Raising the dead is an un-touchy subject—in that most people don’t want to touch it. For those of us who aren’t afraid to engage what Jesus commanded us to do, there are a lot of theological roadblocks that often get tossed in our way. A few of the more prevalent ones are “Is it God’s will?”, “Is it the will of the deceased to be raised?”, “Are they unsaved?” (as though we should only raise them if they are, and if they are saved then let them go). All of those have very rationed, biblical answers (all of which end with “be obedient and raise the dead). We’re going to tackle a different one today, unmasking the lie of premature death.
There is a belief out there that says “It’s okay to die, but only if it is not premature.” The other side of that coin is “We are only supposed to raise the dead when it is premature death, and the rest of the time we should let them go.”
What even is premature death?
In theory, premature death is when someone dies before their “appointed time”—so let’s look at that. What does the Bible say about our appointed time to die? Scripturally speaking, the notion that any of us have an appointed time to die comes from Hebrews 9:27-28 which says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” Now, when read in-context this passage is saying that Jesus died once for us, as us, in place of us to bear all of our sin. However, most people like to quote verses 27 without the second half of the sentence (v27 ends with the word “judgment”) and in so doing entirely skew the meaning. For believers, we did die once, already, through Christ in baptism (Romans 6:1-7 elaborates on this quite clearly). So even if we ignore the context of this passage and just focus on the “appointed time to die”, as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice we no longer have an appointed time to die—as Jesus already took our appointment.
Furthermore, the entire “appointed time to die,” scripturally speaking, has always been in context of the wages of sin being death (Romans 6:23), not that God needs us to die in order to exit the earth. Nevertheless, people still like to believe that we are required to die, and incorrectly use Hebrews 9:27 as their proof-text. The other references that are less-commonly used, those of Ecclesiastes 3:2 and Psalm 90:10, are based on the writers’ observations about the lives of people, much like how a scientist would observe things and then write down what they saw. Those passages are not a prophetic pronouncement about what all humankind is destined for, but simply a recording of observations. In fact, the entire book of Ecclesiastes is written from the context of Solomon sharing his earthly observations and temporal wisdom, not that of a divine seer who has delved into the mysteries of God.
How do we know if someone died prematurely?
Normally, the notion is that someone has had a premature death if they died young. And if you thought “wow, that’s pretty ambiguous,” that’s because it is.
Profoundly ambiguous.
Most people who believe there is a “time to die” apply it to situations in an extremely illogical manner. They pretty consistently say that if someone is young then it wasn’t their time and if they are old (which usually means 65 or older), then it probably was their time to go. This entire idea is illogical in nature, not to mention incredibly arrogant. I mean, who is the person who gets to decide whether it was “someone’s time” or not? It’s pretty arrogant to think that we get to decide when it is other people’s time to die. When Job, in his arrogance, was accusing God of not being just, do you know what God’s response was?
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7)
God did nothing for two whole chapters except throw questions at Job that he was incapable of answering because he was a human with the limited knowledge, power, and capacity that humans have, and not the Almighty Creator-God of the Cosmos. God basically spent His time saying “And who exactly do you think you are??”
Once we start breaking down the “time to die” concept, it is applied in an incredibly arbitrary manner based completely on supposition and not on some sort of knowable information that can be consistently applied. In fact, it is pagan belief systems that believe our life-length is determinable, not Christianity. For example, in Greek mythology, the Fates (or Norns in Norse mythology) determine the length of your life by spinning a string, your “life line”, and when they decide your string gets cut, you die. It is entirely arbitrary based on whatever those god-beings feel like at that time, and if they feel like cutting you off in your twenties, they are fully within their rights and powers to do so. Good thing we don’t belong to their kingdom!
What does the Bible say about death and age?
If we wanted to know what the Bible says about death and age, we would find it says the opposite of most people’s beliefs on the subject. According to 2 Timothy 1:10, God has abolished death in Christ. Abolished it! It is no longer legal. Romans 8 goes into great length to explain that we no longer live under the law of sin and death but rather the law of the spirit of life. As explained above, the OT verses that refer to a “time to die” are not pronouncements of that-which-shall-be, but scientific human observations of what they saw happening around them. In fact, there is a prophecy that is a pronouncement of things to come which states:
“Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people . . . (Isaiah 65:20-22a)
The prophet Isaiah foresaw a day when death would be extremely uncommon, as people would be living multiples of hundreds of years long at minimum. Furthermore, this falls entirely in line with the teachings of Jesus. There are numerous verses in scripture that speak of this reality of long-life, but that isn’t all. There are many verses where Jesus explained that those who followed him would, in fact, never die (John 6:50, 51, 54, John 8:51, John 10:10, 28, John 11:26). Actually, get this. Do you realize that the most-quoted verse in the entire Bible speaks of this? John 3:16 says, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not die but would live forever (emphasis mine).” John 3:16 literally states that we are not supposed to die!!
So what should our response to all of this be?
Honestly, it’s quite simple. All death is “premature death” because according to scripture, we aren’t supposed to die. John 10:10 says that it is the enemy who brings death, and 1 Corinthians 15:26 also refers to death as God’s enemy. If we truly believe what the Bible says, the only response we can have to death, regardless of age, is one thing:
Raise the dead.
Don’t complicate Jesus’ simple command in Matthew 10:8 and add provisos or conditions such as premature death, if the person wants to come back, or any of the other highly spiritual-sounding but highly religious and extremely disobedient excuses people come up with. If we truly want to do the will of God, then it is time to move past the lie of premature death and simply be obedient to Jesus’ command to raise the dead.
If you are interested in learning more about how to step out in faith and raise the dead, I recommend the following:
- Read my book Faith to Raise the Dead and Tyler Johnson’s book How to Raise the Dead, or for a quick-reference guide, grab a copy of Practical Keys to Raise the Dead.
- Attend a training with the Dead Raising Teams led by Tyler Johnson of One Glance Ministries.
- If unable to attend in person, buy his School of Resurrection audio series, invite some friends over, and have your own virtual DRT training.
- Start looking for opportunities to pray to raise the dead. As you put yourself out there, opportunities will open up to you (pets included!).
