Friday 21 July 2017

Death is swallowed up

He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken. – Isaiah 25.8

Like a lot of Christians on of my favourite modern hymns is the Getty’s’ song ‘The Power of the Cross.’ It is a wonderful song proclaiming what Christ accomplished at the cross. One stanza says

‘Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.’

I love the line ‘death is crushed to death’ and that idea is seen way back here in Isaiah with the words ‘He will swallow up death.’ We see the results of that in 1 Corinthians where we read ‘O death where is your sting?’

Nobody likes the idea of dying. Dying is so unknown that it is natural to be anxious about it. It si scary to thing about.

That’s natural, but for the believer death has no power over is. We have nothing to be afraid of. Death has no sting – because Jesus swallowed it up. He crushed death to death. ‘He is risen’ gave hope to all generations.

But that hope is only for those who have put their faith in Him because He along had the power to conquer death.

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