Herman C. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. Dying was once, from a certain point of view, a rather simple matter. A person grew up, took up his life’s work, worked hard (usually without vacation) until he was in his sixties or seventies, and after his “threescore and ten years” or “fourscore years if strength was great,” he died. He never thought of retirement, social security, pension plans, spending his “golden years” profitably. He lived and worked—and went to his eternal reward. As is true of so many things in life, modern...