The Final Authority of Life and Death
The words of Jesus to the Apostle John in Revelation 1:18 are a witness to the fact that our Lord holds the keys of life and death. “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” He knows and controls when our physical life begins and when it ends. He also knows and determines all the days of our lives. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
(Psalm139:16) This includes not only the number of days, but the events of each day as well.
My medical practice of 42 years consisted of caring for many patients who were nearing the end of their lives. In preparing them and their relatives for the time of their passing, it was a great comfort for me to realize that I was not in control of those final days or hours. The confidence that the Lord alone, not the patient, nor their relatives, nor my own best judgment as to their care was the final determinant. The Lord alone chooses the timing and method of the departure of the spirit from the body. During those 42 years, I have witnessed His control and manifestation of Himself at near death and at death itself. These experiences were a part of my preparation for the practice of medicine. I have chosen seven events to illustrate His control of timing our departure to be with Him. These will be considered under four different categories.
The first of these is the recognition that the Lord uses the fear of death to bring others to salvation. One of my patients was a man with whom I had periodic discussions about spiritual topics. He was reluctant to make a commitment to Christ and I was not sure if he really understood the gospel. One morning I was called by the hospital ER and told that he was admitted with a stroke. He was unable to talk and was barely responsive on admission to the hospital. As he improved, however, he became alert enough to make eye contact. When I entered the room, his eyes would follow me wherever I went. He began to try to talk after a few days but could not speak clearly enough to communicate clearly. When we were finally able to understand him, he then related that he had been trying to let me know that when the stroke first happened he thought he was dying and trusted the Lord at that moment. This experience was described by Jonah as well! “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” (Jonah 2:7) The Lord used this experience to help me understand that a person can make a commitment to the Lord, even at the last second of consciousness, and to be born again prior to death. I was able to use this story to comfort the loved ones of those whose relative had passed away without communicating their faith to their relatives.
I have also had the opportunity to see that the Lord uses near death to draw people to Himself. Some patients that were seen in consultation in the hospital were not expected to survive due to the severity of their illness. If survival did occur, I would make an appointment with them later in my office. I would describe the severity of their illness and remark that they must have a purpose for living, or a reason that they survived. I would then ask them if they had any thoughts as to why their life was spared. This line of conversation was usually very helpful to introduce the idea that the Bible has the answer as to their purpose of life. If they were interested, I would give them a Bible and ask that they begin with the Gospel of John. One patient who was given the Bible came back one month later, having scheduled a time to see me. His immediate words were, “I have a question.” I was fearful that he was in the wheels of Ezekiel, of perhaps he was reading about the part in Matthew 5 where you cut off your hand and throw away your right eye! I had one of those immediate Nehemiah prayers for help and asked him about his question. He then opened his Bible to Romans 10:9-10. “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” He came to the Lord that day. The Lord had graciously spared his life and given him another opportunity to come to Him.
Another incident which demonstrated to me the Lord’s control of life and death involved a comatose patient in the Intensive Care unit. She had a terminal illness and had not been responsive for several days. She developed a rattly breathing noise which was disturbing to the relatives. They talked to the nurse and then requested that a lung specialist be consulted for medication to help control the rattly noise. After my office patients were seen that day, I went to the unit to see the patient. As I entered the room, I was surprised to see that she responded to my presence and was fully alert. My immediate thought was that there was only one reason why she had awakened from the coma, and that was to hear the gospel! I described how the Lord had paid the penalty for each of our lives, wanted us to live eternally with Him, and made provision for us by His death on a cross. She understood, confessed her sins, and received Him as her Savior. After a further brief conversation with her, I prescribed some breathing treatments and left for the night. She was the first person I wanted to see on my rounds the next morning. When I arrived i was told that she had passed away earlier in the morning. The Lord had awakened her to hear the message of salvation!
The third evidence of our Lord’s control of life and death is the revelation of His knowledge and timing of our departure to be with Him. When my mother went to be with the Lord, she was told by Him that it would be in four days, which came to pass as she was told. My step brother, during his last illness, was not always coherent but able to communicate with me that “I am going home in three days.” He said that with a smile on his face. He could hardly contain his excitement! Three days later, the Lord took him home. In the case of my wife’s final illness, she was unresponsive for the last seven days. Although I visited often, I could not be sure when her moment of departure would come. I asked the Lord to allow me to be with her when He took her home to be with him. In the afternoon of the seventh day, I arrived at the room, accompanied by my oldest daughter and her husband. I sat by her side, picked up her hand and felt her pulse, which was strong and regular. Within three seconds, it grew fainter and three seconds later, it stopped entirely. The Lord had waited for the exact moment I came to take her home to be with Him. As I was looking at her, she was looking at the lights of glory!
The fourth observation about His authority over life and death is the revelation of Himself at death. This should not surprise us because He tells us this in John 14:2-3. “in my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go, and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” One of my patients, a devoted follower of Christ, was admitted to the hospital one evening. She had been found at home unresponsive. Her blood pressure and pulse were normal. Her chest Xray and blood tests were all normal. “The admission diagnosis was a stroke in the brain stem area and there was no hope of recovery. She was totally paralyzed. Her reflexes were absent and she could not respond to voice or touch. I was surprised that she was still breathing. There was no hope for her survival and nothing that could be done for her.
As I stood at the end of her bed, her arms suddenly shot straight upward and she said “Jesus” in a loud voice. Her arms then fell back on the bed and she was exactly as she was before. I immediately realized two things. 1) She was not talking to me! 2) We were not going to be able to bring her back. Jesus had taken her to be with Him. Jesus, personally, had come and taken her spirit home with Him. Her body, surprisingly, continued to manifest a heart beat and her lungs exhibited normal function for the next several days. We generally assume that when the spirit departs, the body then dies. Is it possible for the Lord to take the spirit and the body still function to some degree? I don’t know the answer to that question. A significant part of my practice involved patients in intensive care units, some of which were on life support at the end of their lives. I think I was permitted, in part, to see this event so that I would be able to comfort relatives during the final days of their loved one. As I stood with them, I could relate the possibility that the Lord had already taken them home to be with Him.
The timing of our being taken home to be with Him is completely under His control. We are given enough promises, enough assurance of His presence, and the certainty of His loving care at that time that we not fear the date of our departure to be with Him. “We are confident, I say, and willing to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (II Corinthians 5:8) We do not enter the land of the dead when we take our last breath, we enter the land of the living. Death is our last enemy and our Lord has destroyed death. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (II Corinthians 15:26) Our last enemy is now our portal to life. I John 3:2 describes what happens to us when He comes for us and we see Him. “Behold, now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (KJV) Colossians 3:4 tells us where we will be when that event occurs. “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Regardless of the Lord’s timing, we have the assurance that we will be with Him and realize fully that he had been in control of each aspect of our lives to the very end, preparing us for our eternal role in His everlasting Kingdom. We will then echo the words of the Psalmist in Psalms 17:15 (KJV). “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”
In Christ, Richard Spann