If you’ve lost a loved one at some point in life, you have definitely heard some of these statements.

Things like, ‘Your loved one is watching over you’, ‘May his soul rest in peace.’ or the classic ‘They’re in a better place’, not considering the fact that person may not be in a better place, sadly.

When my dad passed away, I heard these statements made by a lot of friends and family and I was at a loss on how to respond to them.

Let’s take a look at some of these statements and why we should stop saying these to people who are grieving.

1. May his/her soul rest in peace

Jesus spoke of a rich man who died and went to hell. When he looked up, he saw Abraham and a beggar named Lazarus in heaven and asked them to have pity on him because he was in agony in the fire. ‘But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ Luke 16:25-26

This story teaches us that nothing can change the fate of a person after they have died.

This statement ‘May his/her soul rest in peace’ is also a prayer and we know that praying for a soul after they have died is not a biblical concept. We should pray for the family and friends this person left behind, but not his soul that has already departed. Our eternal destiny cannot be changed after death even if someone living prays.

2. He/she is watching over you

This is one of those statements that make me cringe a little bit. The Bible never says anything about a dead person watching over us from heaven. Our loved ones, if they are with the Lord in Heaven are not sitting around and watching us. They are in the presence of God, why would they sit around to watch over the things happening here on earth? The Bible says that God watches over us and God watched over your loved ones all the days of their lives. Now, they are in His presence. How wonderful is that!

The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalms 121:5-8

3. He/she will always be with you

Yes, I do think of my dad often and he will always have a space in my heart. This does not mean in anyway that my dad is physically or in any other way with me wherever I go.

What you can say instead is, ‘God is with you during this time and He will give you strength for each day’.

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Deut 31:8

4. He/she is in a better place

This is one that I avoid at all costs. This is false hope if the loved one who passed on did not know the Lord. We will be lying to comfort our friends when we know this may not be true.

This leads us to the good old question.

Do all good people go to heaven?

Scripture says, ‘No one is good, except God alone‘. So, the answer is ‘no’. We don’t enter heaven by our good works, but by God’s grace. People who are saved (i.e. those who put their faith in Jesus to save them from their sins and confess Jesus as Lord) go to heaven, not people who do good works or people who went to church every Sunday all their lives.

This is a hard truth but I do believe that finding comfort in false hope is no hope at all.

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There are many things that Scripture says about death but none of the above four statements reflect God’s word. As Christians, we need to do better at comforting our friends and family. The hope we have in Jesus is that our eternal destiny is with Him and death is not the end of our lives but really, just the beginning. What we know about death and eternity is crucial as we live here on this earth.

John 3:16 says ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ This is the promise God has given us, that we will have eternal life in Jesus if we believe in Him.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, He has also set eternity in the human heart; We are all made for eternity but the most important thing in life is knowing where we will be spending eternity. It will be either in Heaven, in the presence of God or in hell with Satan and his fallen angels.

Sadly, a lot of people do not believe in hell and might even be offended I mentioned this. To not believe hell exists or to believe that everyone goes to heaven by default, is to say that God is not just.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Everyone grieves differently. I found comfort in talking to people, writing my thoughts down, reading God’s word and looking at the few photos I had of my dad. Some people are more internal processors. But in any case, we should be weary of what we tell someone who is grieving. One thing we should never do, is dismiss their grief. Please never do that.

Grieving a loved one is a hard thing to do but it is inevitable, we will lose a loved one in this life at some point. I hope this blog helped you in some way. I’ll end with one of my favourite passages of scripture about grieving.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18