The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-2, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

In the Bible, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and then in Hebrews 9:27 I saw that it says, “And in as much as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment”….how can we explain that because Lazarus was dead, but then had been raised from the dead, so that would mean that he would have to die a second time?

Answer 

The question he is asking is how can it be that the Hebrews 9:27 passage is all-inclusive, “It is appointed unto men once to die," if Lazarus, in fact, died twice. I’ll ask you a question, Todd, what about Enoch, he didn’t die at all? So, you’ve got at least one person who never died at all and you’ve got Lazarus who died twice, and you not only have Lazarus but a lot of other folks who died twice. In fact anyone who was ever raised from the dead died twice. When Jesus died on the cross it says the graves were opened and all kinds of Old Testament Saints came back to life, so they had to die twice.

Then you have the people that Jesus raised, the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain. You have the ones that were raised by Elijah, the prophet from the dead. All of those people died twice. Then you have to answer the question about what about the “rapture”--a whole population of Christians aren’t even going to die once. They’re going to be raptured to heaven. 

So, what we assume then, from all of that biblical data is that the statement of Hebrews 9:27 is a general statement to which there are by God’s design, certain exceptions. And we need not fear that. It’s still true that it is appointed unto men once to die. That is the norm. Men die. It is extremely unusual when they don’t die and we can count on death. In fact, in history you can count the people that didn’t die by just counting Enoch and maybe Elijah was translated in a whirlwind, but there are less than a handful out of the millions and millions that have died. And of those who have died twice, that’s also a very small group of people who were raised from the dead and yet in the future there will be a whole group of Christians who will miss death because of the rapture. We’d like to be in that group wouldn’t we? But, we just know that the principle of Hebrews 9 is still true, that men die and they die once and then they face God’s judgment. So we take it as a general principle in that regard.