1 Corinthians 15:26 | "When Death Meets its Destroyer"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Do you know what's better than worshiping together on Easter Sunday morning?

Worshiping together on Easter Sunday morning with people who know what it's about.

You can tell the difference in how you sing when you know what you're singing about.

That's what makes this morning so unique and so special.

We are so thankful that you are able to join together with us this morning.

And again, I ask you to take your Bible if you have it and make your way to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

And as you do that, I'm going to review a little bit of what I talked about on Friday night.

Friday night was kind of a dreary evening because I talked about death.

But that's incredibly important.

Because without Good Friday, we don't have an Easter Sunday.

And I concluded Friday evening with these words from Pastor W.A.

Criswell.

He said, tread softly around the cross.

For Jesus is dead.

The Lord of life is dead.

The lips that spoke forth Lazarus from the grave are now stilled in the silence of death.

And the head that was anointed by Mary is bowed with its crown of thorns.

The eyes that wept over Jerusalem are glazed in death, and the hands that bless little children are nailed to a tree.

The infuriated mob that cried for his crucifixion gradually disperses.

For he is dead.

And the passers by who'd stop just to see him go on their way.

He is dead.

The Pharisees, rubbing their hands in self-congratulations, go back to the city.

He is dead.

And the Sadducees, breathing sighs of relief, return to their coffers in the temple.

He is dead.

The centurion, assigned the task of executing him, makes his official report to the Roman procurator.

He is dead.

And the four, the quaternion of soldiers sent to dispatch the victims, seeing the man on the center cross was certainly dead, did not break his bones but pierced him through with a spear.

He is dead.

Mary, his mother, and the women who were with her bowed in sobs and in tears.

And the eleven apostles, like frightened sheep, crawl into eleven shadows to hide from the pointing finger of Jerusalem and cry out, He is dead.

Wherever his disciples met, in an upper room or on a lonely road, or behind closed doors, or in hiding places, the same refrain is sadly heard again and again.

They've sealed the tomb and they've set a guard.

He is dead.

He is dead.

And the hope of the world has perished with him.

Then in Christ, if that's the only place we have hope, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

This is verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 15.

But if in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For as by a man came death, that is speaking of Adam, by a man also has come the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order.

Christ, the first fruits.

Then it is coming those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and every power.

For he must reign until he has put his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

So standing, sitting where we are, looking back in history, we can see little hints of a power, of something that is greater than death invading the land ruled by death.

There were a handful of people that were raised from the dead in connection to Old Testament prophets.

But even those, even those that were raised by Old Testament prophets died again.

Jesus raised people from the dead, right?

Lazarus, most notably.

But they too all died again.

Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament were the only two men to escape death's tenacious grip.

Think about it.

Abraham, the friend of God, died.

God spoke face to face with Moses.

But Moses died.

The mighty warrior king David could not vanquish death's victory.

With all of his great wisdom, Solomon could not evade death's grasp.

But there were signs of something more powerful than death.

Signs that death might not be the top dog.

From a biblical perspective, death is the removal of life.

Life is the gift of God to his creation, and when sin entered the world, God removed his gift of life in an act of justice.

God promised Adam and Eve that they would die if they transgressed his will, his command, and his character.

Because God created everything in perfect harmony with himself and he gave it his own life.

That life was without sin and without death.

But when man sinned, God took away the gift of life so that man no longer possessed God's sustaining life, but instead faced death.

And of course, death and the fear of death became the tool of God's enemy.

That's why in verse 22 of 1 Corinthians 15, it says that in Adam all die.

Because we are descended from Adam, we all die.

The Population Reference Bureau estimates that 117 billion with a B people have been born in Earth's history.

I have no idea if that's accurate.

But let's just take that number at face value, just for our discussion's sake.

Out of 117 billion people, only two have not died.

Enoch and Elijah.

But let's try to state that differently.

Two out of one hundred and seventeen billion people, if my math is right, rounds up to one trillionth of a percent.

Now, even that number is beyond me.

So let's try to picture it.

Joe, can I have uh a screen, please?

Is it working?

It's not working.

It's my fault.

It helps if you have a have it on.

One trillionth of a percent, if my math is right.

Is that number?

If you can't see it, that's a that's a period with ten zeros in front of it.

And a one and a seven.

That's the odds you have of never dying.

I'll put as simply as I can.

Your chances and my chances of escaping death are not good.

They're not good.

Given that the last person to escape death's victory was caught up to heaven about 3,000 years ago, you should just go ahead and plan on joining the other 116,999,999,998 people who have died.

I don't mean that to be depressing.

Because think about the flip side of that.

Two people escaped.

Two people didn't die.

What does that imply?

What does it say about death's grip on humanity if two people did not die?

A handful of others were raised from the dead by God's prophets, and they died a second time, but but they were they were for a time taken out of death's strong grip and given life again.

So what does that say about death's hold?

What do those hints, those signs suggest to us?

Well, they suggest to us that death's power is limited.

It's limited in its magnitude and in its extent or in some other way, because the inbreaking of some power or some authority overriding the power of death says that death's strength is not omnipotent.

