Death Is Defeated

Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses.   Romans 5:14, NIV

Ever since the first sin in the Garden of Eden, death has been relentless. It is like a tyrant exercising a reign of terror over the human race. Nobody can escape it.

In the Old Testament story, many great men of faith—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David—believed God’s promise, but death got every one of them. They did not enter condemnation, because by faith they were looking for a Savior who was still to come and for a sacrifice that was yet to be made.

But all of them died before the Savior came. Death brought them to a place where there was a way in, but no way out.

My kindergarten class had a pet mouse, and eventually my turn came to take the mouse home. One sunny Saturday afternoon, I took the mouse and several toys outside with me, including my one-foot-long, six-inch-high, bright red double-decker London bus. The mouse found my bus fascinating.

Before I knew it, the mouse climbed inside the bus, ran up the stairs, and was working its way along the top deck. It scampered over the little plastic seats, poking its nose out the windows, until it reached the front of the bus. Then we had a problem. The mouse couldn’t move forward, and it couldn’t move back. It was stuck!

I tried everything, including cheese at the back of the bus, but the poor mouse had no room to turn. There was no way out. I remember my father saying, “There’s only one thing to do, Son. We’ll have to destroy the bus!” So he took a knife, cut the roof open, and the mouse was free. But my bus was never the same.

People went into death before the time of Christ; no one came out. But death could not keep its hold on Christ. He cut a hole in death itself. He changed its nature, so that when we come to the moment of death, it will not be like entering a prison; it will be like going through a passage, which leads right into the presence of God.

For further reading, see Luke 4