马修·麦克劳，《莫忘死：通向永生盼望的惊人道路》，书摘20条20Quotes from a Profound New Book on Death

作者: Ivan Mesa译者: Duncan Liang

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/b1eNDEen9QvhnVnpArUabg

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/20-quotes-book-death/

以下是我读马修·麦克劳，《莫忘死：通向永生盼望的惊人道路》（MatthewMcCullough, Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope, Crossway, 2018）一书的时候让我难忘的20条书摘。

The following quotes caught my attention as I read Matthew McCullough’s thoughtful and profound book Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope (Crossway, 2018).

死的现实远离我们思想时，耶稣的应许常常就似乎与我们的生活脱节。 (19)

When the reality of death is far from our minds, the promises of Jesus often seem detached from our lives. (19)

在你盼望不可朽坏的生命之前，你必须接受这事实，就是你和你关心的每一个人都正在灭亡。你必须认识到，你在这世上能成就、能获得的一切，已经正在渐渐衰败。只有这时，你才会渴望耶稣已经为你成就和获得的那永不衰残的荣耀。你需要认识到，你要失去你在这世上所爱的一切，然后才能盼望要得着那在天上为你存留的基业。(20–21)

Before you long for a life that is imperishable, you must accept that you are perishing along with everyone you care about. You must recognize that anything you might accomplish or acquire in this world is already fading away. Only then will you crave the unfading glory of what Jesus has accomplished and acquired for you. And you need to recognize you are going to lose everything you love in this world before you will hope in an inheritance kept in heaven for you. (20–21)

一旦我们学会看见死的阴影，就能去取用基督的明光。 (23)

 Once we’ve learned to see the shadow [of death], we’ll be able to apply the light of Christ. (23)

如果死对我们说，我们并不是如此重要，以至于我们死不得，那么福音就是对我们说，我们是如此重要，以至于基督已经为我们死。并不是说死论到我们的这信息是错的。这信息没有错。靠着我们自己，我们是可以被替代的。但因着我们与基督联合，我们就是与祂相联，我们就是义人，我们就是神的儿女，神就不会让我们死，正如祂不会让耶稣永远留在坟墓里一样。(24)

If death tells us we’re not too important to die, the gospel tells us we’re so important that Christ died for us. And not because death’s message about us is wrong. It isn’t. On our own, we are dispensable. But joined to Christ, through our union with him, we are righteous, we are children of God, and God will not let us die any more than he left Jesus in the grave. (24)

死不正常。我们回避死这主题，就是行事为人，仿佛死并不真实。我们就是调低耶稣得胜的规模，让它迁就我们现在活在其中的这世界。 (52)

Death is not ok. By avoiding the subject of death, we act like that’s not true. And we shrink down the scale of Jesus’s victory to fit the world we live in now. (52)

如果死不是一个问题，耶稣就不会是一个有多重要的解决之道。我们越深深感受到死的毒钩，我们就要越清醒体会到福音的医治大能。我们越小心数算我们的日子，我们就越欢喜听到死的日子也是屈指可数了。 (52)

If death is not a problem, Jesus won’t be much of a solution. The more deeply we feel death’s sting, the more consciously we will feel the gospel’s healing power. The more carefully we number our days, the more joyfully we’ll hear that death’s days are numbered too. (52)

死对我们每一个人都下了一个判断：你并不是如此重要，以至于你死不得……只要死还只是别人的问题，耶稣就还只是别人的救主。

Death makes a statement about each of us: you are not too important to die. . . . [S]o long as death remains someone else’s problem, Jesus will remain someone else’s Savior. (54, 55)

死并不是仅仅生物生命自然的终结。死是对创造主完美世界的入侵，这同一位创造主设计要通过死说明一个问题。死是对人类骄傲的惩罚，死揭露了我们愚昧的自信，就是我们有自由随心所愿，成为我们想要成为的任何人。 (64)

Death is not the natural end to a merely biological life. Death is an intrusion into the perfect world of the Creator designed by that same Creator to make a point. Death is a punishment for human pride. It exposes our foolish confidence in our freedom to be whoever we want to be. (64)

察觉到我们会死，不退缩逃避这事实，这能帮助我们遏制我们内心的自恋，让我们安稳依靠神的应许。认识到死对我们意味着什么，在此光照下，福音告诉我们，我们很重要，因为我们是蒙神所爱的，但我们蒙神所爱，并不是因为我们很重要。神的爱采取主动，把我们分别出来，重新定义我们是谁。 (70)

An awareness of death that won’t shrink back from the truth can help us to check our inner narcissism and rest in the promises of God. The gospel, seen in the light of what death means for us, tells us we are important because we are loved, not loved because we’re important. God’s love initiates, marks us off, redefines who we are. (70)

因着必死，我们倒不如变得无名好了。我们实质上是在等着时间过去，被人遗忘。但在基督里，我们是父所认识的，直到永远，父认识我们，就像认识祂的儿子一样亲密动情……我们仍要等待，但我们不会被神遗忘。 (76)

Through death we may as well be nameless. We’re essentially waiting to be forgotten in time. But in Christ we are known, eternally, by the Father with the same intimacy and affection he has for his Son. . . . We wait, still, but not to be forgotten. (76)

我们耗尽所有时间和关注，不管多么小心保管我们的东西，或如何一路走来如何自得其乐，我们都只不过是在为别人积累和安排机会，让他们与我们讨价还价罢了。(95)

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bargain prices. (95)

