Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

Who wants to attend a funeral?  Hardly anyone.  Funerals remind us of death and they remind us of the terrible effects of sin.  In many ways, our world is afraid of death.  Many people are doing everything humanly possible to delay and even avoid death.  But Christians are called not to fear death, and they’re also not called to morbidly long for death.  Christians are to understand that because Christ has been raised from the grave, death has lost its sting, as Paul put it.  Christians are also to understand that in his death Christ has secured “the death of death,” as John Owen put it.

Yesterday I started reading Paul Tripp’s book Broken-Down House, and he pointed out that there is a funeral that all Christians will want to attend.  Tripp wrote,

“There will be a day when you are invited to the one funeral that you will actually want to attend.  This funeral won’t bring grief to your heart or tears to your eyes.  This funeral will make you sing and celebrate.  This funeral will make you wonder how you could have been chosen to be the recipient of such blessing.  There will be a day when you will attend the funeral of sin.  Sin will die and you will live forever, permanently freed from the tyranny of sin.”[1]

Christ has freed Christians from the dominion of sin and death and he calls Christians to live in that freedom today, working out our salvation with fear and trembling as we wrestle with sin.  One day our struggle with sin will be complete, and on that day we will joyfully attend sin’s funeral, so live this day in light of that Day.

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Under Blog, Reflections