The reason that any Christian can “defy tyrants without any fear” and can “look into the face of death and say, ‘It is well'” is because they know who they are and where they are going (Martyn-Lloyd Jones, “Not of the World” chapter in “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” by Nancy Guthrie…quoted also throughout this article below). Christians, therefore, who forget who they are and where they are going, are Christians who will look into the face of death and say, “It is NOT well with my soul!” Lloyd-Jones continues, “They [Christians throughout church history] were not afraid of men, of death, or even of hell, because they knew their position in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the result was that these people triumphed.” When we, as Christians, forget who we are and where we are going, we tend to get “lost” more often in this world than not. Forgetting our identity in Christ will lead to an identity crisis on earth and create instability in our souls.
The Christian who avoids talking about death is one who has forgotten about his heavenly home. The reason for this is because death is the pathway to his heavenly home. If his hope is truly in Christ, then he must remind himself of his impending death, otherwise, his hope is null and void and loses its anticipatory flavor. What does “hope in Christ” mean but deliverance from the sin and death present in our current world, and an eternal reality forevermore with God through Jesus Christ after our deaths? Our impending deaths should, therefore, inform and feed our eternal hope in Jesus Christ, and should fuel our gradual release from the cares, concerns, and hopes of this world. One cannot help but think that Christians who fear death and/or fear the talk of death, possibly, are those who have come to love and cherish this world too much? These are Christians who have forgotten who they are and where they are going.
Lloyd-Jones is pointed here: “I do not get annoyed when somebody faces me with the fact of death, because I remind myself of it day by day…[the Christian] is controlling his life so that he does not foolishly spend most of his time and energy in trying to forget that it must come to an end. He deliberately keeps that before him.” The Christian who truly “preaches the gospel to himself everyday” is a Christian who reminds himself of death everyday. If a Christian is reading his Bible, is praying to God, is singing to God in worship, is attending church gatherings, and is taking the Lord’s Supper, then he is reminded in each of these elements that death is coming and that deliverance from death is real because of our hope in Jesus Christ. The gospel message says that if we believe in Jesus Christ then we will have “everlasting life” (John 3:16). Hope in Christ is nonsense if death is nonexistent, or, at least, if there is not a transition from this current world into the next. If hope in Jesus Christ is our fuel to help us walk through trials in life, then by default that is a reminder of our deaths. Peter reminds us that we are “strangers and exiles” in this world (1 Peter 2:11). If we believe this, then we won’t plant ourselves too firmly into the soil of this world. We will keep death before us and remind ourselves of what Jesus Christ has delivered us from, namely, “the sting of death” and that He has given us “victory” in Him, over death (1 Corinthians 15:56-57).