FUNERAL HOME RELIGION

By Gary McDade

You attend a funeral and the preacher preaches the deceased right into heaven. For many in the audience this will be the first time they have sat before a preacher in a great while—if ever, so their impression of what religion is all about is framed by the preacher’s glowing commendation of the deceased crossing over to glory. According to the preacher, how he or she lived in this life has no bearing on the eterenal destiny of subject.

From where do such impactful lies come? We have on record one of the most influencial public religious figures in America detailing how all this is supposed to work. He called it a “third stage of sanctification.” Here’s what he said,

“The third stage of sanctification is our ultimate perfection when we will possess absolute holiness. Upon our physical death, the soul and spirit are freed from sin, and in the resurrection, our bodies will be made perfect. We will stand faultless and spotless before Christ” (Dr. Charles Stanley, In Touch Ministries, 2016).

“Funeral home religion,” believed by so many today, insists that all you have to do to be freed from sin is to die!

The truth is “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive ***the things done in his body,*** according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corithians 5:10). Notice the emphasis on “the things done in his body.” It is for those things each person is accountable before God.

The man who promoted “funeral home religion” spent his life repudiating what the Bible says one must do to be “freed from sin” in Romans 6:1-7. In baptism one is “freed from sin.” Jeremiah spoke of such people long ago when he wrote, “Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit” (Jeremiah 7:8).