The Death of a Saint

Death does not distinguish rich and poor, kind or wicked, saint or sinner. Death is the inevitable end as long as Christ tarries and it often feels that it has been released upon this world to grab and snatch at its own leisure. Death greedily takes and takes from us and it causes even the great and mighty believers among us to cry out “How long, oh Lord?”

Where is our God when the saints of this world breath their last? Does he mourn with us when we bury those we love? I wonder if Christ weeps with us as He wept with Mary in front of the tomb of her beloved brother. In fact, the cry of many atheists is “Where was your God when I took loss? Where was He when death and sorrow struck?”

Psalm 116 is a joyful song by which David thanks the Lord for rescuing him from a dangerous and deadly situation. Yet, in the midst of his rescue from a most certain death, he speaks of our God as one who finds the death of His saints precious. In our grief we may acidly ask how any good God could find our loss precious. There is good reason for this, and His thoughts may be ours if we take comfort in His truth.

The saint’s death is precious because the saint’s life is precious to God! David’s Psalm describes how His God faithfully protected him from death. We must remember that no saint breathes their last by accident. No saint slips into eternity while God was away on business. Our God is the sustainer of all life and it seems David’s main point may be that God keeps us from death more often than he allows any of us to die. Each breath is a testimony to God’s sustenance and his intervention on our behalf.

Spurgeon in great wisdom speaks of this Psalm: “…for the Lord values the lives of his saints, and often spares them where others perish. They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious.”

John Paton, a hero of the faith and the great missionary to the New Hebrides echoes this important point in his autobiography:

“My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus; I saw Him watching all the scene. My peace came back to me like a wave from God. I realized that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leave the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth. He rules all Nature, animate and inanimate, and restrains even the Savage of the South Seas  .

John Paton

When death does come to a saint, it is precious to God. Why? What good could come out of the end of life? The answer is our greatest comfort. It is by death that one feasts upon what was merely a foretaste in life and sees vividly what was once only the quickest of glimpses. The corruptible body of sin and decay is replaced by a glorious body, not marred by sin, shame, or death! All the experience of this life cannot prepare one for the afterlife for everything known in part will be experienced in all the vividness of reality and truth. Why does the Lord find the death of a saint precious? Because in death, they are with Him whose right hand holds the fullness of joy and pleasure evermore! Full restoration, the great mission of our God, finds its completion in the death of a saint!

Not only do they experience all of this, and certainly I cannot describe to you in any fashion the exquisite wonder and joy one experiences in the beginning of their true heavenly existence, but by faith they have ended their sojourn faithfully. The saints of the Lord who have spent their lives for Him will now be welcomed into His great kingdom. Their life on Earth will be treasured dearly as beloved friends and fellow Christians, their legacy is not in vain. And what of those whose last moments are a final flickering faith, like the thief on the cross? Well, God finds their deaths to be precious too, for their death was his tool by which He led them into final immutable life!

Why then, in all this, does the good Lord find the death of His saints to be precious? The answer I find to be immanent is this: it is the finale of his great salvation! It is the Christian assurance made permanent and visible. We do not die meaningless or casual deaths. Christian, you will not slip away unnoticed. The Lord has beckoned those before you to the final chapter, the greatest chapter that is unending, of His great triumph over evil in bringing many sons to glory. He finds your life precious, and so He maintains you. But in the timing of grace, He will call you to Himself. This is the climactic ending to His Mission. He who redeemed them and guided them as they sojourn now receives them, made whole and holy, into His presence forevermore!

Hear Spurgeon’s full thoughts on this verse and know the Lord is with those who have preceded us in death:

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, and therefore he did not suffer the Psalmist to die, but delivered his soul from death. This seems to indicate that the song was meant to remind Jewish families of the mercies received by any one of the household, supposing him to have been sore sick and to have been restored to health, for the Lord values the lives of his saints, and often spares them where others perish. They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious.

The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to him. The deathbeds of saints are very precious to the church, she often learns much from them; they are very precious to all believers, who delight to treasure up the last words of the departed; but they are most of all precious to the Lord Jehovah himself, who views the triumphant deaths of his gracious ones with sacred delight. If we have walked before him in the land of the living, we need not fear to die before him when the hour of our departure is at hand