Death

The word death is used as much outside the church as inside but it has completely different meanings in each. Outside the church "death" means finality, the end. Death is considered to be the opposite of life. It is thought that if one isn't alive, one must be dead. Life is existence; death is non-existence.

Even though this is the general view outside the church, they have a curiosity about death, whether there might be something more after death, as though something inside them drives them to look for more.

In the church, death is completely different. Instead of being a metaphor for finality it is a metaphor for separation. In fact there are two deaths. In the first death we are separated from our bodies and from the land of the living. The unbelievers who suffer the second death are separated from God for eternity.

That separation from God may not sound so bad. In these bodies we have now we have life. After the first death the unbelievers will not have that life. From then on they will understand that the life they had had come from God and that nothing is more important or necessary to them.