Neither is it omnipresent.

It's not everywhere.

You see, Elijah and Enoch were caught up to heaven where death does not exist.

Death has no power beyond the created universe.

It's limited to this place in which we live.

Those who died and were raised from the dead were not removed from this sphere of life, like Enoch and Elijah.

Instead, a power greater than death overrode death's grip and restored the life that was taken.

So death is not omnipotent.

It is limited in its power because there is a power that is greater than death.

And now we read in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 26 that death, get this, death will be destroyed.

1 Corinthians 15:26

What hope for those held in the unyielding grip of death's power?

What hope.

So look with me for a few moments this morning at 1 Corinthians 15, where we see presented to us four realities of death.

Yes, we're going to talk more about death.

Why?

Because you don't have resurrection Sunday unless you have Good Friday.

Four realities of death and the single solution to them.

Let's begin at the end of the chapter and work our way back to the beginning.

Verse 50.

I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit imperishable.

But I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

This perishable body must put on the imperishable, and the mortal must put on the immortality.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and when the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 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.

Here is the first reality that we have this morning about death.

Since death's pain is bound up with sin, the only way to escape the sting of death is to fix my sin problem.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Listen, if we want to get rid of this death problem, we've got to get rid of the sin problem.

They're interconnected.

You can't separate them.

One comes with the other.

Friday evening we saw Romans chapter 5, verse 12 speak to this.

Romans 5:12

Just as sin came into the world through one man, and so death spread to all, because all sinned.

See, death stalks us because of one man, Adam.

In that, we face the consequences of another person's choice.

We're born into the human race, and so we that comes automatically with somebody else's choice.

Adam chose to disobey God.

That brought sin to everybody.

But then it says at the end of that verse, because all sinned.

That last phrase brings in the sobering reality that I will die.

Jason Holm will die because I chose sin over God.

Death is my enemy because I descended from Adam.

But death will hunt me down and claim victory over my life because I chose sin over God.

Earlier in Romans chapter 3, it's shown that God's law shuts our mouths.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

It's like puts a zipper on our mouth, so that we have no excuse before him.

The whole world, it says, will be held accountable to God.

No one can stand before him completely right because we all make sinful choices.

It's why Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 4 says, The soul that sins shall die.

Ezekiel 18:4

I will die.

And you will die.

Because you chose sin.

You and I will feel the sting of death because of our sin, unless the Lord Jesus returns first.

We chose to sin.

And therefore we chose sin's consequence.

But of course, that that can't merely mean physical death, can it?

Because that's just a part.

That's just a part.

Sin against an infinite being is an infinite sin.

And so even physical death on the sinner's part is not an infinite payment.

So when it says in Ezekiel that the soul that sinned shall die, it means it's going to physically die and it will continue to endure the sting of death in misery and in judgment apart from God's love and mercy and grace forever.

So if we are to escape the sting of death, our sin problem must be taken care of.

There's no other way.

But this passage leads us to a second reality about death.

Since death's power is limited to the natural realm, that is to the created realm, the realm in which we live, the only way to escape death's grip is to obtain life from another place.

Elijah and Enoch obtained that by being caught up into heaven, it says.

God took them to where he is.

Look at verse 45.

Thus it is written: the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

But it's it's not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual.

The first man is from the earth, a man of dust, the second man is from heaven.

As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust that is of Adam, we shall also bear the image of a man of heaven.

Do you see what he's saying there?

He's saying that if all if your only identification is with the first created being who was made from dust and who died and went back to dust, if that's your only identity, that's your only hope.

You have to have a second identity, an identity of one who comes from heaven, who's from a different realm, because life, true life, has to come from somewhere other than here.

In the Gospel of John, a member of the Jewish ruling council named Nicodemus had questions for Jesus.

Maybe out of curiosity, but maybe because he was actually drawn to the truth of Jesus' preaching.

He would only speak with Jesus at night, so he wouldn't be caught doing it.

And in that meeting, Nicodemus came to Jesus curious, asking some questions, but Jesus turned the tables on him and started asking Nicodemus questions to press home this very point because he wanted Nicodemus to know that a new kind of birth is the only way into God's life.

Nicodemus needed more than physical life.

So Jesus said in John chapter 3, verse 3, Nicodemus, I tell you the truth.

John 3:3

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

If you just ponder that a minute, that's really astounding.

It's very cut and dry, it's very black and white.

Cannot see, will not see, no possibility.

You're either of the first Adam or the second Adam.

You're either of the man of dust or the man of heaven.

Nicodemus, you're of the man of dust.

You're of the first Adam.

You have no hope.

You cannot see the kingdom of heaven unless you become of a different realm.

Jesus was purposely ambiguous in that statement.

When he said, unless one is born again, that phrase born again could also mean born from above.

A new birth is required.

A new birth that means to be born from another realm outside of what we know.

That's why Jesus continued on to say that unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Now, don't get confused about that water and the spirit thing.

That's a very clear reference to Ezekiel chapter 36.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

A reference that Nicodemus, as a teacher of the law of God, should have caught immediately.

