Freed from the fear of death

How does the fear of death manifest itself?

So far I've made no attempt to tackle what are usually seen as the two major aspects of Christian freedom - freedom from sin and freedom from death. That is partly because they are covered so thoroughly elsewhere, and I've been looking at some of the less commented-on aspects of freedom. I've also still got much to understand about what freedom from sin and death actually means.

As I've been studying Romans recently, I've been struck by the way that Paul talks about both sin and death as powers which oppose God's reign in human lives. They are almost personified. Or perhaps it would be better to say that in Romans they play the role that Satan plays elsewhere in the New Testament.

"Death" in Romans is far more than an event at the end of life. It pervades the whole of life. Without Christ, we are dead in our sins. Not in future, but now. Death rules us. (5.14, 5.17, 8.6, 8.10 etc). To have faith in Christ is to move from death to life, not in some afterlife, but now.

But how does death affect us? Obviously, there is the fear of dying itself. The more anxious we are about dying, the more we try to protect ourselves from it. Perhaps it is significant that in a society where God and the gospel have been largely rejected, we have become highly skilled at preserving and extending life. Our children are protected so thoroughly from all possible danger that they barely have opportunity to test and develop their own skills. We crave adventure, but without risk.

The healthy lifestyle has become the new religion, and transgressions against the rules laid down by the health gurus cause many people to feel as much guilt as acts of adultery and stealing did to previous generations. (It's interesting to note that people fail to live up to these new commandments just as often as their forbears did to the old ones.)

But fear of death also pervades life in other ways. Death has other meanings for us beside the end of respiration and circulation, and each of these gives rise to fears which limit our lives and freedom.

Death means powerlessness.

The dead have no power to act, to bring about change, or to control events. They might continue to have an influence on the living through what they have said, done or written while alive, but they have no power to speak beyond the grave. Apart from some limited legal provisions, the living are under no obligation to honor the choices or wishes of the dead.

This fear of powerlessness extends into everyday life. Think about what it would mean to be alive but unable to speak or to act. Many would describe such a state as a "living death". We shudder at the thought of being paralysed, demented or impotent. And while we may not consciously think about such things very often, they affect the way we choose to live.

We work hard to guard and protect what powers we have. Most people fight fiercely against anyone who tries to take control away from them. We avoid taking risks that might result in us losing control over our lives or our surroundings.

Our fear of powerlessness manifests itself in our dislike of authority. We resist submitting any part of our lives to another's control, even voluntarily, even if their authority is valid.

Death also means separation.

The dead are parted from the people and places and objects that they loved. Even for those who believe in an afterlife in which the dead are reunited with others, there is a time of separation. So our fear of death feeds our fear of isolation and loneliness.

One of the most powerful sanctions any society possesses to control its' members is the threat of expulsion and exclusion. To be excluded is to be as good as dead. Think of how in some societies, a son or daughter who dishonours their family is turned out of the home and shunned. The family will speak of the person, if at all, as if they are dead. In Christian societies in the past, to be excommunicated was a dreadful prospect.

Fear of isolation drives many people to do and say whatever is necessary to remain in community and relationship with others, no matter how far that may be from their own desires and beliefs. Does this contradict what I said earlier about people resisting those who seek to control them? Not really. One of the techniques most commonly used by controlling personalities against those they seek to control is to threaten them with separation, isolation, if they don't do what is expected of them.

The playground bully who threatens to exclude a child from the group if they don't play the game his way, the controlling boyfriend who threatens to leave if his girlfriend doesn't agree to have sex with him, the manipulative wife who withdraws and sulks when her husband won't agree to her demands, and the dictator who draws a whole nation into his mad plans by publicly shaming and excluding those who disagree - all these know the power of the fear of exclusion to control people's behaviour. To be alone is to be living as if dead to others.

Death means annihilation.

Put aside for a moment the reality of God and the promise of eternal life, and try to remember how you felt the first time you realised that one day you too would die, just like everyone else. For most people that moment brings a shiver of horror mixed with incomprehension. To think is to be, if I may paraphrase Descartes. How can we think about 'not being', about non-existence? The person most aware of our existence is surely ourselves. We know our existence from the inside, as it were. If we no longer exist, then the person who is most intimately aware of who we are also no longer exists. There is no-one to experience our being, either from inside or out. No-one will know us, for ever.

Those who love us will remember us for a while, of course, perhaps for the rest of their lives. But they will only remember what is past. We will not add anything to their experience of the present. If we have done things which made us famous or notorious, we will be remembered by many people, but again, only for what we have been, not for who we are now. And we will know nothing of what they think of us, or what they do with what we did. At death (if there is no after-life), all that we will ever be or accomplish or experience will be complete and nothing can be added to it.

This fear of annihilation drives many of us to achieve all that we can before death overtakes us. It's common for those who reach the age of forty or so to start to thinking about how short life really is, and how soon death will come. The realisation of how little time they have left to accomplish all the things they once dreamed of doing produces a sense of panic in some people, and they experience a 'mid-life crisis'. For some this is a constructive time, as they go on to develop dormant talents and nurture flagging relationships. Others go overboard and cast off everything and everyone in an attempt to make a fresh start. Some try to prove that they can flout death, whether it's by climbing mountains or cosmetic surgery.

But long before forty, most people have an underlying awareness and fear of the annihilation that death will bring. While it may inspire some to accomplish all they can, it cripples others. On the one hand there are those who constantly seek to confirm and intensify their existence through whatever experiences they can - thrill seekers, drug users, narcissists. On the other hand are the timid, those who are too afraid to take any risks at all. They coddle their precious existence. The fear of annihilation is kept at bay with anything that will bring comfort or forgetfulness.

Those who live in fear are not freeThe fears that death arouses in us keep us from living in freedom. Whenever our choices and actions are influenced by fear, it becomes impossible for us to make a free choice, to act freely, from the heart. We become slaves to our fears and those who can manipulate us through our fears. If Christ sets us free from the fear of death (Heb. 2.15), then it must be that he sets us free from all the other fears that death brings with it. How? I think I'll leave that for another article. (I also need to go back and look at what being freed from death itself means.)


This post is one of a series on what it means to be free in Christ:

Free in Christ - introduction

Choosing the right master

God's freedom and ours

Jesus and freedom

Going beyond personal freedom

Fools for Christ

Reputations