Death Vanquished!!!

What a glorious headline to wake up to one morning, particularly in the midst of the present deadly pandemic. It would far surpass in glory headlines from the moon landing or the victorious end to the two world wars.  And the reason is obvious; death with all of its accompanying sorrow, pain and grief, has and continues to reign over the human race and in nature since it entered the world through the first man, Adam. (Romans 5:12)

Death is inevitable, medical science has no answer for it and no one escapes it. We joke of the certainty of death and taxes, however the rich can sometimes avoid the latter but never the former.  The law of sin and death put forth in the Bible is always in force, we daily walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and as that famous TV lawyer/philosopher Perry Mason once noted, “the Four Horseman have always been riding.” (Revelation 6:2-8) Funerals and obituaries regularly remind us that death, physical death, is an appointment we all must keep.  It can come suddenly or after a prolonged physical illness. Ultimately though, the day and way are in the hands of God.  (Deuteronomy 32:39)

Death is something we rarely talk about in polite company, and which few of us plan well for, despite its inevitability. It is certainly not something we generally look forward to, despite the trite comment we make to someone who has recently lost a loved one “Well, we know they are in a better place”.

The Bible presents death as an enemy, a violent intruder into God’s good and perfect creation, diminishing and ultimately ending the abundant life with God that man was created to enjoy.  As I noted in my previous post, death is the penalty, the satisfaction of divine justice for sin, sin being the rejection of God’s rightful authority over our lives, displayed in our transgressions of God’s laws, laws given for our good.

God warned Adam immediately after giving him life that disobedience to His law would result in death; spiritual death in which He and all who would proceed from him would be cut off from the glorious life with God for which man was created and subsequently physical death, separation from life in this world. It included what the Bible refers to as the “second death”, when upon our physical death we are cut off from life with God forever, confined to a place the Bible refers to as “the Lake of Fire.” (Revelation 20:14-15) 

However, God in omniscient wisdom and omnipresent love  (John 3:16), planned from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), before He created time, to destroy sin and abolish death in His good and perfect creation, providing a means for sinful men and women to be forgiven of their sins, reconciled to God and rescued from the second death.  (2 Timothy 1:8-12)

His plan would be revealed through the nation Israel and enacted progressively through human history, culminating with the coming of Jesus Christ, God the Son, into this world for the express purpose of saving sinners from the power, penalty and presence of sin in their lives, and its horrific eternal consequence of death.  (1 Timothy 1:15-16)

Jesus would come in the form of a man so that through His perfectly obedient life, His agonizing death on the cross where he took sin’s penalty upon Himself, and in His miraculous resurrection, He could forgive the sins of and grant eternal life  (John 17:3) to whoever would believe on Him as their all sufficient savior from sin and death and submit to Him as Lord (the ultimate authority in their life).  (Romans 10:8-13)

The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 2:6-7 that for those who do believe, Jesus will be “precious,” more valuable to them than anything else in this world, loved with all their heart and soul and mind and strength for who He is as the infinitely glorious God, and for what He has done for them in rescuing them from death and granting them eternal life. (Luke 10:25-28)   I pray that if you have not believed on Jesus in this way, you would do so today.

Grace and Peace ×