A Believer's Privilege at Death
Philippians 1:21. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Hope is a Christian's anchor, which he casts within the veil (Romans 12:12). Rejoicing in hope. A Christian's hope is not in this life, but he has hope in his death (Proverbs 14:32). The best of a saint's comfort begins when his life ends. The wicked have all their heaven here (Luke 6:28). Woe to you rich, you have received your consolation. You may make your acquittance and write, Received in full payment. Luke 16:25: Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things. But a saint's happiness is in reversion; the righteous has hope in his death. God keeps the best wine till last. If Cato the Heathen said, To me to die is gain; he saw mortality to be a mercy: then what may a believer say (Ecclesiastes 7:1). The day of death is better than the day of one's birth. Nemo ante Funera Felix, Solon. A Queen of this land said she preferred her coffin before her cradle.
Quest. 1. What benefits do believers receive at death?
Resp. 1. They have great immunities. 2. They pass immediately into a state of glory. 3. Their bodies are united to Christ in the grave till the resurrection.
1. The saints at death have great immunities and freedoms: a apprentice when out of his time is made free: when the saints are out of their time of living, then they are made free; not made free till death. 1. At death they are freed from a body of sin. There are in the best reliquiae peccati, some remainders and relics of corruption (Romans 7:24). O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death! By the body of death is meant the Congeries, the mass and lump of sin. It may well be called a body for its weightiness, and a body of death for its noisomeness. (1.) It weighs us down; sin hinders us from doing good. A Christian is like a bird that would be flying up, but has a string tied to its legs to hinder it; so he would be flying up to heaven with the wings of desire, but sin hinders him (Romans 7:15). The good that I would, I do not. A Christian is like a ship that is under sail and at anchor. Grace would sail forward, but sin is the anchor that holds it back. (2.) Sin is often more active in its sphere than grace. How stirring was lust in David, when his grace lay dormant? (3.) Sin sometimes gets the mastery, and leads a saint captive (Romans 7:19). The evil I would not, that do I. Paul was like a man carried down the stream, and could not bear up against it. How often is a child of God overpowered with pride and passion? Therefore Paul calls sin, [illegible], a law in his members (Romans 7:24). It binds as a law, it has a kind of jurisdiction over the soul, as Caesar had over the Senate. (4.) Sin defiles the soul, it is like a stain to beauty, it turns the soul's azure brightness into sables. (5.) Sin debilitates us, it disarms us of our strength (2 Samuel 3:39). I am this day weak though anointed King. So though a saint is crowned with grace, yet he is weak, though anointed a spiritual king. (6.) Sin is ever restless (Galatians 5:17). The flesh lusts against the Spirit. It is an inmate that is always quarrelling: like Marcellus that Roman captain, of whom Hannibal said, whether he did beat or was beaten, he would never be quiet. (7.) Sin adheres to us, we cannot get rid of it. It may be compared to a wild fig-tree growing on a wall; though the roots are pulled up, yet there are some fibers, some stings of it in the joints of the stonework which cannot be gotten out. (8.) Sin mingles with our duties and graces; we cannot write a copy of holiness without blotting. This makes a child of God weary of his life, and makes him water his couch with his tears, to think sin so strong a party, and he should offend that God whom he loves. This made Paul cry out, Miser ego Homo, O wretched man that I am! Hence Paul did not cry out of his affliction, of his prison chain, but of the body of sin. Now a believer at death shall be freed from sin; he is not taken away in but from his sins; he shall never have a vain proud thought more; he shall never grieve the Spirit of God any more. Sin brought death into the world, and death shall carry sin out of the world. The Persians had a certain day in the year, in which they killed all serpents and venomous creatures: such a day will the day of death be to a believer; it will destroy all his sins, which like so many serpents have stung him. Death smites a believer, as the angel did Peter, it made his chains fall off. So death makes all the chains of sin fall off (Acts 12:7). Believers at death are made perfect in holiness (Hebrews 12:23). The spirits of just men made perfect. At death the souls of believers recover their virgin purity. O what a blessed privilege is this, to be sine macula and ruga, without spot and wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). To be purer than the sunbeams, to be as free from sin as the angels. This makes a believer so desirous to have his pass to be gone: he would gladly live in that pure air, where no black vapors of sin arise.
