Death is Gain: A Believer's Victory in Christ

Delivered at the graveside service of my father, Glenn N. Bradfield, on March 17th, 2025, at Serenity Gardens Cemetery in Lakeland, Florida.

For the last twelve years, my father was a faithful member of Christ Reformed Presbyterian Church. As such, he subscribed to the Westminster Standards as a faithful summary of what Scripture teaches concerning the Christian faith. These Standards include the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger Catechism, and the Shorter Catechism.

In the Larger Catechism, there are a couple of questions and answers that speak directly to our circumstances today regarding my father.

Question 84 asks, “Shall all men die?” The Westminster Divines, guided by Scripture, answered, “Death being threatened as the wages of sin, it is appointed unto all men once to die; for that all have sinned.”

The Divines were thinking of Scriptures like Romans 6:23, where Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”; Hebrews 9:27, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”; and Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—.”

Death is not a natural or neutral part of human existence but a judicial sentence imposed by God due to sin. This truth is first revealed in Genesis 2:17, where God warns Adam, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” When Adam disobeyed, sin entered the world, and with it, death (Romans 5:12). Death, then, is not merely a biological reality but a divine decree, a just penalty for humanity’s rebellion against God.

And since all have sinned (Romans 3:23 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God), all are subject to death. This applies universally—none can escape it by human effort, for it is appointed by God.

But then this presents a dilemma and raises an important question regarding the saints—one that the Westminster Assembly addressed in Question 85: “Death being the wages of sin, why are not the righteous delivered from death, seeing all their sins are forgiven in Christ?”

Do you sense the tension here? At first glance, this seems like a contradiction. If death is the wages of sin—the penalty imposed by God as a consequence of the Fall—and if the Gospel proclaims that Christ bore the full penalty of sin on behalf of His people, securing their justification and eternal life, then why do those who have been justified and saved by God still die? It doesn’t seem to make sense.

My father was a devout follower of Christ. He loved God and treasured His Word. He fully acknowledged before God that he was a sinner, knowing that no amount of his own works could ever merit salvation or appease God’s wrath. Instead, he embraced Christ as his Lord and Savior, trusting entirely in His righteousness and atoning death for reconciliation with God. He believed that his sins had been covered. And yet, he still died.

Again, this seems to be a contradiction.

But is it really? I want you to now listen to the answer given by the Divines: “The righteous shall be delivered from death itself at the last day, and even in death are delivered from the sting and curse of it; so that, although they die, yet it is out of God’s love, to free them perfectly from sin and misery, and to make them capable of farther communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter upon.”

There is a ton of theology packed into that little answer and I could spend a couple of sermons on it, but we don’t have time for that now. Instead, I simply want to point out two things to you from this answer:

The first thing is that despite what we see now, today, God promises that the righteous will, in fact, be delivered from death itself at the last day.

1 Corinthians 15:21-26 states, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

And in John Chapter 6, Jesus stated, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

In other words, the tension is resolved by distinguishing between death as a present reality and death as a defeated enemy that will be fully overcome at the last day. The timing of deliverance has to be understood. Scripture teaches that salvation has a past, present, and future dimension, meaning that salvation, understood broadly, encompasses multiple stages or aspects rather than being applied all at once in a single moment. And thus, in the end, the righteous will not be left in death, but delivered from it completely at the last day.

Do not look at what you see today and think that this is the end of the story. It’s not.

The second thing I want you to see in their answer is this - the Divines answered that “even in death [the righteous] are delivered from the sting and curse of it; so that, although they die, yet it is out of God’s love, to free them perfectly from sin and misery, and to make them capable of farther communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter upon.”

Friends, this is a very profound statement. What the Divines are pointing out, and again, this based on the teaching of Scripture, is that when the righteous die, death is now serving God’s loving purpose; namely, that death is the means by which God frees the righteous perfectly from their sin and misery, and ushers them into a farther communion with Christ in glory.

The Puritan Preacher Francis Roberts¹ said it this way:

The saints are afflicted and die as well as carnal men - but to the saints, afflictions and death are not enemies but friends, not losses but gains, not miseries but mercies, not punishments but fatherly chastisements, not curses, but blessings, whilst unto carnal men they are altogether contrary.

Christ has so conquered death, that He has taken what was an enemy of ours and now makes it serve us for our greater good!

Paul said it this way in Romans 8:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice that Paul says that we are more than conquerors in all these things, and he mentions DEATH as being one of those things. In Christ, we not only conquer death, but are “more than conquerors” over death. That is, instead of being a slave to death, in Christ death is now our slave. Death serves us. Death works for our good.

Paul states in Philippians 1:21-23, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

Revelation 14:13 reads: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’”

And of course, recall what Jesus told one of the criminals who was hanged with him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

So, friends, while my dad has passed on—and with that comes some sadness because he will be missed—we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

I am so thankful to God for the grace and mercy he has shown my father; that he was one who responded to the call of the Gospel, and that He accepted, received, and rested upon Christ alone for his justification, sanctification, and eternal life…That he loved His Lord and embraced the promises laid out for him in Christ.

And I can guarantee you that if he could communicate with us now, he would say, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children…for all of you who have not heeded the call of the Gospel and have not surrendered your lives to Christ; because for you, death remains a vicious enemy…one that has not been conquered, one that still holds its sting, and one that leads not to glory, but to judgment.”

My father would urge you—no, he would plead with you—to turn to Christ while there is still time. For “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Yet in Christ, there is life, there is forgiveness, and there is the hope of resurrection.

So do not leave this place thinking only of my father’s passing. Instead, consider your own soul. If you are in Christ, rejoice, for death has lost its power. But if you are not, know that today is the day of salvation. Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near (Isaiah 55:6), for in Christ alone is victory over sin and death.

1. Francis Roberts, God’s Covenants: The Mystery and Marrow of the Bible, ed. Joseph Weissmann, vol. 1 (Kansas, OK: Berith Press, 2023), 78.