Turning the page…
Turning the page…
Glory · Grief & Loss
Because death is not part of the design. It arrives in Scripture as an intruder: warned about before it happened, named an enemy centuries later, and promised an end. Grief hurts so much because we were made for a world where death does not exist, and something in us still knows it. The Bible never asks us to feel less; it tells us that death itself will die.
https://glorystudy.com/questions/why-does-death-hurt-so-much · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
Genesis 3
As you read: The serpent denies what God said about dying, the sentence 'to dust you shall return' is spoken over the man, and death begins its work by the chapter's end.
1Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’”
2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,
3but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely die,
5for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.
7Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.
8They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.
9Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
10The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
16To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
18It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.
19By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20The man called his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.
21Yahweh God made coats of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.
22Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”
23Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
24So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Revelation 21:1-7
As you read: The God whose dwelling is with humanity, and the four things He promises to end: death, mourning, crying, and pain.
1I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.
2I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
3I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
4He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
5He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”
6He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life.
7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son.
Before anyone ever died, God said what death was: not nature, but consequence, attached to the one forbidden tree. 'in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.' A good creation did not include funerals. Death appears on the page as a threat bound to rebellion, which means the ache we feel at gravesides is tuned to how the world originally was.
“Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.””Genesis 2:16-17
'For you are dust, and to dust you shall return' is not a description of the natural order; it is a sentence spoken into a broken one. Paul reads those first chapters together: sin entered through one man, and death through sin. Death is a squatter, and Scripture never treats it as part of the furniture.
“By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.””Genesis 3:19
“Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.”Romans 5:12
Paul names it precisely: 'The last enemy that will be abolished is death.' We do not have to call loss good; God does not call it good either. The Bible's honesty here gives grief its dignity: if death were merely natural, sorrow would be sentimentality. Because it is an enemy, tears are truth-telling.
“The last enemy that will be abolished is death.”1 Corinthians 15:26
The Bible ends with death's funeral: 'Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more.' Notice that God does not merely end death; He wipes away the tears death caused, tear by tear. A God who keeps receipts on weeping takes your grief seriously right now.
“He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.””Revelation 21:4