When you die Psalm 91:16 teaches that God turns death into salvation.
Psalm 91:16
“With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” (ESV)
The last four words of this great, comforting psalm are words of hope: God promises I will “show him my salvation.” That is what awaits you. That is your future.
He is referring to your death. Over the course of Psalm 91 the Lord has promised and described the protection he will give you through the threatening events of life. The Psalm finishes with a promise of long life and then a glorious death—a death described as “salvation.”
Yes, unless you are one of the blessed believers alive when Jesus makes his Second Coming, God your protector will allow you to die. “It is appointed to man to die once,” (Hebrews 9:27). But he is firmly in control of all that precedes this event, all that happens in death, and all that follows as your soul leaves your body. The word God uses to describe those important moments is salvation.
Not the end
He does not use the word extinction, or end.
Not long ago I was discussing spiritual things with someone, and I asked, “What do you believe about life after death? Do you believe your soul lives on after your body dies?”
“No,” he replied. “When you die, that’s it. You cease to exist.”
As he said this, he did not have a happy or hopeful look on his face. That view of death describes an end. No more conscious existence. No more joy, no more hope, no more love or pleasure or sunlight or togetherness. That is the flame of a candle totally extinguished. Snuffed out. Darkness.
God will show you something
No, thankfully to describe the experience of death for his beloved children God uses the word salvation. He says I will “show him my salvation.”
Early one morning last week, when I walked into the kitchen to make my breakfast, my wife, who was sitting at the table in the living room, said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” The table sits beside large windows with a great view from our 20th floor apartment looking west over the city. It was still dark outside. When I came to the window, however, I beheld a large moon shining brightly midway in the heavens. It was not just bright, it was blazing, like a nighttime sun.
I was thankful my wife wanted to show me that. In the same way, when it is time for your body to die, he plans to show you something, and that something is salvation.
With Christ
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). Notice he said believers “never die.” The obvious meaning is, though the body dies the soul never does. That is because when we die he shows us salvation.
As the apostle Paul discussed the possibility of dying, he said he would prefer actually to die because he said “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:20). Explaining further why it would be gain to die physically, he said, “I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (v. 23). That is far better because that is being with Christ, and that is salvation. The soul is not snuffed out; the soul departs to be with Christ.
Transport
And how does the soul get from here to there, from a dying body in a dying world to a glorious togetherness with Christ in the light of his splendor?
When it was time for the prophet Elijah to leave this world, the people around him knew it. His understudy Elisha was with him, and he knew it. As they walked side by side, they met groups of prophets who asked Elisha, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” The prophets also knew this was Elijah’s time.
On Elijah and Elisha walked toward Gilgal. Suddenly, “As they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11).
That is salvation!
Angels by your side
For your promotion to heaven, Scripture does not promise chariots and horses of fire. I will not rule it out, but I am confident that when God saves your soul from your dying body in this dying world, you will at least be accompanied by angels.
In Jesus’ parable about the rich man and poor Lazarus, he described Lazarus’s death this way: “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side” (Luke 16:22).
Jesus also describes the involvement of angels with human souls when he makes his Second Coming to the earth: “He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31).
Psalm 34:7 says, “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.” If one or more angels camp around God-fearing believers at all times, it makes sense that those angels also escort their souls to the presence of the Lord in heaven.
Welcomed by the Lord
Early in the book of Acts we read about Stephen, a man filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit, who was doing great wonders before the people of Israel and proclaiming the gospel with power. Nevertheless, the Lord in his wisdom chose that Stephen would glorify his Lord through a martyr’s death.
On trial before the religious leaders of Jerusalem, Stephen presented the gospel, courageously holding nothing back from those complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus.
His defense was not well received. “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’” (Acts 7:54–56).
Although Jesus normally sits at the right hand of God, he is described as “standing” at the right hand of God, apparently giving Stephen a glorious welcome into his presence. That is not death; that is salvation. Stephen’s opponents would stone him, but the Lord would save him. The Lord would not protect him from death, but through death, and into paradise.
From beginning to end, to your new beginning, the Lord will never stop protecting and saving you. That is the message of Psalm 91.
And so we conclude this comforting journey through one of the greatest of God’s psalms. Never fear, child of God. The Lord has you in his hands. God is your protector.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)