"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." — Psalm 23:4

Quiz on What the Bible Teaches about Death and Dying

Spelling counts on "fill in the blank" questions. Commentary on your answers is provided, with your score, when you click "Grade it!"

1. Complete the verse: " in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints."


2. No one in Bible history surpassed Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, in longevity, but which of these six other people had the longest lifespan?

M. Isaac   O. Elijah   R. Jacob   T. John (apostle)   E. Abraham   S. Sarah  


3. The Bible clearly teaches that conscious existence continues for every human being following physical death. Choose the term or phrase that the Bible does NOT use to describe the status of someone who has departed this life, for well or for woe:

D.  Present with the Lord
E.  Abraham's bosom
P.  In torments
A.  In a better place
R.  Paradise
T.  Where the worm does not die, and the flame is not quenched


4. "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death…that is, the ."


5. T or F: According to the Bible, death is just as natural to human existence as is birth.

TRUE   FALSE


6. This religious body holds to the unbiblical concept that death is only an illusion:

M.  Latter Day Saints
I.  Christian Scientists
S.  Eighth Day Submersionists
T.  The Invisible Church
A.  Campbellites
K.  Baptepiscopresby Methodists


7. is the false teaching that after physical death, souls return to live another life on Earth.


8. According to the apostle James, this member of the body is full of DEADly poison:

W.  the tongue
H.  the eye
A.  the heart
T.  the gall bladder


9. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." (Luke 9:23). Which explanation of this saying is the most Biblically accurate?

D.  Truly following Christ is costly, and will mean making sacrifices and facing opposition for His sake. The disciple's walk is one of being "dead to self" and alive to God in Christ.
E.  Serious discipleship means a life of the most severe austerity in which all pleasure must be put to death.
A.  Christians should actively seek a glorious death by martyrdom.
T.  A believer must not only have a stock of Christian t-shirts, but a wear a pendant or necklace cross ornament every day.
H.  These words applied only to the apostles. Jesus meant "if anyone of you twelve", etc.


10. Complete the verse: "The days of our lives are years; and if by reason of strength they are years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (Each blank is one word.)


11. T or F: Jesus Himself rose from the dead, and He raised Lazarus and others from the dead. The Bible tells us of two people who never experienced physical death at all.

TRUE   FALSE


12. Complete the verse: "Therefore, just as through one sin entered the world, and through , and thus death spread to all , because all sinned …" (Each blank is one word, and they must appear in the order given in the text.)


13. In what did the patriarch Isaac find comfort, following the death of his mother Sarah?

G.  Dreaming about the riches he would inherit when his father Abraham died.
R.  Hunting
I.   Prayer and Meditation
E.   His marriage to Rebekah
F.   His work


14. The death of this faithful apostle is recorded in the Bible:

A. Judas   D. Paul   O. John the brother of James  
Z. Peter   E. Bartholomew   N. James the brother of John


15. T or F: The Fall of Man in Eden is called the first death. The end of physical life on Earth is called the second death. Eternal condemnation in hell is called the third death.

TRUE   FALSE


16. The idea that the death of a human being brings about the end of his or her existence, completely foreign to the Bible, is called:

E. Soul Sleep   T. Limboism   R. Annihilationism  
N. Cessationism   A. Infralapsarianism   L. Pantheism


17. When the pharaoh asked Moses to, "...entreat the LORD your God, that He may take away from me this death," pharaoh was referring to:

E.  The bloodied water of the Nile
X.  An angel
O.  The plague of locusts
D.  Aaron's rod
U.  The plague of the death of the first born
S.  The effect on Egypt's economy created by the Hebrew slaves' observation of the sabbath


18. T or F: The Bible teaches that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ did not begin to decompose between the time of His real, physical death and His resurrection on the third day after.

TRUE   FALSE


19. At 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul wrote that the ministry of the apostles was a matter of "always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." Which is the best explanation of what this means?

S.  Each apostle always carried a fragment of wood from the cross. When they knelt and prayed before the fragments, miraculous things would happen.
H.  It refers to such occassions as when Paul was stoned and left for dead, but survived to go on in his ministry (Cf. Acts 14:19,20).
O.  It is a reference to the elements (bread and the fruit of the vine) of the eucharistic or communion ordinance, also called the Lord's Supper, which the apostles were ever careful to administer and instruct about.
W.  Being united to Christ, their ministry made manifest His victory through suffering, His attaining to immortality through death. Christ was not only preached by them, but displayed by their walk.


20. At 1 Corinthians 15:25,26 we read of the presently risen, reigning Lord Christ: "For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death."

Yet the same apostle (Paul) wrote to Timothy of "...our Savior Jesus Christ, Who HAS abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" . (2 Timothy 1:10)

Is death already destroyed, or is it yet to be destroyed? Which of the following statements BEST reconciles these two apparently contradictory statements?

