cross, and it’s been one of the most requested and downloaded messages of this past year. We’ve compiled the top ten into a series called Listener Favorites 2023, and we’ll be bringing them to you all this month, so I hope you’ll be able to join us. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, you can always catch up by going online to our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk. There you can download any of the previous messages as an MP3, or simply stream them online. Also on the website, you’ll find Open the Bible Daily. This is a series of two to three minute short reflections, written by Pastor Colin and read by Sue MacLeish, and there’s a new one appearing on the website every day. Why not make a habit of it? It’s a great way to start the day. You can also find us on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Use the tag, at UK Open the Bible, or for YouTube, at Open the Bible UK, or go to the website, openthebible.org.uk, and click on one of the social media links at the bottom of the page. This week, Pastor Colin Smith is in the UK, and speaking at the Bournemouth Bible Week. If you live in the area of East Dorset or West Hampshire, why not go along and hear him speaking, each evening from 3rd to 7th July at 7.30 at Citygate Centre, Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth. You can find out more details about Bournemouth Bible Week on the website, www.bournemouthbibleweek.org. That’s www.bournemouthbibleweek.org. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. We’re only able to stay on this station and on the internet because of your generous donations. If you don’t already support the work in this way, but you’d like to, we’d like to thank you by sending you a free gift. In return for setting up a donation of a minimum of £5 per month or more, we’ll send you a CD set of this month’s messages, Listener Favourites 2023. You can find out details of how to give to Open the Bible on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Pastor Colin Smith and for Open the Bible, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us next time. No one ever died like Jesus Christ did. Find out why next time on Open the Bible.
