Death and Afterlife 5 - Benefits of Death?

How can we say there are benefits of death? Because we have a fear of it, we are motivated to learn what happens after death. Being believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God we are motivated to be obedient to God’s will, unlike Adam. As we said earlier death eliminates eternal sin. We are given the opportunity to be perfected in His likeness so we can become reunited with God. The ever presence of the possibility can cure our pride. We are humbled when we think about this reality that the world as we know it will end for us due to powers beyond our control.

Pride was the sin of Adam and Eve. Scripture reads:

The serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."   Genesis 3:4-5

In awareness of our death we see how small we are and realize our mortality. All this restrains our arrogance and egotism. Preparing us for the Kingdom to come.

Even more importantly death is only a transition. Through its separation from the soul and its decay, it can then be renewed in the resurrection. We who believe and follow Jesus Christ know that we, like Him, will at some point be resurrected after death if not before.

Consider the following written by Saint Paul to the Corinthians:

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:36-38, 42-44

"It is the common view of the Church Fathers that death is permitted by God for the benefit of all mankind. Even though it seems evil, bringing sadness and sorrow, it is changed by God's loving grace into a great benefaction…so that the sickness of man may not remain eternal" (p107 Vassiliadis).

This leads us to the question, How does Christ cure death?