Death is a fact of life. As soon as we begin to live we are old enough to die. We are all engaged to marry death, so as we grow older and the ceremony approaches we need to become better prepared for it. So what’s it like to die? We all want to know. There are four words used in the Bible to describe death: sleep, depart, dissolve, and decease.
1. Sleep. The most common word in the New Testament for the death of a Christian is sleep. It is used 13 times to describe the death experience. This word does not suggest that at death we go into a state of unconsciousness. But we enter the quiet rest of heaven. At death God’s people are set free from life’s toils and cares and enter into the rest of God.
2. Depart. This is a naval term that describes loosening a ship from the dock so it can sail out to sea. Death for a Christian is like boarding a ship, weighing anchor, and sailing for home.
3. Dissolve. The Bible uses this term to describe folding up a tent and laying it aside. Paul compares our bodies to a tent. Death is like folding up a worn out, sagging tent and moving into a new, better, and permanent home.
4. Decease. This term means “an exodus” or “a going out.” Death is leaving this life and going to the Promised Land of God. It is a way out of the old gloom into a new glory.
We think we are in the land of the living on the way to the land of dying. The opposite is true. We are in the land of the dying on our way to the land of the living.
All available evidence converges at this momentous point. Life does not end at the cemetery. There is a life beyond and we enter it through the death experience. And for the Christian, it is a life of joy, peace, wholeness, and reunion that God has prepared for us.