G.  This is a Bible blooper. Whatever you do, don't tell the skeptics about this!
O.  Obviously, DESTROYED and ABOLISHED have vastly different meanings.
N.  In the 1 Corinthians passage, Paul is writing from the perspective of the Old Covenant saints who looked forward to the coming of death's Conqueror. In his letter to Timothy, he is writing of what has become a present reality.
E.  Those spiritually united to Christ are spiritually united to His death AND resurrection…the redeemed soul already has the eternal life he or she will enjoy in its consummate glory in Heaven. Both statements are accurate and true.
R.  President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation abolished American slavery and caused liberty's light to shine upon the former slaves. But it did not result in instantaneous, real time freedom for them. So here, there remains a future point where death, abolished in principle already, will cease in all ways for the redeemed.


21. No quiz on death and dying would be complete without a question on CREMATION. Choose the statement you believe best expresses a Biblical view of it:

B.  There is no precedent for it among the people of God, burial prevailed in all ages. It is best to stick with that, although cremation is not sinful.
U.  This is a private matter for the family of the deceased to make decisions about. Churches should not make rules that bind consciences where Scripture has not.
R.  Cremation always should be chosen by Christians because it is the most sanitary, economical, and expedient way to dispose of human remains. "Cleanliness is next to godliness."
N.  Cremation is inherently sinful and was only practised by pagan cultures.
T.  Cremation is fine, but the ashes of the deceased should be buried thereafter to avoid the pitfall of the veneration of relics, i.e. urns.


22. Choose the most Biblically sound statement about the origin of death for animals.

A.  Animals did not die before sin came into the world. Death for animals came in the wake of the death promised to man if he disobeyed God.
B.  Animals died when used for food by man from creation onward, and as religious sacrifices after sin entered.
C.  There is probably a need to make a distinction between the kinds of animals we call "domesticated" and others such as insects and bacteria in order to wisely address this issue.
D.  To compare the death of animals and humans is to compare apples and oranges. For people, physical death is either the entrance into an eternal state of punishment and misery, or it is the portal to an everlasting, greater life in Heaven. The death of an animal is simply the end of its existence.


23. The Bible records that Jesus raised various people from the dead. Writing of the time of His crucifixion, Matthew (27:52,53) affirms that "...the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many."

The Bible does not specifically tell us what became of these folks after they rose from the dead. Which of the following reflections about this do you find to be most in accord with the general teaching of Scripture?

W. They died again physically and returned to the grave to await their final resurrection...the eternal one which all mankind will share…both the redeemed and the damned. 
H. God would not require them to endure physical death twice. After their resurrections, they were all taken bodily into heaven. 
A. They remain physically alive on Earth to this day, God in His almighty power providing a divine version of a "witness protection program" which keeps them unknown and undetectable. Your next door neighbor might be nearing 2,000 years in age. 
T. I consider speculation about this matter to be vain and unprofitable.


24. At Genesis 2:17 we read "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." One English translation renders the second phrase, "when you eat of it you will surely die."

Yet after they ate the fruit, they went on to have children: Cain, Abel, Seth, as well as other sons and daughters. We are told that Adam reached 930 years of age! Why did not Adam and Eve drop dead on the spot, when they ate the forbidden fruit?

D.  The instantaneous loss of their perfect communion with God and sinless innocence was a sudden death such as we who are BORN spiritually dead in trespasses and sins cannot imagine.
U.  Looks like the devil got one right!
S.  The word "day" is not to be taken literally. "...Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" writes the apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:8). Adam's near thousand year lifespan was like one day with God.
T.  God's plan to save, announced by Him right after Adam and Eve sinned and decreed by Him from eternity, superceded the temporal threat of death upon disobedience.


25. At Matthew 8:22 we read: Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead," and at Luke 9:60, similarly: Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God." Choose the best explanation of what Jesus meant by this saying, "let the dead bury their own dead."

L.  It shows that He believed in zombies and nosferatu.
A.  It is simply a way of emphasizing the surpassing importance of following Him and serving the kingdom of God over all else. The expression could be likened to His statement that one must "hate" family members and even his own life to be His disciple (see Luke 14:26). Jesus is not teaching hatred, but affirming in powerful figurative language that love for Him, God incarnate, must far surpass all other loves, even love for one's own life.
S.  It reflects His recognition of what the Bible teaches in many places, that those physically alive but still in their sins and alienated from God are spiritually dead already. He is saying, "let the spiritually dead bury their own physically dead ones."
T.  The statement shows how the ever heavenly minded Christ trivialized burial rituals. It's as if He is saying, "I've brought resurrection power into the world! Just forget all this gloomy, funereal stuff!"