33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 37 And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
John 11:33-37
The death of a loved one can be excruciating. If the loved one is a believer, our sorrow is mitigated with the knowledge that he is in the presence of the Lord, in a better place with no more tears or suffering. Moreover, we know we will meet him again one day in much happier circumstances.
However, if the departed one is not a believer, our pain can be excruciating. Before the loved one passes away, you have some hope that he may yet repent and find salvation in Christ. But now that he has departed, you know there is no more hope. You will not see him again. Moreover, according to the word of God, his suffering has not ended, but has just been heightened immensely.
Therefore, for the conscientious believer, the departure of an unbelieving loved one can be an intensely emotional trial. If this is your situation, where can you find comfort? If you know a fellow believer in such a situation, how can you comfort him or her?
This is what we want to consider in this article.
Let’s take the shortest verse in the Bible as our starting point: “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35). Only two words, whether in the original or in English! Yet it is one of the most profound verses in the Bible and one upon which thousands of sermons have been preached.
I do not intend to expound it entirely, but only to point it out as a verse that can be a source of encouragement to anyone experiencing the bereavement of a loved one who is an unbeliever.
The Lord Jesus wept even though He knew Lazarus was a believer and that He would raise him from the dead shortly. He wept because He was touched by the grief of His friends who had lost a loved one.
Though the knowledge that our loved one is without hope can pierce our hearts with deep sorrows, let us find comfort in the knowledge that our Saviour and Compassionate Great High Priest understands and sympathises with our sorrows. He knows; He understands; and He is in control of the situation.
He will see to it that all things will work together for the glory of God and the good of all who are called according to His purpose. He is the appointed Judge of all the earth. Abraham is right, isn’t he, when he asks, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25).
He is, of course, asking a rhetorical question, which is as good as a firm declaration that God will always do right. This is a valuable truth to remember since we often feel grief in this life because things seem so unfair. When we lose something we treasure, we feel grief not only because we miss the item, but because we feel it unfair that the item should be taken from us.
Likewise, when we lose a loved one!
In that case, if he is a fellow believer, our sense of wrong or unfairness is mitigated by the knowledge that he is better off leaving and that we will meet him again. But what if he is not a believer? Well, in that case, we have little on hand to ease our grief due to the sense of loss and of wrong—apart from the assurance that our Saviour is compassionate and that He will do right.
Today, we do not see as clearly as we should. The remnant of our corruption obscures our faith. So, we are distracted by everything else instead of seeing what we ought to see.
Imagine walking in a park, and someone points upward and says, “Look at that lovely flower up on the tree.” You look up to where he is pointing, and instead of seeing the flower, you see a murder of crows. You quickly forget the flower as the murder seems more interesting.
So, it is with us spiritually today. We tend to see the things that immediately appeal to our flesh, which, at the same time, keep us from seeing the spiritual realities we ought to see.
But one day, we shall be delivered from the body of this death (Rom 7:24), and we shall see clearly with our glorified soul. What our faith sees dimly today, we will see clearly then. This is why Jonathan Edwards reminds us that in eternity, we shall no more be troubled or grieved by the suffering of the wicked—regardless of how much we love and pity them today. Not only will “God… wipe away all tears from [our] eyes,” but “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Rev 21:4).
Our eyes of faith will be so fully opened that we shall not have one iota of doubt that God is doing right. Our hearts will be so wholly sanctified that we shall not entertain any sliver of tolerance for sin and sinners—regardless of how we love and pity them today.
Today we weep. That is alright. Our Saviour wept. But let us not forget that our Saviour, the judge of all the earth, will do right. And He is compassionate. “The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy” (Ps 145:8). He is so compassionate that we may perhaps be surprised when we arrive at the Celestial City. We shall find some of our loved ones there whom we did not think would be there. Who knows if he might not have had a change of heart and confessed Christ wholeheartedly in the quiet hours and days after he heard the gospel?
The fact that no one heard his confession makes no difference; it is enough that the Lord of heaven and earth heard it. Such an eleventh-hour conversion is extremely rare, no doubt. But who knows what surprises our compassionate Lord is reserving for us to enhance our joy when we finally meet Him. Who knows how our Saviour will answer the prayers we have offered for years?
Conclusion
The death of an unbelieving loved one is one of the most painful experiences that a believer has to endure. There is hardly any scripture promise that speaks directly to the ordeal, unlike in the case of the death of a saint.
But that is not to say that the believer caught in such a situation must grieve in despair. Not at all! Let us instead turn our eyes to the Lord Jesus. See how He wept! Recall that He is the Judge of the earth and that He will do right. Be assured that He is full of compassion, and that nothing is impossible with Him so that many who prayed earnestly will be pleasantly surprised in the day of glory.
Let us comfort ourselves with these thoughts if we find ourselves thrown into the emotional turmoil of losing someone we love despite our prayers and best efforts to bring the gospel to him or her. Let us learn to comfort those of our brethren who are going through the same trial. But let us also seek to encourage each other to reach out fervently to our loved ones who are yet in unbelief while it is still today, for tomorrow it may be too late. If our loved one passes on in unbelief without any effort on our part to reach out to him, then there shall be little to mitigate our pain because the darkness of regret shall threaten to engulf any light of comfort we may receive. But if we do our best today, we shall not regret tomorrow. Amen.
—JJ Lim