2. At death the saints shall be freed from all the troubles and incumbrances to which this life is subject. Sin is the seed sown, and trouble is the harvest reaped: [illegible], Euripides. Life and trouble are married together: there is more in life to wean us than to tempt us. Parents divide a portion of sorrow to their children, and yet they leave enough for themselves (Job 5:7). Man is born to trouble. He is heir to it; it is his birth-right. You may as well separate weight from lead, as trouble from the life of man: Quid est diu vivere nisi diu Torqueri? Augustine. King Henry's emblem, a crown hung in a bush of thorns. There is a far greater proportion of bitterness than pleasure in this life (Proverbs 7:17). I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. For one sweet ingredient there were two bitter; for the cinnamon there was myrrh and aloes. A man's grace will not exempt him from troubles (Genesis 47:9). Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. Though he was a godly patriarch, though he had met with God (Genesis 32:30). He named the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face: yet he had his troubles few and evil, etc. There are many things to embitter life and cause trouble, and death frees us from all. 1. Care: the mind is full of perplexed thoughts, how to bring about such a design; how to prevent such an evil. The word for care, [illegible], comes from a primitive in the Greek, that signifies to cut the heart in pieces. Care does discruciate the mind, waste the spirits: no such bitter bread as the bread of carefulness (Ezekiel 12:19). Care is a spiritual canker which eats out the comfort of life. Death is the cure of care. 2. Fear: fear is the ague of the soul, which sets it a shaking (1 John 4:14). There is torment in fear: fear is like Prometheus his vulture, it gnaws upon the heart. There is a distrustful fear, a fear of want; and a distracting fear, fear of danger; and a discouraging fear, a fear God does not love us. These fears leave sad impressions upon the mind: now at death a believer is freed from these torturing fears. He now knows he is passed from death to life. He is as far from fear, as the damned are from hope: the grave buries a Christian's fears. 3. Labour. Ecclesiastes 1:8: all things are full of labour. Some labour in the mine, others among the muses: God has made a law — in the sweat of your brows you shall eat bread: but death gives a believer a Quietus est; it takes him off from his day-labour (Revelation 14:13). Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, they rest from their labours. What needs working when they have their reward? What needs fighting, when the crown is set on their head? They rest from their labours. 4. Suffering: believers are as a lily among thorns; as the dove among the birds of prey. The wicked have an antipathy against the righteous, and secret hatred will break forth into open violence (Galatians 4:29). He that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit. The dragon is described with seven heads and ten horns (Revelation 12:3). He plots with the one, and pushes with the other. But at death the godly shall be freed from the molestations of the wicked; they shall never be pestered with these vermin more (Job 3:17). There (namely, in the grave) the wicked cease from troubling. Death does to a believer, as Joseph of Arimathea did to Christ; it takes him down from the cross, and gives him a writ of ease. The eagle that flies high cannot be stung with the serpent: death gives the soul the wing of the eagle, that it flies above all these venomous serpents here below. 5. Temptation: though Satan be a conquered enemy — yet he is a restless enemy (1 Peter 5:8). He walks about; the devil is always going his diocese. He has his snares and his darts: one he tempts with riches, another with beauty; it is no small trouble to be continually followed with temptation. As for a virgin to have her chastity daily assaulted: but death will free a child of God from temptation; he shall never be vexed more with the old serpent. After death has shot its dart at us, the devil shall have done shooting his. Though grace puts a believer out of the devil's possession, only death frees him from the devil's temptation. 6. Sorrow: a cloud of sorrow gathers in the heart, and drops into tears (Psalm 31:10). My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. It was a curse (Genesis 3:16): in sorrow you shall bring forth. Many things occasion sorrow; sickness, law-suits, treachery of friends, disappointment of hopes, loss of estate (Ruth 1:20). Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Sorrow is the evil spirit that haunts us; the world is a Bochim: Rachel wept for her children; some grieve that they have no children, and others grieve that their children are undutiful. Thus we spend our years with sighing; 'tis a valley of tears: but death is the funeral of all our sorrows (Revelation 7:17). And God shall wipe away all tears. Then Christ's spouse puts off her mourning. How can the children of the bride chamber mourn, when the bridegroom shall be with them (Matthew 9:15)? Thus death gives a believer his Quietus est; it frees him from sin and trouble. Though the Apostle calls death the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15), yet it is the best friend: to me to die is gain.
Use 1. See here that which may make a true saint willing to die: death will set him out of gun-shot; free him from sin and trouble. There is no cause of weeping, to leave a valley of tears. The world is the stage on which sin and misery are acted. Believers are here in a strange country, why then should they not be willing to go out of it? Death beats off their fetters of sin, and sets them free who go weeping out of a jail: besides our own sins the sins of others. The world is a place where Satan's seat is; a place where we see God daily dishonored. Lot (who was a bright star in a dark night) his righteous soul was vexed with the unclean conversation of the wicked (2 Peter 3:8). To see God's sabbaths broken, his truths adulterated, his glory eclipsed, is that which wounds a godly heart. This made David cry out (Psalm 120:5), Woe is me that I dwell in Mesech, that I sojourn in the tents of Kedar. Kedar was Arabia, where were Ishmael's posterity. This was a cut to David's heart to dwell there. O then be willing to depart out of the tents of Kedar.
2. The bodies of believers are united to Christ in the grave, and shall rest there till the resurrection. They are said to sleep in Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:14). The dust of believers is part of Christ's body mystical. The grave is a dormitory or place of rest to the saints, where their bodies quietly sleep in Christ, till they are awakened out of their sleep by the trumpet of the archangel.
Quest. 2. But how shall we know that we shall gain all this at death, to be freed from sin and trouble, and to have our bodies united to Christ in the grave?
Resp. If we are believers, then we gain all this at death. To me (says Paul) to die is gain. To me, quatenus, a believer. Are we such? Have we this blessed faith? Faith, wherever it is, is operative. Lapidaries say, there is no precious stone but has Virtutem insitam, some hidden virtue in it: so I may say of faith: it has some secret virtue in it: it anchors the soul on Christ: it has both a justifying and sanctifying virtue in it: it fetches blood out of Christ's sides to pardon, and water out of his sides to purge: it works by love: it constrains to duty: it makes the head study for Christ, the tongue confess him, the hands work for him. I have read of a father who had three sons, and being to die, left in his will all his estate to that son who could find his ring with the jewel which had a healing virtue. The case was brought before the judges, the two elder sons counterfeited a ring, but the younger son brought the true ring; which was proved by the virtue of it; whereupon his father's estate went to him. To this ring I may compare faith; there is a counterfeit faith in the world; but if we can find this ring of faith which has the healing virtue in it, to purify the heart, this is the true faith, which gives us an interest in Christ, and entitles us to all these privileges at death, to be freed from sin and sorrow, and to have our bodies united to Christ, while they are in the grave.
3. I should now come to the third privilege at death, the souls of believers pass immediately into glory. Where I shall lead you to the top of Mount Pisgah, and give you a short view of the glory of heaven.
