Eternal life refers primarily to the quality, rather than the duration, of life. The converse of this state of blessedness is hell, or separation from God. Eternal life can begin on this earth but it does not end with our death. We have been created with a desire for communion with God, and God satisfies this desire by holding us in being, in this life and beyond this life, with a love that is stronger than death.
The Bible treats a human being as a unity, rather than as a soul imprisoned in a body. Hence, in the fuller life beyond this one, there will be something corresponding to our bodies, but we cannot possibly envisage the precise nature of such life. Should we pray for the dead? Should we pray for anyone? If God knows what is best, need we ask for it? Christ clearly encouraged us to pray for each other and for ourselves Matt.
We naturally pray for those we love, and we are commanded to pray for those who do not love us Matt. Should we, then, pray for the dead? Prayer for those on this earth is not always a specific request for a specific need. Do the dead need our prayers? For those in one state, prayer is unnecessary, and for those in the other, it is futile.
But the Bible does not enable us to be so certain about the state of the dead or to say dogmatically that prayer for them is either unnecessary or futile. Anglicans disagree about the rightness of specific petitions for the departed and the official documents of the Church of Ireland leave the question open. It is significant that prayers for the dead were not rejected in the 39 Articles. Why, in the course of our liturgy each week, do we pray for the dead?
Unfortunately, a tradition developed over time that associated praying for the dead with the doctrine of purgatory. The Anglican Reformers, along with the Reformers on the continent, rejected the doctrine of purgatory along with several other popular devotional practices of medieval Roman Catholicism. This seemed to rule out praying for the dead, because in popular practice praying for the dead was connected to setting them free from purgatory.
However, this is not necessarily true. There are three theological concepts that can help us as we consider what we believe about the end of life.
First, our faith is theocentric. We honor God through our lives, and give thanks and praise for the goodness of God. To be welcomed into the arms of God beyond this life should bring us tremendous joy, not fill us with fear or dread.
Second, our faith is incarnational. Our theology of the incarnation is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Because we are sinful creatures, our relationship with God is broken.
Jesus Christ came to restore that relationship and bring us back into communion with God. The restoration for Anglicans takes place in and through the Word and sacrament, as they draw us into the life of God as it is revealed in Jesus Christ. In his life and in his death, Jesus is one with God, and is raised into God. So, too, through the love of God and the love of neighbor, we are drawn out of ourselves and into the glory of God.
The presence of God becomes clearer through our lives, and even in our death. Third, our faith is corporate. We live out our faith in community as it was intended from the earliest days of the church. We are made one body in Christ, and that body will support us in all phases of our life, even and especially at the end, as we move into that heavenly kingdom.
Because we need not fear the end of life, we are set free to appreciate the life we have now. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Let your life be a witness to others that they, too, might be set free from their fears as they follow Jesus Christ. Spend less of your time and energy worrying about what tomorrow will bring, and more time praising the One who holds you in the palm of His hand.
As we draw closer to God, especially as we near the end of our life, we are given an opportunity to see the ways in which our sinful behavior has separated us from God.
We can use what time we have left in this life to do all we can to repent of our sinful behaviors and return to the God who loves us.
The petitions contained at the beginning of The Great Litany [4] are a great way to open our hearts and minds to the ways in which we might have offended our Lord in thought, word or deed.
Not only do we have the opportunity to be set free from our fears about death, but we also have an opportunity to be restored to full relationship with Christ. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.
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