LENT – WEEK 4 – FRIDAY

LESSON: ROMANS 6:1-11

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life.” John 5:25

The meaning of Jesus is that he who clings to the Word will not feel or see death, even in the midst of death, as He also declares later on: “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, for I am the life” (John 11:25).

Here we see what a wonderful thing the Christian faith really is, for it already saves us from death eternally and brings it to pass that we never die. The death and dying of a Christian is just like that of an unbeliever externally, but inwardly there is as much difference here as the difference between heaven and earth. For the Christian sleeps in death and passes through it to life, but the unbeliever passes from life to experience death eternally.

We also see this from the way in which some shake in terror, are full of doubt and even despair, and completely lose all reason and sense in the throes of death.

This is why Scripture also calls death a sleep. For just as the one who falls asleep does not really know what is happening to him and recovers consciousness quite suddenly in the morning when he wakes up, so we, too, will arise on the last day without any knowledge how we died and passed through death.

SL.XI.571,11
AE 76,412-13

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, draw us ever closer to You in true and living faith so that we firmly believe that, whether we live or die, we are Yours and the heirs of eternal life and blessedness with You, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.