Er døden en fjende eller en vinding? - Menighedsfakultetet

Klaus Højgaard Laursen Bacheloropgave i NT eksegese foråret 2009
English abstract
Problem statement:
“Death – an enemy or gain?
Study of the outline of Paul's description of death, particularly in
1 Corinthians 15:26 and Philippians 1:21f”.
Is death an enemy or gain? Some say at funerals that it is a good thing that he or she now can rest in
peace, but what do we really know about this? Is there hope, or is death a terrible enemy that shows
up in the end and takes our beloved away.
1 Corinthians 15 is about hope. Some had said that there was no resurrection from the dead, but
now Paul says that Christ is risen from the dead, and this gives hope that all Christians are going to
rise from the dead. But in the centre of this, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:26 that death, as the last
enemy, will be defeated in the parousia. This means that death is not finally defeated.
In Philippians 1:21 Paul can say that to him “to die is gain”. Is it possible that death is an enemy to
some but gain to others? Whether death is gain is to Paul inextricably linked with, whether life is
Christ. If life is not Christ, then death is not gain but a terrible enemy because the dead person must
meet God as judge. But as a Christian, one has part in the death and resurrection of Christ and has
nothing to fear in death. One has gone over from death to life. Jesus says: “He who believes in me
will live, even though he dies”.
This means that death is an enemy if one is not able to say like Paul that “to live is Christ”. And at
the same time death is gain to the individual Christian, because it leads into a deeper community
with Christ.
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