In Depth Study – Conquering the Fear of Death

Numbers 20:28-29: “After Moses had removed Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar, Aaron died there on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain. (29) When the whole congregation saw that Aaron had died, the entire house of Israel mourned for him thirty days.

Exodus 33:13,19: “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.(19) And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.”

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“Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. “Corrie,” he began gently, “when you and I go to Amsterdam-when do I give you your ticket?”
I sniffed a few times, considering this.
“Why, just before we get on the train.”
“Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.”

― Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

As a child Corrie ten Book asked her father what it was like to die. Here father basically told her that when the time comes, God will give her everything she needs. Those word gave her great comfort when she was in a concentration camp facing possible death in a gas chamber.  It is why countless believers face martyrdom with peace and joy.  In their final moments God gave them exactly what they needed to faced their passing from this earth. 

In John 21 Jesus explains something to Peter about the way he would die. In verse 19 we learn  “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” In the Aramaic the word for glorify is shavach which is a word meaning to rise up, to praise. What is interesting about this verse in the Aramaic is that the word bina is rendered as by what. This combination preposition and pronoun is really a combination preposition and noun. Ina has a wide range of usages in the Aramaic but carries the idea of a specific time. It is used by first century man for the movement of one’s ear to indicate the moment of death. For some reason they had the idea that when a person died the last part of the body to move was the ear. Be that as it may, it was an express for the moment of death.  So what Jesus was likely telling Peter is not what type of death he would face but that he would glorify, uplift, or praise God at the moment of death. 

Peter had just recently denied he knew Jesus in order to save his own gizzard. He was grieved when Jesus asked him a third time if he loved Him facing the reality that he put his own flesh before the Savior that he thought he deeply loved.  Yet, Jesus reassured him that there would be another time in the future where he would again face the choice of denying Jesus or proclaiming Him and this time he would not only proclaim Him he would do it joyfully and go to his death praising the Lord. What was to change?  I believe that at that moment when he would leave his fleshly body, God would do for him what he did and would do and would continue to do for believers who face their final moments and that is give them what they need. 

What do you need to face your final moments.  What can God give you that would take away any fear of death.  What would cause you to say as the Apostle Paul: “For me to live is Christ, to die is to gain.” What did Paul feel he had to gain as expressed in Philippians 1:21? Was he looking for pearly gates, streets of gold, a mansion and heavenly home?  Remember he was caught up into Paradise. He knew what laid ahead for him after he died II Corinthians 12:1. Was Paul that mercenary, that materially minded?  I personally doubt that very much.  I believe he was on the same level as Aaron, Moses and other believers who truly loved God with all their hearts, soul and might. 

David said in Psalms 18:1; “I love you Lord.”  The word love is racham. But it is used in an imperfect inflection or an uncompleted action.  This should be rendered as; “I will love you Lord.”  David knew his love was only ahav, the ultimate love in the flesh, but one day when his spirit would be released from the flesh, he would know true racham love for God. 

What Paul was seeking was something he longed for like Peter and David.  He longed to know racham love.   You see one major distinction between racham love and chav or ahav love is that chav or ahav love, the ultimate love in this physical realm is something you feel.  You can’t touch it, smell it, hear it, or see it.  True the smell of grandma’s baked bread reminds you of her love, seeing the one you love smile at you reminds you of their love, hearing someone say: “I love you” arouses that feeling of ahav, but you don’t actually taste it, see it, hear it or feel it. 

Two people who share an intimacy say they are “making love.” They interpret the chemical and hormonal response as love but that is only a physical response. Love is ultimately a spiritual thing and we can only know it in a spiritual realm.  A love that is tangible in the physical realms is only a manifestation as the smell of freshly baked bread by the hands of one that is loved. But I can walk by a bakery where the aroma of baked bread whiffles through the air but that did not originate from the loving hands of grandma. It just a tangible reminder of a loving grandma. 

In the spirit we will not have a nose, eyes, ears, tongue or skin to feel a touch. But we will be able to smell, see, hear, taste and feel racham love. According to the Talmud these five senses will all be wrapped up into one sense. We will be able in the spirit to actually smell, see, hear, taste and feel love and with the intensity of all five senses at the same time. 

So, what is it that Peter experienced in his final moments. I believe it was that racham love. In that moment he was transported into a tzim tzum, sort of bubble between the natural and the supernatural world. He experienced this world and the spiritual realm simultaneously such that he was able to experience the racham love of God and when he experienced it he faced his last moments with joy and praise to God.

