How Can I Be Freed from the Fear of Death?

Freed From Slavery to the Fear of Death Living by faith in future grace is the pathway of liberty—including liberty from slavery to the fear of death. The reason why I speak of slavery to the fear of death is because the Bible does in Hebrews 2:14–15: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Christ] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” The Disorders of Illusory Denial Have you ever asked yourself how much addiction, personality dysfunction, and disordered lifestyle may originate in the repressed fear of death? Very few people live their daily lives with the conscious fear of death in their minds. Yet this text says that Christ came to die for people “who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” There is something profound here. The point is not that people are enslaved to a constant, conscious fear of dying but that they are enslaved to a thousand ways of avoiding this fear. They are enslaved to “the denial of death.”1 “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. ...