The Conquest of Death

The Conquest of Death

Hope has a Name!

Philippians 3:10 NKJV

10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

Revelation 1:18 KJV

18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Death is a bleak fact that has confronted every individual ever born.

None can escape it, for “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27).

A gloating, uninhibited enemy, death has stalked and claimed its prey throughout human history.

Always triumphant, it comes with no respect of persons.

It claims the rich as well as the poor,

the powerful as well as the weak,

the young as well as the old.

The tenacious grip of death is unrelenting.

Sometimes its victims are snatched suddenly from life.

Sometimes life ebbs slowly away.

But however it occurs, death is certain.

Sorrow, grief, and an interrupted and altered lifestyle follow in its wake.

The reign of death began as the result of transgression against divine commandment.

Adam and Eve sinned against God in disobedience.

Consequently, the access to the Tree of Life, which would have enabled man to live forever, was blocked.

Death came, as God told Adam it would, when the Word of God was violated.

Imagine the trauma of Adam and Eve as they discovered the unresponding, lifeless form of Abel. This was death!

But all was not hopeless, deep despair.

The “last Adam,” Jesus Christ, came and was made a quickening (life-imparting) spirit.

Christ conquered!

Death was not merely challenged, but defeated:

“Death is swallowed up in victory” (I Corinthians 15:54).

For “now is Christ risen from the dead. . .” (I Corinthians 15:20).

He is alive forevermore!

Jesus Christ came to “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). The former enemy has now become, for those who are prepared, the very entrance into eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Event of Christ’s Resurrection

The word resurrection means “a rising from the dead or coming back to life; the state of having risen from the dead.”

Christ died. Life had gone from His body.

This was witnessed by the centurion and those Romans soldiers who were with Him, as well as others such as

Mary Magdalene,

Mary the mother of James and Joses, and

the mother of Zebedee’s children.

They watched as Jesus the Christ was crucified, executed as a common criminal.

They heard Him as He cried with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost.

Some of the women observed as Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus “took . . . the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40).

They then laid the body in Joseph’s new tomb, which was hewn out of rock, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre.

They had done what they could.

The chief priests and the Pharisees made the sepulchre sure by having the stone sealed and setting a watch.

They would make sure that none of His disciples could steal the body and then report that Jesus had risen from the dead.

It all seemed so final, so conclusive. It was over; Jesus was dead! But it all had only begun. They did not comprehend, but it was all in His plan.

Christ had taught the disciples that He was going to suffer and be killed (Matthew 16:21).

But He also taught them that the Son of Man would rise again from the dead (Matthew 16:21; 17:9).

There would be a resurrection.

Alas! They would believe it only after they saw it.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the sepulcher in the early dawn of the first day of the week.

To their amazement, they found the stone rolled away, the body of Jesus missing, and an angel to instruct them that the Lord had risen.

Matthew 28:2–4 NKJV

2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. 3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.

The angel did not roll back the stone for the purpose of Christ making an exit;

Christ was already gone!

Rather, the angel of the Lord rolled away the stone to prove to the women the truth of the statement he was about to make:

“Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified” (Matthew 28:5).

Then came that glorious announcement, proclaimed in utter and eternal triumph:

“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (Matthew 28:6).

The tomb was empty. Jesus was gone. They had the glorious news that Jesus is alive!

The women departed quickly to take the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to His disciples, who were not easy to convince.

But when they saw Him, they were glad.

The news of the resurrection created fear in the hearts of the religious leaders,

who tried to suppress truth with lies.

They paid the soldiers to say that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus.

The Power of Christ’s Resurrection

Even as Christ died, the power of His death and His resurrection was attested to by an unprecedented event. The bible says

“The earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many”

(Matthew 27:51-53).

The resurrection and appearance of those who had died proclaimed that the death of the one on the middle cross had swallowed up death in victory.

Their resurrection was also a symbolic verification of Christ’s teaching that He is the resurrection.

The appearance of the resurrected saints in Jerusalem should have given credence to the Jews of Christ’s teaching of the resurrection and judgment.

He had told them that all would be raised from the dead to stand before the Judge of all, some to receive life and others damnation.

In Christ’s resurrection is revealed the power to perform all that He taught concerning the fact of the resurrection of all persons.

Moreover, it revealed that death is not the end!

Beyond the grave is a judgment, and then heaven or hell.

While there are many who scoff at the idea of a resurrection and of a judgment, their unbelief does not nullify what Christ’s resurrection verifies.

The Glory of Christ’s Resurrection

Matthew 17:1-2 gives us the realization that there was a glory, a splendor, about Christ that was concealed while here in an earthly tabernacle. The “divine rheostat” was turned up several degrees before the eyes of Peter, James, and John while on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke wrote that “they saw his glory” (Luke 9:32).

The Lord was endeavoring to convey to these three apostles that there was a glory yet to come, and it is connected with the life that lies beyond the veil of mortality. The two persons appearing and conversing with Christ, Moses and Elijah, were men who had already passed the veil of mortal existence. Christ instructed the three chosen viewers that they were to tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. He had given them a little insight as to life’s continuance after death, even though they did not grasp it at the time.

When Christ had risen from the dead, He further demonstrated the superiority of the afterlife.

Though the doors were closed, He appeared suddenly in a room, conversed with the disciples, and then disappeared from their midst. He thus demonstrated to them that the spiritual body is not limited by the things which govern a natural body.

