04 - Death Died A.D. 33 By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

1 Cor. 15:55-57 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. 57 But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ."

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Now, if you were to ask me today, "Jeff, why did Jesus come?"

I would answer, "Jesus came to bring eternal life to those who place their faith in Him, and His resurrection was necessary to achieve that."

The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead was the final nail in the devil's coffin.

On the Cross Jesus defeated sin, and in His resurrection He defeated death!

The Bible reveals the Old Testament anticipates His resurrection, and the New Testament celebrates it.

If the Bible were a good novel, Jesus would be the main character and His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead would be the main theme and climax of the book...

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FACT: If there is no resurrection of Christ from the dead, there is no Christianity...PERIOD.

And if He did not rise from the dead, Paul the Apostle writes, "...then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty....and you are still in your sins." (1 Cor. 15:14, 17)

But then Paul writes, "But now Christ is risen from the dead!" (15:20)

And because He arose, those who believe on Him receive ETERNAL LIFE!

The best known Bible verse of all time is about ETERNAL LIFE,

"For God so loved the world He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

This was Jesus' mission, His ultimate purpose.

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But why the emphasis on eternal life?

Why did Jesus talk so much about it, and why did the disciples preach it like a broken record?

To find the answer we must go back to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden, and to Adam and Eve's transgression.

God had warned the first couple that, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely DIE" (Gen 2:16-17).

This is the first time we hear the word "DIE" in the Bible.

And we have to assume that, since death would only occur if Adam and Eve disobeyed God, It was God's original plan that they would never die, but would have ETERNAL LIFE!

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It is interesting to me that this issue of dying is what the devil chose to undermine when he came to seduce Eve into sinning.

His chief point of attack was to tell her she would not "DIE" if she ate of the forbidden tree.

"Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die.'" (3:4)

We could paraphrase that to say, "You won't lose your eternal life!"

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You know the rest of the story...

The first couple DID disobey God and DEATH entered the human race.

A couple of chapters later, God makes sure we notice that DEATH was the CONSEQUENCE of their sin.

Seven times in chapter 5 God punctuates the end of someone's life with three somber words..."and he died."

It says, "Adam lived 930 years...and he died."

Seth lived 912 years...and he died.

Enosh lived 905 years...and he died.

Canaan lived 840 years...and he died.

So Satan LIED and mankind DIED!

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Paul the Apostle in the New Testament weighs in on this with the same conclusion:

1 Cor 15:22 "...in Adam all have died."

Romans 5:12 "...through one man sin entered the world, and DEATH through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all have sinned."

Death is the number one consequence for sin...SIN has brought death to the entire human race.

Paul illustrates this in 1 Cor. 15: 55 by saying that SIN is like a bumblebee that has a stinger, and sin's stinger is death.

"The sting of death is sin..."

When a person sins, that sin is like a bee with a stinger, and the sting brings death.

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And overnight, DEATH became the number one GUN in the devil's arsenal against mankind.

Through DEATH Satan brought the entire human race into great fear and bondage...

Heb. 2:15 describes the human race as those who...."Through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread."

Death is that distant specter drawing ever closer the older we get...

It's the grim reaper that inevitably knocks on everyone's door....

It cares not for age, pedigree, or circumstances....

It shatters hope, breaks hearts, and short circuits dreams.

Though we do ALL we can to put it off as LONG as we can, it comes to all.

Death has a 100% success rate!

Reflecting on his father’s death, actor Bradley Cooper told a magazine editor, “All of a sudden I was like, ‘Oh, right, I’m going to die too.’ Here it is. It’s not in a book. It’s not in a movie. … It’s someone you love dying in front of you. I was like, ‘OK. This is death. And this is going to happen to me one day.'”

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Now, what Easter is all about is Jesus came to restore what was lost in the Garden--which was our relationship with God, and our eternal life!

This is why so much of what Jesus said had to do with this very thing!

Jesus said, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son, and believes on him, may have EVERLASTING LIFE: and I will raise him up (from the dead) at the last day" (John 6:40).

When speaking with the two sisters, Mary and Martha, Jesus promised:

"I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying" (John 11:25).

"And whoever lives by believing in me will never die." (11:26)

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So what Jesus came for was to undo what sin had done, and that meant defeating death and restoring eternal life to humanity!

He came to take the stinger out of the bumblebee of death!

This is why everything was riding on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead...

If Jesus didn't rise then all of His words, promises, and credibility were gone.

For Jesus had repeatedly said in front of many witnesses that He would rise from the dead on the third day...

Matt. 16:21 records, "From then on Jesus began to speak plainly to his disciples about going to Jerusalem, and what would happen to him there—that he would suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders, that he would be killed, and that three days later he would be raised to life again."

Matt. 17:22-23 "One day while they were still in Galilee, Jesus told them, “I am going to be betrayed into the power of those who will kill me, and on the third day afterwards I will be brought back to life again.”

Matt. 20:19 "And they will hand me over to the Roman government, and I will be mocked and crucified, and the third day I will rise to life again.”

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These predictions of Jesus are why the Romans took so much care to guard the tomb, lest someone steal His body away and claim that He rose from the dead.

Pontius Pilate ordered that they "make the tomb secure, sealing the stone and posting a guard" (Matt. 27:65).

They sealed the stone with the Roman insignia, and placed a guard of soldiers...

A "guard" was a squad of anywhere from 30-50 soldiers.

Imagine that!

A gigantic boulder was rolled over the tomb, a Roman seal placed on the boulder, and 30-50 strong, war-hardened soldiers to guard the tomb of a dead man!

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But nothing could stop what God had ordained for our redemption...

The only way to describe what happened on the third day is to say it's indescribable!

Scientists can't explain it, philosophers can't understand it, logic won't solve it, and history can't erase it.

What happened is PURE MIRACLE!

On that third morning, the power of God entered the tomb where Jesus lay and touched the dead body of His only Son...

As Peter told some religious leaders later on..."And you killed the Author of Life; but God brought him back to life again. And John and I are witnesses of this fact, for after you killed him we saw him alive!" (Acts 3:15).

Jesus rose from the dead!

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Now, here's the bottom line:

When Jesus arose, the power of death was broken, and eternal life was restored to those who believe on Him!

DEATH DIED IN A.D. 33!

Back to the bee sting for a moment:

When honeybees sting, it’s a one-time experience for them because once they sting someone, they will not survive.

Not only is the bee’s stinger left in its victim, but part of the bee’s abdomen and digestive tract are left there as well, along with muscles and nerves.

This massive abdominal rupture kills the bee shortly after it stings.

In the same way, when Jesus died on the cross, Satan thought he had succeeded.

He thought he had stung Jesus and had a role in his death.

But the sting of death was Satan’s own defeat.

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The Bible says, "...Jesus became flesh and blood...by being born in human form; for only as a human being could he DIE and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of death" (Heb. 2:14).

This is why the Apostle Paul shouts defiantly…

“Where, O death is your victory?”

“Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15: 55)

You see, death left its sting in Jesus, just like a bee leaves its stinger in its victim.

A bumblebee without its stinger still looks threatening, but it can’t do you any harm.

The same is true of death – it looks ferocious, but because Jesus defeated it, death has no sting.

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This is what Easter is all about!

Have you looked to Jesus for eternal life?

Has your sin been forgiven through His death on the Cross?

Would you like to have the peace that comes from knowing that your sins are forgiven?