Yesterday, we concluded by making the point that Jesus’ resurrection is proof that God the Father accepted Christ’s sacrifice for our sins on the cross.
And not only that, the resurrection is also a victory because it shows that the ravages of sin will be reversed—those ravages of sin which affect us in our bodies and eventually bring about our physical death. It shows that death will not have the final word and that one day, those who are in Christ will stand before God, not as disembodied spirits, but rather, clothed in a glorious resurrection body like the body of our Lord.
So I ask the question again, who has the victory? And I answer, not the enemies of Christ. They plotted to do away with Him, and they succeeded, as it seemed, for a time. But Jesus overthrew their plans when He rose from the dead on Easter Sunday morning. Not the devil either. The devil thought he had won. He had finally gotten what he wanted and had Jesus killed. But Jesus, by the cross and by the resurrection, not only triumphed over death, He destroyed Satan and his works forever. Nor does evil have the victory. It, too, seemed to have triumphed– but evil did not have the last word either. By Jesus’ resurrection, He broke the terrors of death forever for those who are in Him.
In the south of England, there’s an old cathedral town known as Winchester. The cathedral is noted for many things, but it has a very tall tower. And part of the lore that goes with that particular church has to do with that tower. That is the place at which news of the Battle of Waterloo first reached England. Of course, they didn’t have any radios or telegraphs in those days. Everyone in England who knew that Wellington had gone out to face Napoleon at Waterloo was waiting for news of the battle. How were they going to find out about it? Well, as soon as the battle was engaged and decided, a ship set sail from the French coast to cross the Channel. And when it was within sight of England, there was a signalman in the tower at Winchester looking out toward the Channel to see what signal the man on the ship would send. And as soon as he received it, he would relay it to a watchman in another tower in the next cathedral city. And on and on this process would go until, eventually, in a very short while, the message reached London and then spread throughout the country. And so all England was waiting.
The day finally came, during the third week in June 1815, when the ship came within sight of the English coast and the signalman on board began his message to the man in Winchester Tower. The first word was “Wellington.” The man in the tower got that down. Then the second word was “defeated.” He put that down, too. But then, as often happens there on the English Channel off the English coast, the fog moved in. And they were unable to see the ship or the signalman, and that was the message that the man in the tower relayed across England: “Wellington defeated.” All England was plunged into gloom.
Several hours went by before the fog lifted. And when it finally did, there was the ship, still in the Channel. And the message continued; there was more. “Wellington defeated” was all that had been seen before the fog rolled in. But then came the last two words of the message from the ship: “the enemy.” What a difference that was! “Wellington defeated the enemy.” And all England that had been plunged into gloom before was now elated that the victory had gone to them.
In a sense, that’s what happened in those days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. After Good Friday, the enemies of Christ exulted. “Jesus defeated” is what they said—defeated by His enemies, defeated by Satan, defeated by evil, defeated by death. And then came the resurrection, and the message continued: “the enemy.” “Jesus defeated the enemy,” and He had done it forever.
Now that’s the message of Easter, but that’s not exactly the message of our text. If you looked at it carefully, you’ll see that what it’s talking about is not the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but our resurrection that we’re to have at the last day when the trumpet sounds. Our passage is really talking about the victory that God gives us through Christ’s victory over death and the grave. You can’t understand our future victory without the prior victory of Jesus. That’s what the chapter does. The chapter is talking about the victory of Jesus Christ, but that’s not what these last verses talk about. These verses apply Christ’s victory to us and say that there is a great victory for everyone who is in Jesus Christ.
Now at this point we might ask, “What kind of victory is that? What form does it take?” There are three things we can say by way of response. First, the victory God gives to those who are in Christ is victory over death’s sting, which is sin. I said earlier that the problem of death is not the separation of the soul and the spirit from the body. The problem of death is the separation of the soul and the spirit from God. The fear of death is not leaving life; the fear of death is passing into an eternity where we suffer God’s retribution for our sin. That’s what makes death so terrible. It’s why people fear it, rightly. But, you see, Jesus, by His death for sin on behalf of His people, removed death’s sting.