Because Jesus has removed death’s sting by His death in our place, although physical death comes, for believers what follows is the receiving of our resurrection bodies. This is necessary because, as Paul himself says, flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God. You have to have a resurrection body. We have to lay aside this body in order that we might take on a new body in order to be able to be presented in heaven. The death of believers is not a death for sin because Jesus took that for us. He removed the sting of death for us who trust in Him when He took our sins upon Himself. So the first victory that’s given to us is the victory from the sting of death.
Second, God has also given us victory over the fear of death. Sometimes that’s even a harder thing to appreciate because the former is true whether you feel it or not. But the other involves how we feel about death, how we face death, and how we confront both the death of others and our own death. And sometimes Christians are troubled deeply about death. But as Christians, we can face death with the settled confidence and peace that comes from knowing, as Paul himself says, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Comparing our life here with our life there in the presence of God, we know that to depart and be with Christ is far better.
That’s Paul’s testimony, and it has been proved by the last words of dying Christians. It would be possible to take hours and hours to go through history and record the last words of dying Christians. But let me suggest some of the things that those who have died in the Lord have said. Stephen, the first martyr, whose death is told about in the book of Acts in the ninth chapter, when he was dying, said, “Look, I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” When they were stoning him, he said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And as he died, he imitated his Master and said, “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.”
D. L. Moody, the great evangelist, said as he was dying, “I see earth receding. Heaven is opening. God is calling.” John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, said with great confidence as he died, “The best of all is God is with us.” Roland Hill, a revivalist preacher of the nineteenth century, died repeating a little poem, “And when I’m to die, receive me, I’ll cry, for Jesus hath loved me. I cannot tell why.” Catherine Booth, the wife of the founder of the Salvation Army, said, “The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under but over. Do not be concerned about dying. Go on living well. The dying will be alright.”
That’s the way Christians die. That is not true of unbelievers. You see, it’s a great victory that God gives His people through Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus’ death for us, and His promises, and His resurrection, we are able to sing, as we often do in one of our hymns,
His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.
And then, third, there is victory over death itself. God Himself gives that to us through Jesus Christ. Earlier when I was speaking about the apparent victory of death over all people, I quoted Robert Candlish because he speaks so winsomely about that. At this point in his study, he says something else that is interesting. He picks up on that theme again, that of death swallowing up everybody else. But he says, “The time is coming when death is going to have to give us all back up and when death itself will be swallowed,” which is what our text says.
Here’s the way Candlish puts it, as he imagines Jesus speaking now to death:
Give up My slumbering saints, as you were forced to give Me up. They’re Mine—members of My body, of My flesh, of My bones. They’re a part of me. I am one with them. As long as you keep them swallowed up, you are keeping Me swallowed up. I cannot be held down by you. I have but waited until my body should be complete in all its members down to the very least of them—the very lowest, the very last. And it is complete now. Therefore, give it up. Let it go. What then remains when you have disgorged yourself of all your dead, great and small. This—prepare to meet yourself the doom which you have inflicted upon them. Your turn has come. Oh destroyer, you are yourself destroyed. You who swallowest up others art swallowed up thyself, starved and lean, stripped of all your prey. You yourself are an easy prey to victory.
So I ask again, who has the victory? You know the answer. Jesus Christ has the victory. And because He has the victory, you and I have the victory as well. We have the victory in Him. But, you see, you must be in Him. And so I ask, finally, are you really in Him? It’s not enough to come to church on Easter, as many people do, because you get a warm feeling and because the music is triumphant. And your pleasant experience on Easter has you go home saying, “Well, life can’t be so bad after all.” That’s not the message of the resurrection. It’s not even enough to know these things or even to understand them. What’s required is that you be in Christ, and the way you’re in Christ is by faith. You have to trust in Him. You have to believe on Him. You have to commit yourself to Him. You have to serve Him. And so I say, have you done that? And I ask again, why not? Jesus won this great victory for you.