Cancer Blog #76
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #76– Lord of the Dead and of the Living
March 3, 2023
[Rom 14:7-9] 7 For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; 8 for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Once again we have a passage expounding on Christ’s lordship over death. What a great hope that bring to us who are believers. Paul’s formulation is very interesting: we don’t live or die to ourselves – we are the Lord Jesus’ in either case. Even if we die, we die to Jesus. Whatever our circumstance, living or dying, it is for Jesus. The surprise is that Paul uses that fact in a passage about doctrinal disputes.
In this passage, Paul examines the question of doubtful things, or as a friend of mine termed it “doubted things.” There seems to be no question of who is right or wrong in these issues about celebrating days or eating meat. Paul’s focus is not on who is right or wrong, though he makes it clear who he thinks is correct in these issues. The issue for Paul in this passage is who ultimately makes that determination. Who is the judge of the living and of the dead? He clarifies that by naming who is the Lord of both. Because Jesus is Lord of both, then He is the final judge of both, and so He has the final say in these disputes. Outside of conflicts that involve heresy, which are for me doctrinal statements that would make the Church declare someone a non-Christian, we are not to consider ourselves judges of others, especially on nonessentials. We may discuss and dispute, but not condemn and treat with contempt. Jesus is Lord of the living and of the dead, and so we in our capacity are not to judge now of the sincerity and the correctness of such differences with our brothers and sisters. Our worries about orthodoxy, in eschatology for instance, and many other issues that Protestants split over should be looked at with great care because Jesus is Lord of when we live and when we die. We should remember our place in the hierarchy of His Church, and remember too that Jesus will perfectly adjudicate the rightness and wrongness of conflicting views. He is the Lord of your death and so Paul says is Lord of your doctrine and of your brother’s. You can rest in the confidence that He will set all these disagreements to rights. May we take comfort and peace in that knowledge as we contemplate our own death.
NEXT: Paul’s Poignant Statement