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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 7, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 19.

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Editorial

By Editor

Anticipating Death

THE unalterable Word of God has declared that “it is appointed unto men once to die.” What God appoints, man can not change; die we must. But there is hope in this word “once,” for the Scriptures present one essential part of Christian experience as death. And if we are truly dead with Christ, we are delivered from the “fear of death,” for no one fears what has already taken place; and of believers in Christ it is said “ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” So however boldly physical death may stare us in the face, we know that the hard experience of yielding our ways, our wills, our pleasures, plans, purposes,—in fact, submission to the last degree,—is already in the past; and we can assure ourselves with the thought that “though our outward man perish,” yet it is but for a short, dreamless sleep, and when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. “For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.”
How unwise the course of so many who put off the day, refusing to die to sin and self! After a few years of painful and disappointing pursuit of their own plans, they must yield to the inevitable. Should any be so deceived as to think that life hereafter will be granted them because they had no choice as to whether or not they should either enter or leave this earthly experience, the resurrection day will impress upon their minds these words,—so often turned aside when they might have served as a warning,—“The soul that sinneth it shall die.” The time will then have come when, in God’s eternal purpose, death shall be no more; and those whose names do not appear in the Book of Life, having demonstrated by their actions that they have never voluntarily gone through the death pangs of self-surrender, will perish utterly when death itself shall be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. How and when shall we die? in Christ to-day, or in the lake of fire at the last day?