The doctrine of dying grace

1. By definition dying grace is the believer’s experience of physical death or dying under the provision of grace whereby the individual believer has blessing and happiness in death. His death has a minimum or no pain, maximum happiness, and the soul is stimulated to the maximum in its last moments in the physical body. Not all believers go out under dying grace. Believers in reversionism do not go out under dying grace, they go out under the sin unto death. It doesn’t change their status in heaven but it is God’s last opportunity to discipline them.

2. Dying grace removes the fear of death — Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the valley of the deep darkness of death.” This is describing the manner of dying and dying grace. “I will not fear” — dying grace is such a marvellous doctrine that it eliminates the idea of fear connected with death. “I will not fear harm” — a miserable death — “for you are with me” — God is with every believer, and especially every supergrace believer, at the moment of his dying.

3. Dying grace, therefore, is a supergrace blessing — Hebrews 11:5; Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his godly ones [supergrace believers].” A supergrace believer gets the best possible send-off into heaven.

4. Description of dying grace — Job 5:21-17. The believer cannot die until the Lord is ready to take him home. Instruments of death cannot kill the believer until God’s plan calls for the believer to die.

The concept

1. Dying grace is like a drawbridge.

2. Ordinarily the drawbridge is let down or controlled from the time side of the chasm.

3. Dying grace is a blessing of supergrace. Therefore the drawbridge is let down on the time side.

4. But in this passage we have the drawbridge let down from the eternity side. There is no death.

5. The same thing will happen to supergrace believers in the Rapture generation.

6. Because the Lord is to meet the Rapture generation in the air that drawbridge called dying grace will not be lowered. Instead, the bridge will be lowered from the eternity side. This means that all carnal believers at the Rapture, all immature believers at the Raptures, all reversionistic believers at the Rapture will also be transferred at the same time. Their transfer is blessing by association.

The doctrine of dying grace

1. Categories of death in the Bible. There are at least seven different categories of biblical death.

a) Spiritual — separation from God in time. This is the fact that we are born spiritually dead.

b) Physical death — the human soul leaves the body.

c) The second death or the final judgement of the unbeliever and fallen angels.

d) Operational death or the believer’s failure to produce divine good — James 2:26.

e) Positional death. This is part of the baptism of the Spirit whereby the believer is identified retroactively with Christ on the cross, therefore he rejects human good and he is identified currently with Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. We are in union with Christ, we share His eternal life, His righteousness, His sonship, His heirship, election, destiny, everything.

f) Temporal death, the believer out of fellowship through personal sin.

g) Sexual death — Hebrews 11:11,12.

2. Bible comments about physical death in general.

a) Death is associated with ending revolution — Numbers 16:25-31.

b) Death is always a matter of the sovereignty of God based upon His perfect character — Psalm 68:19,20.

c) Love is stronger than death — Song of Solomon 8:6. Category #2 love is involved there.

d) God can and does prolong life under certain circumstances — Psalm 102:19,20; 12:23,24; 118:18; Proverbs 14:27.

e) Women must be taught to face the death of loved ones, the woman being a responder in her soul — Jeremiah 9:20-25.

f) The sin unto death does not bring glory to God — Isaiah 38:18.

g) Death cannot be faced when the norms, standards function of the right lobe is destroyed — Lamentations 1:19,20. This is the characteristic of a reversionistic believer.

h) Dying grace is a promotion for the believer — Philippians 1:21.

i) God provides dying grace — Amos 5:8.

j) God delivers the believer from death — Job 5:20; Psalm 33:19; 56:13; 116:8.

3. Definition of dying grace.

a) Dying grace is the death of a mature/supergrace believer.

b) It is the means of transferring the supergrace believer into eternity.

c) Therefore dying grace is the experience of physical death under special blessing, the special provision of grace whereby dying is greater than living. This implies minimum pain, maximum happiness, maximum soul stimulation, maximum utilisation of resident doctrine, and maximum blessing so that dying becomes better than anything you had in life. This is the ultimate in departure from this life.

4. Dying grace is the missing link. There is a relationship between supergrace blessings in time and surpassing grace blessings in eternity or SG³. Dying grace is the missing link between the two, it is the way in which the transfer is made.

5. Dying grace is for the supergrace believer — Psalm 33:18,19.

6. Dying grace removes fear from death — Psalm 23:4.

7. Dying grace, therefore, is a supergrace blessing — Psalm 116:15.

8. Dying grace is the bridge between supergrace blessing and surpassing grace blessing — Hebrews 11:13.

9. The importance of seizing and holding the high ground of supergrace. In the first eight principles of dying grace we have seen how important it is to be in the supergrace status at the point of physical death. The importance of seizing and holding the high ground of supergrace is related to the plan of God in eternity past. In eternity past under the concept of the doctrine of divine decrees God knew about each one of us. He designed some special paragraphs of blessing to give us the maximum that time and eternity have to offer, but they are also designed to glorify God to the maximum. Maximum glory comes to God by way of the fulfilment of these paragraphs. The one who has SG² glorifies God in time. Under SG² the first category of blessing is spiritual blessing, and spiritual blessing means occupation with the person of Christ, sharing the happiness of God, the completion of and ECS, resident doctrine to meet every exigency of life. And then with that we have temporal blessings, and this often becomes a motivator to people but it is a false motivator — to take in doctrine so you can be promoted or very wealthy or successful, etc. All of these things are incidental and God is glorified by giving these things, and there is where the emphasis lies in the glorification of God Himself. Then the third category has to do with dying, so that dying grace is a blessing of supergrace, the greatest blessing in supergrace, the highest blessing of supergrace. But these special blessing are all designed to glorify God, and the link between these two paragraphs, the one that puts the two of them together, is dying grace. So dying grace is described as a bridge going from time to eternity. Therefore the key to everything is being able to seize and hold the supergrace life or to maintain the stability of spiritual maturity. They key there, of course, is continued positive volition toward Bible doctrine. Philippians 3:12-14 is the passage which goes with point 9. “I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” That refers to the doctrine of divine decrees. In eternity past we were seized and held by Christ Jesus, so that we have these special blessings paragraphs from millions of years ago.

