There is nothing dignified about dying. It is the final indignity. Nothing can disguise it. God appointed it so. Efforts by humanists to die with dignity and to teach others to do so are but a feeble resistance to the inevitable command of God. We may die without pain, but scarcely with dignity.
'Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.' This is the penalty of the curse. This was the reward of Adam's sin. When God created Adam, the Bible tells us 'The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils. the breath of life; and man became a living soul'. The punishment for his sin was declared thus: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return'. We all inherit his fallen nature and his curse.
We do not like to think of our earthiness which we share with all creation. 'Surely we are more than dust.' we say. Though our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made, they do revert to dust without question. So we are left to ponder if there is anything about us which makes us special enough to distinguish us from the rest of creation. It is the second part of our text which comes to our aid.
We are different because of our eternal soul, here described as our spirit. It was this which was breathed into man, which makes him essentially different. Of this spirit we read that, while our body returns to the dust, it returns to God who gave it.
This may, with good reason, give us cause for alarm. If we have neglected our spiritual life, we have neglected that which distinguished us from the beasts, and maybe we have (to that extent) become, in modern parlance, beastly. Perhaps we have been refined, but neglected our souls none the less. We do not thereby cease to have a soul to return to its Maker. Jesus said, 'What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'
Immediately we die, our soul ceases to be under our own care. It is under God's direct jurisdiction.
The believer's soul will be with Christ. That of the unbeliever will be tormented until the day of judgment when, in the day of God's wrath, a final account must be given.
Is it well with our souls? Do our souls prosper though we are bodily weak? Soon they will return to God who made them. And what then? Let us resolve to use the time wisely to put our souls right.
As to the bodies of dust -- those of believers will be raised to a glorious, permanent, incorruptible state in that great day when Christ returns.