For as long as anyone can remember, death has reigned on the earth.
“Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Because of Adam’s transgression, everything living is held under death’s sway:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth… before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Death is not a rightful ruler, but a usurper appointed by God to curse the earth and subject it to futility. It is not a part of the way things were meant to be, but an enemy, a destroyer, an abomination that causes desolation.
But praise be to God that by His unfathomable wisdom, Jesus has defeated death by submitting Himself to it. No one took His life from Him; He laid it down of His own accord, and three days later took it back up again. His resurrection is the ruination of death’s reign, and His eternal life guarantees its ultimate destruction.
“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
Death itself has been sentenced to death, and one day soon that judgement will be executed:
“Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.”
Then the new heavens and the new earth will teem with indestructible life:
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”
By dying on the cross, Jesus put death to death so that we might live. Praise His holy name!
“May your hearts live forever!”