10. The relationship between supergrace and surpassing grace, then, is found in dying grace. We live to reach supergrace, we die to get to surpassing grace. Hebrews 11:13.

11. The exceptions to dying grace. a) The disciplinary exception which is known as the sin unto death. This discipline is the exception to dying grace, it includes maximum misery and pressure in time and only increased misery and pressure for the dying stage leading to eternity. And once the believer reaches eternity he has nothing to show for his life on the earth. He has not glorified God in time, he will have no special blessings in eternity by which God is glorified. He is minus SG³ as he was minus SG², and therefore the transition between time and eternity is of the utmost pain, misery, horror, disaster, everything that is monstrous. b) The transfer without dying — Enoch in Hebrews 11:5,6. c) The Rapture generation which will depart from this life without seeing death. The Rapture generation is interesting because at the time of the Rapture there will be supergrace believers, those who have seized and held the high ground and have enjoyed paragraph SG². They will be transferred to eternity and SG³ by way of the Rapture. The question is not what about the supergrace types, but what about the reversionists, the carnal types, those who are not on the high ground. The answer is they are blessed by association and they, too, go into eternity and their status in eternity with regard to blessing is dependent upon the same principles in time.

12. The description of dying grace. Job 5:19-27 has a great deal to say about living and dying and dying grace.

13. Dying grace therefore is an advance on supergrace — Philippians 1:20,21. “To die is gain” — SG³.

14. Dying grace can be accomplished in several ways. There are basically three ways. a) The maintenance of supergrace until death, and this places dying grace in SG² paragraph. This is the normal way for the supergrace believer to be transferred to eternity. It is a part of the supergrace blessing, it is the last one on earth and the best. It also, therefore, makes dying better than any blessing in time. b) A PCS (permanent change of station) from time to eternity, but this time the PCS is accomplished as a part of the paragraph SG^3. This is the case of Enoch. c) The transfer from time to eternity by means of resurrection. This is the Rapture case.

To the unbeliever death is a reminder to be prepared. There is only one preparation for death and this is the important decision of life by which we come to accept Christ as saviour. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares that individual for death in the sense that he will have a resurrection body, that he will have the privilege of living forever in the presence of God. Therefore death is settled by that decision. However, because of the doctrine of surpassing grace and because of the special blessing concept it does become necessary to recognise that for the believer the preparation for death is the constant intake of Bible doctrine, the principle of residency of doctrine in the soul. For the unbeliever the death of others is a reminder of the shortness of time and that time hangs by a very fine thread, a thread that can be snapped at any moment for any one of us. Therefore it becomes important to constantly take in doctrine. Life is a constant preparation for death. Death, therefore, becomes the desert for the supergrace believer. Death is also a reminder of the futility of gain in this life — the futility of profit, the futility of human celebrityship, the futility of everything that is considered important in life — for once a person begins to die all of these things fade away and only eternal things count. Mark 8:36,37.

The death that we are studying is dying grace, something which is fantastic because it sets aside all of the horrors of death. It is a greater blessing than any blessing in life because of who and what Christ is and because of His magnificent provision in the written Word. Death means for us many wonderful things. It means that we have an inheritance which is “incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” Death means fur us, therefore, blessing, for doctrine resident in the soul accumulated day in and day out leads to the supergrace life, and the supergrace life is a life of special blessings designed for you in eternity past — not just special blessings for you but glory for God, for in giving you these blessings under supergrace status it is God who is glorified, we are the beneficiaries. No matter how great are the blessings in life under SG² the blessing of dying is much, much greater. But from the standpoint of those who are left behind it is inevitable that a supergrace believer will leave behind those who love him. Therefore there is the principle of James 1:18, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. ”The perfect gift here is the Lord Jesus Christ who provides for us in living as well as dying, as well as eternity. He is so described as a gift — John 3:16. The gift is described in relationship to the cross in Romans 6:23. So we as believers respond as per 2 Corinthians 9:15 — “Thanks be unto God [the Father] for his unspeakable gift.” And because of this gift and because we have received this gift, and because we have followed the colours to the high ground, then we recognise that our departure from this life is described as a good gift. If you are a supergrace believer it means that you are a good gift to someone in this world. It is inevitable that a supergrace believer will have those in his periphery who dearly love him and totally appreciate him, and therefore he is the good gift. And the departure from this life of that good gift. When God sees fit to take any gift from us by physical death it is always a reminder to us of many things. It is a reminder that for the believer time and eternity are only a temporary separation and that the death of loved ones isn’t the end of anything for we will see them forever and ever and ever in eternity. Loved ones cannot be separated by death because of who and what Christ is.