What is the blessed hope of a believer regarding death?
The believer's blessed hope is resurrection with Christ. Having been planted together in the likeness of His death, the believer can live and die with the prospect that the best is yet to come, because death for the saint is glorious and leads to something far better.
Les explains that this hope rests on being planted together in the likeness of Christ's death. If a person honestly believes that Christ died his death, then he shall also be with Him in resurrection. That is the blessed hope: believers are not just going to live and die like a dog, and they do not have to live and die with the prospect of eternal doom. They can live and die with the prospect that the best is yet to come. Les notes that one old Reformer said the greatest thing that can happen to the believer is to die. Death for the saint is glorious—just on to something far better. But for those who have not experienced this identification, death is something to be feared, because it goes not to something better but to something a thousand, a million times worse.