O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
The death of Jesus looked like the end. The apostles were discouraged, the followers were ready to quit, the devil thought he had won a mighty victory. As the song goes, the demons of hell began to cheer, but little did they know that their end was drawing near.
When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he saddled all of humanity with the knowledge of sin. All sin, Romans 3:23 says, and all fall short of the glory of God. And because we sin, we have no access to that Tree of Life that Adam and Eve were able to eat daily. When they ate the fruit of that tree, they were able to live forever.
But when God took them away from that Tree of Life, they began to die.
It took them a long time to die at first. They were still too close to the handwork of God in the creation. They lived for almost a thousand years. When God made something, he made it well. But even though they were very long-loved, they still began to die.
What a shock it must have been when someone caught the first illness, the first cold. When fatigue set in for the first time, or there was hunger, or even a cut. What a shock to see their blood flowing out.
They knew they were mortal now. And when the first person died, they knew that one day they too would die.
And everybody would one day die, because of sin. Including Jesus.
But Jesus didn’t sin (1 Peter 2:22). He did nothing wrong, yet he was mortal and as such would die.
Here was an anomaly. He didn’t sin, so he didn’t participate in what all humanity has in common: sin. Yet he was human, so he had to participate in another thing humanity all has in common: death.
But there is the power. When he died, the devil knew that he had him in his territory now. Death is the realm of satan and he has power there.
Or so he thought.
Because of his sinless life, Jesus was not bound by the fact of sin in his life and the tie all humanity has to Adam. Even though he was human, he didn’t have that tie of sin.
There was no reason for death to hold him. And God brought him back. He was under the power of God. He was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4).
Because of that defeat of death (the one he talked about in Matthew 16:18: all the powers of hell will not conquer it), he gives us the power to overcome through him.
His strength is great enough to compensate for our weakness. We do not have to stay dead any more than he did. He had to die because he was human, so do we. But because he was also God, he didn’t have to stay dead. Neither do we through his grace.
It is only through grace we can come to God. Law gives power to sin, but grace ignores sin. By the death of Jesus, we gain life. And in that life, we gain grace.
When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he saddled all of humanity with the knowledge of sin. All sin, Romans 3:23 says, and all fall short of the glory of God. And because we sin, we have no access to that Tree of Life that Adam and Eve were able to eat daily. When they ate the fruit of that tree, they were able to live forever.
But when God took them away from that Tree of Life, they began to die.
It took them a long time to die at first. They were still too close to the handwork of God in the creation. They lived for almost a thousand years. When God made something, he made it well. But even though they were very long-loved, they still began to die.
What a shock it must have been when someone caught the first illness, the first cold. When fatigue set in for the first time, or there was hunger, or even a cut. What a shock to see their blood flowing out.
They knew they were mortal now. And when the first person died, they knew that one day they too would die.
And everybody would one day die, because of sin. Including Jesus.
But Jesus didn’t sin (1 Peter 2:22). He did nothing wrong, yet he was mortal and as such would die.
Here was an anomaly. He didn’t sin, so he didn’t participate in what all humanity has in common: sin. Yet he was human, so he had to participate in another thing humanity all has in common: death.
But there is the power. When he died, the devil knew that he had him in his territory now. Death is the realm of satan and he has power there.
Or so he thought.
Because of his sinless life, Jesus was not bound by the fact of sin in his life and the tie all humanity has to Adam. Even though he was human, he didn’t have that tie of sin.
There was no reason for death to hold him. And God brought him back. He was under the power of God. He was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4).
Because of that defeat of death (the one he talked about in Matthew 16:18: all the powers of hell will not conquer it), he gives us the power to overcome through him.
His strength is great enough to compensate for our weakness. We do not have to stay dead any more than he did. He had to die because he was human, so do we. But because he was also God, he didn’t have to stay dead. Neither do we through his grace.
It is only through grace we can come to God. Law gives power to sin, but grace ignores sin. By the death of Jesus, we gain life. And in that life, we gain grace.
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