Facing the Last Enemy: Death and the Christian by Guy Prentiss Waters. 2023. Ligonier Ministries, Sanford, FL. 157p.
Book report by Charles Krueger – March 2024
As time marches on, with increasing frequency, my friends and family are dying. All my parents died in the last 10 years (I am now officially an “orphan”). I am not getting younger and increasingly think about the next big transition for me – my own death. This world is all I know, yes it thoroughly is tainted with problems (sin!) and seems to be getting worse, but it is familiar, and I have navigated through life reasonably well. It is known. Now I am told that I am to look forward (?) to death and heaven, something in which I have no experience nor can I talk to anyone who has! In faith, I should be able to do this with confidence, but realistically I cannot – frankly the whole process scares me. At best, I seem only to know or understand these concepts vaguely, as though seeing dimly through glass (1 Cor. 13:12). What about “21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Phil. 1:21-23). Is this my reality?
A close friend of mine from our church in New York (and a deacon) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the end was near so we (Sharon and I) visited him in early September 2023. He died in early November. If I don’t understand death and heaven, how am I to minister to him and to the grief his wife was experiencing? Based on a recommendation from Pastor Jeremy, I obtained and read Facing the Last Enemy. Death and the Christian. I found this book a helpful and easy read. The book’s 12 chapters are titled with key questions, such as: What is Death?, What happens after Death?, How do I help the Dying and Grieving?, How do I prepare for Death?, and What does the Bible teach about the Resurrection and Final Judgment? The book clarified some of my thinking notably about the resurrection of the soul vs. the body including when this happens – at death or second coming? With death, we grieve in view of the tremendous loss that death has brought into our lives but we should grieve in view of the blessings that are sure to come (page 63). The latter is a matter of faith.
Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters is a Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. He is a teaching elder in the Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley of the Presbyterian Church in America.