But perhaps the greater glory and truth that Christ wanted the disciples to comprehend, as He appeared unto them after the resurrection, was that total peace and deliverance from fear was possible. He said, “Peace be unto you” (John 20:19).

They feared for their safety. They were afraid of the Jews who had crucified their Leader. Then Christ appeared, totally calm, completely whole, and very much alive.

“Peace be unto you.” By His appearance and statement, Christ gave them an unspoken message of an inner assurance of a knowledge of the heart that conquered the fear of death. His presence gave them an inner calm, a peace that passed all understanding.

The Hope of Our Resurrection

Christ, the firstfruits.

There are scriptural accounts of others who were raised from the dead.

Some of them occurred centuries before Christ.

The Lord Himself raised some from the dead: Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the son of a widow of Nain, and perhaps others.

Yet the resurrection of Christ differs vastly from each of these. All of the above were restored to a natural, earthly existence to later die again. Not so with Christ. He came out of the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathaea never to enter a tomb again as a victim of death.

So victorious is Christ over death that He now holds the keys of hell and of death. He tasted death once, never to die again. He said to John:

Revelation 1:18 KJV

18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

He is the “firstfruits,” and after Him comes the harvest of countless numbers of Christians from the Day of Pentecost until the Rapture.

The promises in God’s Word.

Satan, in waging his war against God, enticed man to sin, and sin brought death: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Although Adam was told that he would die if he partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he ate anyway. As a result of his sin, he died, first spiritually and then physically. Death reigned. Centuries merged into millennia, and man continued to sin and to die. There was no hope, no escape from the vicious circle, until Christ came. He

was born of a virgin, born a human, a partaker of flesh and blood.

Our Lord, in His humanity, was tempted by the devil. But Christ was victorious and sinless. Thus, when He died, He provided the perfect sacrifice to atone for sin. Because He was sinless, He was victorious.

Sin was defeated; death was conquered; and mankind was delivered.

Christ said, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). His resurrection confirmed this promise to us.

The Holy Ghost in us is the same Spirit that raised Christ.

Christ was born into this world through a virgin, and was thus human, He was also deity. He was divinity in flesh, divine majesty in an earthly body, and God incarnate.

Resident within that earthly tabernacle was the Spirit that produced the universe out of nothing and then upheld it by the power of His Word.

Christ identified the Comforter as the Spirit of Truth (John 14:16-17).

He had previously declared that He was the truth (John 14:6).

Therefore, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, is in actuality the Spirit of Christ.

The word Comforter is another term for the Holy Ghost (John 14:26).

When we receive the Comforter, we receive the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit—the same Spirit that was in Christ.

Therefore, resident in every biblically born-again believer is the same Spirit that dwelt in Jesus Christ. And this Spirit is the power of resurrection in each of us.

Romans 8:11 NKJV

11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

A Bodily Resurrection—Mortality to Immortality

Our terrestrial existence does not preclude our celestial life; it merely precedes it. We are now mortal. But that term speaks of limitations and change. Mortal means “that which must eventually die; of man as a being that must eventually die; of this world; of death.”

Of man God said, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19).

The preacher remarked, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Returning to the dust is merely part of our process of change. Why the change?

Because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 15:50).

Therefore, we must undergo the transition from terrestrial beings of dust and mortality to celestial, immortal beings. (See I Corinthians 15:51-53.)

Decomposition, mutilation, cremation, disintegration— none of these will stop the completion of the change which the Word of God declares and which Christ’s resurrection insures. We shall all be changed.

At the Coming of Christ

Though all the dead shall be raised, not all of the dead shall be raised at the same time.

1 Corinthians 15:22–24 (NKJV)

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then comes the end, ...

Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection. He rose again almost two thousand years ago. There is a time period between “Christ the firstfruits” and “they that are Christ’s at his coming.” So likewise there is a time period between “they that are Christ’s at his coming” and the time of “the end” (the general resurrection and the White Throne judgment). Who comprises the group “that are Christ’s at his coming”? Scripturally, it is realized that a requisite for being a part of that category is being filled with the Spirit of God.

Romans 8:9 NKJV

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

While spiritual worship is certainly God’s will, and we should freely worship (I Corinthians 14:23, 27-33), all too frequently we fail to live up to the weightier matters of righteousness. We must worship fervently but we must also live a holy daily life. We must overcome our flesh with its evil tendencies and its warfare against the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17). We must crucify the flesh if we are to experience a resurrection of life at the coming of Christ.

As for those who have fulfilled the divine requisites and have already “fallen asleep,” God will bring their spirits with Him when He comes. Their bodies will come forth from the graves to unite with their spirits. As their bodies are raised incorruptible and rise to meet their spirits, the Christians who are alive shall undergo a rapid transformation from mortality into immortality. We shall rise with them to meet our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ’s resurrection means the resurrection of all who have ever lived. He will call them from the graves. For He is the firstfruits of the great harvest of the dead being brought to life again. To all who are ready, Christ’s resurrection and His return are glorious truths in which to rejoice. We anticipate His coming; we are longing for it. For He has promised to take us to a place which He has prepared for those that are His—a place of peace, joy, ad eternal life.

He has filled us with His Spirit, and by His Spirit we will rise to meet Him at His coming.

1 Timothy 1:1 NKJV

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,

1 Peter 1:3 NKJV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Romans 15:13 NKJV

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.