While at college in the University of the Philippines, Quezon City in the 1060s, I used to visit a Protestant church on Taft Avenue in Manila, where I once heard the choir sing an intriguing anthem, titled “Open Our Eyes.” It was a prayer song asking our loving and compassionate Lord Jesus to open our eyes so that we may behold Him “walking beside us in our sorrows.” And boldly affirming that “Thou hast made death glorious and triumphant!” And why? “For through its portals we enter into the presence of the living God.”
Recently I read a devotional on my android phone that reminded me of this anthem. The devotional began:
Billy Graham died on 21 February 2018 at the age of ninety-nine. As a messenger of God, he had planned his own funeral very carefully to be a call for people to put their faith in Jesus. He had said beforehand, “Someday you will read that ‘Billy Graham is dead.’ Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.
Graham’s last statement echoes what the apostle Paul wrote to the brethren, in Philippians 1:23 – “For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart [die] and be with Christ [in heaven], which is better [for him, being assured of his salvation]. Nevertheless [for me], to remain in the flesh is more useful for you [as he could continue to reap fruit from his labor with them]. See: “Paul’s Dilemma in Philippians 1:22-24.”]
For all his stature as an evangelist, by saying that at his death he would be more alive than while he had lived on earth, Graham completely missed God’s plain revelation in Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, about the status of the dead: “For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten [they are completely unconscious], also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished. Nevermore will they have any share in anything under the sun” [emphasis added].
How could Graham be more alive in his death than in his life? It is a contradiction in terms! As I explain in my above-cited article, it is only man’s spirit – not man’s whole person [body, soul and spirit – that goes back to God at one’s death (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7). [See: “What Happens to Man After Death?”]
Surely, Graham must have studied 1 Corinthians 15 [the “resurrection chapter”], which clearly asserts that we do not receive a spiritual, immortal body like that of Jesus at His resurrection, until Christ returns to earth to set up God’s kingdom here – hopefully soon! In his enthusiasm to say that he would be more alive in his death than in his life, Graham got his timing wrong!
The author/composer of the anthem “Open Our Eyes” must have had in mind Paul’s desire to depart [die] and be with Christ. But, as my earlier-cited article explains, Paul had a different context than that of the composer. And certainly, the anthem composer missed what the Bible says Jesus has made “glorious and triumphant.” Not death, but the saints’ resurrection to life at Christ’s soon return (1 Corinthians 15:51-55)!
In fairness, though, we do “enter into the presence of the living God” when we pray to Him. It is like appearing before the court of the king in order to offer him our praise or to make our requests known. If we believe that God is real and alive, we would indeed feel as though we are in His presence when we pray. But it doesn’t take our death in order to experience that!
Pedro R. Meléndez, Jr.
30032026/25042026