JESUS; THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. (Overcoming Death)

As death has come from sin, so our victory over death has come from the work of the Lord Jesus Who died for us and saved us from sin. The cross is the basis for victory over its power (Heb 2:14-15).

Satan had this power, which power he derives from sin: "as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned" (Rom. 5:12). But the Lord Jesus invaded the domain of death and through His redemptive act removed its sting which is sin, thus disarming Satan of his power.

By Christ's death, sin lost its potency, and so death was deprived of its power too. Through the crucifixion of Christ, we henceforth shall overthrow the power of death and lift its siege around us by claiming the victory of Calvary.

Unless a Christian plainly knows his work is finished and he no longer is required by the Lord to remain, he should by all means resist death. If the symptoms of death have been seen already in his body before his work is done, he positively should resist it and its symptoms. He should believe that the Lord will undertake in what he has resisted, for He has work for him yet to do.

Our years should be sufficient enough to accomplish our life work. Then when the end does come we can depart peacefully with the grace of God upon us, as naturally as the falling of a fully ripened melon. The book of Job describes such a departure in this manner: "You shall come to your grave in ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season" (5:26).

Overcoming death does not necessarily mean no grave, for God may wish some to overcome it through the resurrection just as our Lord Jesus did. In passing through death believers, like their Lord, need to have no fear of it. If we seek to overcome the jaws of death because we are afraid or unwilling to die, we already are defeated. It may be that the Lord will save us from death altogether by rapturing us alive to heaven; we nonetheless should not ask for His speedy return out of a fear of mortality.

Such apprehensiveness shows we are defeated already by death. Let us come to see that even should we go to the grave we are merely walking from one room to another room. There is no justification for unbearable inward pain, fear and trembling.

We originally were "those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage" (Heb. 2:15). The Lord Jesus, however, has set us free and therefore we fear it no more. Its pain, darkness and loneliness cannot frighten us. So we can cry out as the Apostle did "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor. 15:55).

An Apostle who had experienced victory over death testified that "to die is gain...My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" (Phil. 1:21,23). Not a wrinkle of fear could be detected there. The victory over death was actual and complete.

Perhaps we will die; nonetheless, we are not necessarily under any obligation so to do. The words the Lord Jesus variously proclaimed make this teaching crystal clear. On the one hand our Lord asserted: "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:54). On the other hand, yet on the same occasion, Jesus also affirmed this: "This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever" (v. 58). What the Lord is saying is that among those who believe in Him, some will die and be raised up while others will not pass through death at all.

The Lord Jesus expressed this view at the death of Lazarus: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26). Here the Lord is not only the resurrection but also the life. However most of us believe Him as the resurrection, yet forget that He also is the life. We readily admit He will raise us up after we die, but do we equally acknowledge that He, because He is our life, is able to keep us alive?

The devil is a murderer (John 8:44). The purpose of Satan's work against the saints is to kill them. He has a special tactic for the last days: to "wear out the saints" (Dan. 7:25). If he can add just a little anxiety to the believer's spirit, increase just a trifle the restlessness in his mind, cause the saint to lose sleep one night, eat less the next time and overwork still another time, then he has made inroads with his power of death. Although a single drop water is powerless, continous dripping can indisputably wear a hole in a rock. Being well acquainted with this truth, Satan incites a little worry here, a little anxiety there, or a little neglect elsewhere to literally wear out the saints.

Sometimes the devil directly attacks believers and causes them to die. Many deaths are assaults such as these, though few recognize them for what they are. Perhaps it is merely a cold, sunstroke, insomnia, exhaustion or loss of appetite. Perhaps it is uncleanness, wrath, jealousy or licentiousness. Failing to perceive that the power of death is behind these phenomena, the full victory for believers is jeopardized. Were they to recognize them as the assaults of death and resist aright, they would triumph. How often saints attribute these to their age or to some other factor and miss the real import of it all.

The Lord Jesus is returning soon. We must therefore wage a total war with death. Even as we fight against sin, the world and Satan, so must we fight against death. We should not only ask for victory; we should also lay hold of it. We should claim the triumph of Christ over death in all its fullness. Were we to review our past experience beneath the light of God we would discover how many times we have been assailed by death without our knowledge. We endlessly attributed happenings to other causes and thereby lost the power to resist.

If we had recognized certain events to have been the assaults of death, we would have been strengthened by God to have experientially overcome death. In that case our experience would have been like passing over broken bridges and torn-up roads: for in that experience all our surroundings appears to demand our death-yet we cannot die: time and again we despair of life, still we cannot die: we ask ourselves why we now must die, for though the battle fiercely escalates, we do not feel like dying: we seem instead to cry out-I do not want to die! What is the implication of this kind of experience? Simply that God is leading us to fight our last battle with death before we are raptured. These assaults are designed for no other purpose than to frustrate our being raptured alive.

We should clamp shut the wide-open gates of hades with the victory of Christ. We should stand against death, forbidding it to make any inroad in our bodies. Resist everything possessing the disposition of death. View sickness, weakness and suffering with this attitude. Sometimes the body may not be conscious of anything, yet death is at work already.

Anxiety in the spirit or sorrow in the soul may produce death as well. God is now calling us to be raptured; accordingly, we must subdue whatever might hinder that event.

God places His children in various circumstances which impel them hopelessly and helplessly to commit their lives by a thread of faith into the hand of the Lord. For his hand is their only hope. And during such a period it is as though they were crying out, "Lord, let me live!" Today's battle is a battle for life.

Murderous evil spirits are working everywhere. Unless the saints’ resists and pray they shall be defeated. They shall die inescapably if they continue to remain passive. Should you pray "Lord, let me conquer death," He will respond with "If you resist death, I will let you conquer it." Prayer alone is futile if the will is passive. What you should say is: "Lord, because of your conquest over death, I now resist all its onslaughts. I am determined to conquer death immediately. Lord, make me victorious."

The Lord will enable you to overcome death. So lay hold of the promises God has given you, the promise of life, ask for life, and trust that nothing can harm you. Do not concede the power of death, or else it will touch you. For instance, you may be staying a disease-infested area; yet you can withstand all diseases and not permit anything to come upon you. Do not allow death to attack you through sickness.

No longer can we wait passively for the Lord's return, comforting ourselves with the thought that we will be raptured anyway. We must be prepared. As in every other matter, rapture requires the cooperation of the church with God. Faith never lets affairs follow the line of least resistance. Death must be singularly resisted and rapture must be claimed wholeheartedly. Faith is necessary, but that does not mean passively deserting responsibility. If we only believe mentally that we can escape death yet passively continue to submit ourselves to its power - sin, how are we benefited?