Death is a terrible thing! It is an alien intruder into God’s good creation. It is a part of the disfigurement of God’s world caused by the entrance of sin and evil into it (Gen 3; Ro 6:23). When His friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept and shook with rage to see the indignity and sorrow that death had inflicted on women and men, who are made in God’s image (Jn 11:28-37).
God hates death. That’s why He sent His Son Jesus into the world to abolish it. He cancelled its cause, sin, by paying its price in His death on the cross; therefore, He reversed death, rising bodily from the dead to eternal life. By faith in Him, we know our sin cancelled and forgiven, and that we too will be raised from the dead to eternal life like Him.
This doesn’t mean that we will never struggle with the fear of death – and that’s ok, because the truth never depends on the strength of our faith, but on Christ’s victory.
Death may still appear like a snake, inspiring some fear, but Christ has removed its fangs; it can do us no ultimate harm.
Apart from Jesus’ victory, death could only be a dark devourer to us. But by faith in Him, we can know that it has lost the power to dominate and disfigure our lives. And we have the greatest hope: resurrection from the dead to eternal life with all of God’s people in a new heaven and earth!
This has to touch and transform our lives, relationships and our world, now, with indestructible purpose and joy.
Grace and great hope, Jonathan.