I recall when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute during a missionary conference. Various missionaries met with students in the dormitory.  At Moody the men’s dormitory, Culberson Hall has about twenty floors and each floor has a lounge area in the center of the floor.  I remember one missionary who met with us in our lounge and told stories of his experience on his particular mission field. He was serving in a country which went through a revolution and at one point he was arrested as a spy.  He was placed in a prison and one day they took him out to be shot. He and another prisoner, a French diplomat were tied to a stack with their hands behind their backs facing a squad of soldier with rifles aimed at them.  As the order was about to be given the missionary whispered to the Frenchman: “I hope they aim at me and not you.”  The Frenchman, already shook up, muttered: “Whhhhhhhy!”  The missionary calmly said: “Because they are lousy shots and they will miss me and hit you.”  He said for some reason the Frenchman did not get the humor in that statement. Even though when the rifles were shot and it turned out they shot blanks, the Frenchman still collapsed but the missionary only smiled.

In fact, the missionary said what he really felt was a great disappointment.  For at that moment, he just felt surrounded by an unspeakable, unexplainable love such that he was able to joke and laugh at the idea of dying because this love was far greater than life itself. 

It is interesting that when it came time for Aaron to die, he, Moses, and his son Eleazer climbed to the top of a mountain. Whoo, wait a minute.  A man is about to die and he climbs a mountain? That doesn’t sound like a man on his death bed.  Then another curious thing happened. Once he passed the garments of the high priest onto his son he calmly walked into a cave and laid down and died.  The way it reads in the Hebrew it sounds almost like he passed on the garments and said; “Ok, I think I’m gonna lay down and take a nap.”  But even more curious we learn that when all Israel heard of Aaron’s death they mourned for thirty days.  Yet, there is no record that Moses, Aaron’s brother nor Aaron’s son Eleazer grieved and mourned. 

Now let’s take a look at Moses who asked to see the glory of God.  What is this glory?  We really don’t know, it is the word kabod in Hebrew which simply means heaviness, greatness, honor and being stubborn.  These are not tangible things that you can see, hear, taste or touch. Yet, that seems to be what Moses wanted.  He wanted to experience these things so he could know God. The word know in Hebrew is yadah which is an intimate knowing.  It is the same word used to describe sexual relationships, an intimacy.  I mean who could have known God better than Moses? He was the one God appeared to in a burning bush, performer miracles through and spoke to face to face as a friend speaks to friend.  Yet, Moses knew there was something else. He would later confirm this by watching his brother die.  Something happened on that mountain when his brother passed that was so glorious and wonderful that neither Moses, Aaron’s brother nor his son Eleazar mourned or grieved his death. 

God told Moses He could not let him experience what he wanted because he would die.  The Jewish sages teach that when Moses asked to see the glory of God, he was asking for it all, he wanted to know what that racham love truly was.  God said he could only give him a taste, that if he gave him that full experience he would die.  The Jewish sages teach that if he actually saw, felt, heard, tasted and touched the racham love of God his spirit would leave his body and refuse to return and Moses’s mission on earth was not yet complete. So, God only gave him a sample when Moses turned his back. 

The words striking dead is an unfortunate translation.  That hints to something tragic and horrible.  It should really be expressed as one’s spirit leaving the flesh.  Once the spirit is released from the flesh it is free to be joined with the Spirit of God in a way that is not possible in a sinful, corrupt physical body.  One day we will have a new body, a resurrected body that is not corrupt and will be able to be joined with God capable of experiencing full racham love. 

The Jews call this passing from the flesh into the world of the spirit, the Divine kiss.  A passing without pain, fear or agony.   If we are growing in our love for God, seeking to discover His heart then, like Corrie ten Boom learned, when the time comes, we will have what we need. We will look at death with joy and praise on our lips as that missionary facing that firing squad. 

Many Christians wonder how they will face death, would they be willing to die for the Lord. If you are seeking to grow in your love for God, to know His heart, seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, then when that time comes, you will have all you  need and more than you ever imagined. If it is false alarm like for that missionary you will not be met with relief, but disappointment over not continuing in that tzim tzum – that bubble of immense, glorious unconditional that God will encapsulate you in during those final moments. 

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