我们经历人生虚空，在这背后的，是我们潜意识企图胜过死亡，却徒劳无功。当工作、快乐、财富或任何别的事情无法按我们的要求起作用，我们就经历这一切的虚空。我们请求它们保护我们免于死亡，让我们人生有意义，是死不能涂抹的。就这目的而言，这些事情是徒劳的。我们是在用纸巾建墙筑顶，让它们给我们遮风挡雨。(99)

Behind our experience of life’s futility is the unrecognized and fruitless attempt to overcome death. We experience futility in work or pleasure or wealth or whatever else when these things are not able to do what we’re asking them to do. We’re asking them to protect us from death—to give our lives meaning that death won’t erase. And for this purpose, they are futile. We’re building walls and roofs out of tissue paper and asking them to give us shelter from the rain. (99)

时间和死亡把生活甜美的时节变成痛苦的回忆，让人想起那失去的一切。 (115)

Time and death turn sweet seasons of life into painful memories of what’s been lost. (115)

死是一种生物事件——心跳、肺呼吸、大脑思想终止——但死也远远不止是这些。你不能把死局限在你生命终止的那一刻。死的影响各处都是。与其说死是一个事件，倒不如说它是一个过程，有最终的高潮——一个虹吸过程，把我们与我们所爱的分开，到了最后，人人都失去了一切。但是当我们认识到这事实，当我们承认这事实，不退缩逃避，我们就上路，更深入更完全以这应许为乐，就是在一个不死的世界里，我们所爱的永不会消失，这世界是复活在祂，生命在祂的那一位应许给我们的。 (115)

Death is a biological event—the end of the heart’s beating, the lungs’ breathing, and the brain’s processing—but it is also far more. There’s no confining death to the moment at which your life ends. Its effects are everywhere. Death is not so much an event as a process with a final culmination—a siphoning process that separates us from what we love so that, in the end, everyone loses everything. But when we recognize this truth, when we acknowledge it and don’t shrink back from it, we join the path to deeper, fuller joy in the promise of a deathless world where what we love won’t ever pass away, a world promised to us by the one who is the Resurrection and the Life. (115)

死让它的毒液渗透进入我们享受的一切，因为我们享受的，没有一样是我们能留住的。时过境迁，最终人人都要失去他们所爱的一切。(117)

Death spreads its poison through everything we enjoy because nothing we enjoy is ours to keep. Time passes, things change, and eventually everyone loses everything they love. (117)

当我们认真思想死，思想死如何吞没我们今生所爱的，我们就预备好了要看到，耶稣要给我们的，就是一直以来我们需要的。耶稣要把永远，不死生命的应许给凡信靠祂的人。这意味着祂要给人喜乐，是不会被哀伤遮蔽的。 (127)

When we think carefully about death and how it swallows up what we love about life now, we’re prepared to see that what Jesus offers is what we’ve needed all along. Jesus offers eternity, the promise of deathless life, to all who trust in him. And that means he offers joy that won’t be clouded by sorrow. (127)

耶稣来要给我们的，就是我们要认识真正长久喜乐就必须得着的。祂给我们的，是我们离不开的。但祂给我们的，常常与我们以为我们需要的有天壤之别。我们常常聚焦我们今生想要的，但耶稣并没有应许给我们更多，却让死最后无论如何都要偷走。祂要给我们的，是死不能触碰的。(134)

Jesus came to offer what we must have if we’re to know true and lasting joy. He offers what we can’t do without. But what he offers is often far different from what we think we need. We’re often focused on what we want from this life. But Jesus doesn’t promise to give us more of what death will only steal anyway. He wants to give us what death can’t touch. (134)

我们意识到自己要死，坦然接受这一点，就能切断对这世上事物那令人心碎的依恋，我们就不再自然而然用物质主义的标准评价耶稣。否则，我们就会好像耶稣起初对他们说话的那些人一样，活着，仿佛死并不是一个问题，怨恨耶稣，因祂不把更多我们今生所要的给我们……耶稣来，要给我们永生，而不是给我们更多东西，然后让死把这些东西偷走。 (136)

Embracing death-awareness is how we strip away a heart-breaking attachment to the things of this world. It’s how we’re weaned from the materialistic standards we would naturally use to evaluate Jesus. Otherwise, like those to whom Jesus first spoke, we’ll continue living as if death isn’t a problem, and we’ll resent the fact that Jesus doesn’t offer us more of what we want from life. . . . Jesus came to give us eternal life, not to give us more stuff for death to steal away. (136)

耶稣的死和复活，还有祂的应许，就是如果我们相信祂，祂也要给我们生命，这一切要重新塑造我们对今生一瞬即逝事物的感受。完全品尝永生甜美的方法，并不是后退，不享用今生的美事，而是把这些美好短暂的欢愉转变成为对那将来无尽筵席的盼望。爱今生和它一切的美好，真实坦诚认识到我们要失去一切，这实际上能强化我们对来生的爱慕。 (138)

Jesus’s death and resurrection, and his promise that he will give life to us too if we believe in him, reframe how we experience the transient things of this life. The way to fully taste the sweetness of eternal life is not to pull back from enjoying the good things of this life, but to leverage these good and passing pleasures into longing for the endless feast to come. Loving this life and all its goodness, knowing with truth and honesty that we’re going to lose everything, can actually deepen our love for the life to come. (138)

一切都取决于耶稣的复活。只有当我们让自己看到死，为死忧伤，我们才会看到这事实。当我们认识到我们与亚当一道死了，我们就准备好了，可以认识到我们要与耶稣一道活着。 (178)

Everything depends on Jesus’s resurrection. We see that truth only when we’ve allowed ourselves to see and to grieve over death. When we’ve recognized our solidarity with Adam in death, we’re ready to recognize our solidarity with Jesus in life. (178)