March 20

Death, the Gate of Life

He was at the point of death. — John 4:47

He was just on the edge of death, just at its door. The point of death is a point to which all of us some time must come. We pass through this world by many different roads. Our ways run in diverse directions, crossing each other at every possible angle. No two of us go in precisely the same path. If we could see a map of the world, with all human paths marked out on it, it would be a strange network that we should behold. But however diverse our courses, every one of us comes at last to the “point of death!” This is a point no one can ever evade. There is no road in life which goes around it. It is a strange point! At it the life suddenly passes out of sight, passes from earth, and enters on a new existence in the eternal world.

What preparation have we made for this “point of death”? Are we ready for it, so that our sudden coming to it at any moment shall not terrify us? What preparation is necessary? Only this — that we be saved in Christ, and have our work for Him well and faithfully done up to the last moment. Christ changed this ” point of death” to a “point of life.” He tasted death for every man, and absorbed all death’s blackness and curse. Now if we are true believers in Christ, dying is but leaving darkness and sin and danger to pass into light and holiness and safety.

A poet represents one coming up to a gate on a mountain-side, over which were written the words “The Gate of Death;” but when he touched the gate, it opened, and he found himself amid great brightness and beauty; then turning about he saw above the gate he had entered the words, “The Gate of Life.” If we are in Christ, death is abolished, and the point which earth calls the point of death is really the point of life. We need then to make sure of only one thing — that we are truly Christ’s by living faith and loving obedience.