Article September 16, 1996 Issue

Death: friend or enemy?

Mary Gadberry Patrick

Today the media report on suicide with some frequency. Whether these are cases of "assisted suicide" or the result of some other unhappy situation, the individuals involved clearly felt that death was the only solution. But there is another way, one pointed out to us by Christ Jesus.

"The Bible calls death an enemy, and Jesus overcame death and the grave instead of yielding to them," Science and Health says. It continues further on, "To him, therefore, death was not the threshold over which he must pass into living glory" (p. 39).

In this light, when human will, drugs, and other material methods fail, how could death be a valid way out of troubles? To tout death as the remedy for disease, a surcease from pain, or a deterrent of crime bolsters the insidious thought that death is a giant dispose-all for everyone and everything that presents a difficulty or threatens to become a problem.

Send a comment to the editors