The next item on Sire’s world-view list concerns the issue of what those with the mindset of the Spirit consider to be the consequence of death. When, out of pride and envy, the man and the woman rebelled against God in the garden of Eden, they were cursed with death:

You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.” Gen. 3:19

In terms of the Spirit’s worldview that we have been exploring here, this ominous piece of poetry indicates that after death comes...disintegration. The human being, like all other creatures returns to the constituents from which it was taken - Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and a few other traces elements depending on their life-style. The gift of life that God extends to us through His Son and by His Spirit returns to it’s owner and the human creature loses her substantiality in the universe. This is what makes the Christian gospel such good news. For those who die in Christ are not lost to creation. As the perfect mediator between created reality and divine reality - between God and creation - the risen and ascended Lord Jesus stands before God as a promise that we shall not be lost. Thus Paul writes to the church in Colossi:

So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God.  When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Col.3:1-4)

God has promised that those who trust that Messiah Jesus is God’s chosen saviour for us have a hope of resurrected life into a new creation because Christ Jesus our mediator has been raised for us. A life after death in a new creation is held in trust for us by the Spirit in the person of the Lord Jesus.  Therefore when we are forced by death to surrender ourselves and our loved ones to the dust, God’s promise is that not only has Jesus defeated death by the power of His Spirit, our share in Jesus’ resurrection will be realized in a new creation free from sin, death and evil:

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe, through Jesus, that God will bring the ones who have fallen asleep with him. (1Th.4:14)