Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Hebrews 2.14-15
With the exception of a few conclusions/comments, very little of this is post original to me. No surprise to regular readers, Richard Beck is my primary resource. His book “The Slavery of Death” has been formative in my engagement with the subject of death and dying. I highly recommend his blog “Experimental Theology” for current posts and as a great resource.
An important, perhaps the most important, factor in dying well is acknowledging our fear of death and it’s spiritual, mental, emotional and psychological manifestations in our lives.
The central contention of this book is that death, not sin, is the primary predicament of the human condition. Death is the cause of sin. More properly, the fear of death produces most of the sin in our lives.
Beck, Richard. The Slavery of Death (p. 3)
The following quote from The Slavery of Death summarizes Beck’s contention:
Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man’s fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him. . . . Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man’s weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up. In addition to the fact that man “subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying,” he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth. . . Fear and anxiety render man an individual.
This passage is a concise summary of the entire argument to this point. As mortal creatures the selfish pursuit of survival and self-preservation becomes our highest good, and these survival fears lead us into all sorts of sinful practices. Almost every unwholesome pursuit of humanity—from hedonism to self-aggrandizement to acquisitiveness to rivalry to violence—can be traced back to these basic survival fears.
Beck’s assertions regarding the relationship between the power of death, devil and sin challenged my assumptions about Genesis chapter 3, original sin, salvation and a variety of other related subjects and passages. For that reason, it is a impossible task to do Beck’s case justice in this post.
I will say, after reading The Slavery of Death, I have embraced his belief — “that death, not sin, is the primary predicament of the human condition. Death is the cause of sin. More properly, the fear of death produces most of the sin in our lives.”
My purpose is not to convince readers but hopefully stimulate curiosity, investigation and reading of “The Slavery of Death”.
Implications of the fear of death being the source of sin in our lives are profound. They not only effect our capability to die well, almost every aspect of our relationship with Christ is affected; from praxis and discipleship to spiritual formation and more. I cannot say you will be convinced, but I will say you will profit from the experience.
To conclude this post I will share a couple of observations that nudged toward my conclusion:
>Christian resistance to accepting death..
A recent Harvard study found that patients with high levels of support from their religious communities are more likely to choose aggressive life support and to die in intensive-care units. They were also less likely to enroll in hospice.
THe lost Art of Dying – L .S. Dugdale
Although religious communities are not defined, it is reasonable to assume a significant population oof the study to be Christian or hold some belief in life after death. My limited, anecdotal, experience supports the study’s conclusion. Why would people who believe in heaven fight vigorously using all possible means to avoid their enviable death? I believe the answer, at least in part, is a fear of death. The most honest testimony I have read describing the terror of death for a Christian was written by Pastor and Theologian Timothy Keller. You read his essay HERE.
>Evidence from ars moriendi
According to Tractatus artis bene moriendi, or “Treatise on the Art of Dying Well, there are five temptations faced by the dying. Of his eleven woodcut prints, five depicted those temptations, and another five pictured their resolutions. This meant that the illustration of disbelief was paired with an image of encouragement in faith, despair was coupled with an illustration of comfort through hope, impatience with a print encouraging patience, pride with humility, and avarice with “letting go” of the earthly.
Those temptations are eerily familiar in the protracted dying experiences in our modern context.
Interestingly, temptation of disbelief, despair, impatience and avarice are continually present in the Christian’s life, when we yield to them we lead to sin.
Connecting the dots of between ars moriendi and temptations of everyday Christian experience, was a significant nudge toward Beck’s position.
Changing the way we die takes work. What sort of work? …dying well requires the recovery of a sense of finitude and the embrace of community —both central features of the original ars moriendi.
L. S. Dugdale
I plan additional posts filtered through the lens of “death is the cause of sin”.