Christ Is Too Strong

“‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:54b–57

Because of human rebellion and sin, death had been given free rein on earth. But from the beginning God knew the end, and the end is redemption. The whole story of the Bible, from beginning to end, is a story of redemption. God initiates to rescue us because of our weakness. God takes the evil on himself and redeems it. And Jesus’ resurrection is the core of the whole story. Death is swallowed up in Jesus’ victory, which results in life.

Because of sin, we all know we will eventually die, “for the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Because of sin’s entrance into the world, everything dies; every human suffers; animals suffer; rivers overflow their banks and sweep villages away; volcanoes destroy whole cities; diseases like AIDS , malaria, cancer, and heart disease kill millions of people; and droughts and famines cause starvation. Because of sin, we actively hurt one another and ourselves. As a result, we experience condemnation, guilt, shame, despair, and pain.

We collapse under the weight of this destruction. We cannot endure death. It always has the last word. But one man did endure it and, for the first time, came through victorious: Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2).

“Our sins hurled him to the ground and trampled him, but God delivered Christ and made him alive.”

If we don’t find our hope for redemption in Christ, we are left to our own pathetic strategies to fight back at death and guilt. One strategy for dealing with death is illustrated in a piece of art by British artist Damien Hirst. In 2007, he unveiled a sculpture titled For the Love of God—a diamond-encrusted platinum cast of a human skull priced at $98 million. The skull, cast from a 35-year-old 18th-century European male, was coated with 8,601 diamonds, including a large pink diamond worth more than $8 million in the center of its forehead. Hirst’s explanation of his work is fascinating: “I hope this work gives people hope—uplifting, take your breath away. . . . It shows we are not going to live forever. But it also has a feeling of victory over death.”

We need more than a feeling of victory over death—we need death to actually be overcome. And this is exactly what God has done through Jesus. Death reigns because of sin, and sin’s power over us is the condemnation of God’s law (1 Cor. 15:56). But “[Jesus our Lord] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Because of the work of Christ, you are declared pure, righteous, saved, blameless, holy, forgiven, and without condemnation.

At the cross, God turned his wrath away from you and toward Christ. Now, in the resurrection, God turns your eyes away from your sins and directs them to Christ. Our sins hurled him to the ground and trampled him, but God delivered Christ and made him alive. He has conquered our tyrants of sin and death. Christ is too strong for them.