We might not catch that today because we don't know our Old Testaments well enough.

But Nicodemus should have caught that instantly.

Ezekiel 36 is a passage of scripture that talks prophetically about the work of God's Spirit coming from another realm and coming into our realm to give new life, God's life.

Because God promised that his life would invade death's realm to provide a new kind of life to those living under the curse of sin and death.

But do you remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus next?

He continued on to say that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

John 3 15.

And whoever does not have that life through faith in Jesus is condemned already.

He's talking about the reality of life here.

If we don't have life from another realm, we're already condemned to death.

To not believe in Jesus is to remain in the natural realm, sentenced to death's eternal grip.

But to believe in Jesus is to have the life of God, eternal life from another realm, given to you as it was intended in the beginning.

The only way to escape death's eternal grip is to belong to another realm where death has no power.

And God promised to give it.

That's our third reality of death.

Since death's rule is restricted to this place, to this world, the only way to be rescued from death's end is to submit to a greater authority.

Look at verse 24.

Then comes the end.

When Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and every power.

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.

But when it says all things are put in subjection, it's plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him.

And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son Himself will be subjected to him who puts all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Jesus will destroy every rule, every power, and every authority.

That's ironic because in the Gospels it tells us that the Jewish authorities of Jesus' time sought to destroy Jesus.

Uses the same word.

They sought to destroy him, but the day will come when Jesus will destroy everything that opposes him.

He is the omnipotent one.

He's the all-powerful, and all rule, authority, and power that does not submit to him will be ultimately destroyed, including, it says, death.

Death is the last enemy to be destroyed.

Death is an enemy of Christ.

Death opposes the life of God, and someday death will die.

That says that death's rule is restricted.

It's contained.

It doesn't go everywhere and it's not all powerful.

It's not sovereign.

It exists because God allows it to exist, and as God's enemy, death will one day be destroyed.

But that also says that you will either eternally submit to the power of sin and death and continue to exist as an enemy of Christ, or you will submit yourself to the rule of Christ the King.

You will either pay for your own rebellion against Him for all eternity, apart from His grace, mercy, and love, or you will become a part of His eternal kingdom and bask in that grace, mercy, and love.

There are only two categories possible: kingdom citizen or enemy combatant.

It's the only possibilities.

You either continue as a citizen of death's rule, or you belong to Christ's kingdom under his sovereignty.

We have no excuse.

Death spreads to each of us.

Because we've all sinned.

We've all made our choice.

And we will regretfully live with the consequences of our choice, running as long as we can from death's tentacles.

But Christ died so that we could be freed from death's power by transferring our allegiance to Christ the King.

But that brings us to Sunday morning.

Since death's restraint is found in the power of the grave, freedom can only be found in the one who's overcome the grave.

That's why 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that if Christ is not risen, nothing changes.

Nothing else matters.

Death's grip can feel ironclad to us.

I mean, really, we are we are 2,000 years from Jesus' resurrection, right?

We're 2,000 years from his power calling Lazarus out of the tomb.

Well, that's why faith is required, right?

By faith, the scriptures tell us Abraham, that father of the faith, believed that God was able to raise his son Isaac from the dead.

Abraham had no basis for that.

He had no basis for that conviction, for that belief, but he believed it.

He was convinced that God was powerful enough to raise his son from the dead.

And by that same faith, we are convinced that God's power is greater than death's power.

We believe that on a particular Sunday morning, the Spirit of Jesus returned to his body and he left the tomb alive.

By the way, only then, after he left it, was the stone rolled away to provide proof to those who sought it.

By faith, we believe that death's power, its restraint, is limited.

And for those with faith in Jesus, death's restraint is limited to the grave and only for a time.

Because listen, just as death's power came to all of humanity, so too by Jesus' resurrection, God's power over life and death can make the dead live again.

Do you see what this does?

Death is an enemy.

But it becomes a defeated enemy in Christ Jesus.

It's a limited enemy.

And ultimately, because of Jesus and in Jesus, all who are in him can live without fear of death.

Yes, it's going to sting you someday.

But its sting is only temporary, for when Jesus returns, all who are in Christ will be made alive just as he is alive.

And death will be forced to give up all whom it sought to restrain.

Of course, the reality of death is that those who do not look to Christ alone have no hope of escaping death's ironclad grip.

Let's now go to the beginning of the chapter, where we see that these realities about death can only be overcome in the good news of Christ Jesus.

Chapter 15.

Verse 3.

For I delivered to you that which is of first importance, what I also received.

Christ died.

He died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then to more than 500 of the brothers at one time, then appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me, the Apostle Paul.

The only hope for these realities of death is Jesus.

Why do we say that?

We say that because he is the sinless one who died for my sin.

What reality of death did we see at the end of the chapter?

Verse 56 it says, the sting of death is what?

Sin.

The sting of death is sin.

Since death's pain is bound up with my sin, the only way to escape the sting of death is to fix my sin problem.

Well, guess what?

Christ died for sin.

The good news.

The gospel that is found in Christ is that his death is on behalf of your sins, in your place, so that you might escape the sting of death.

If the tomb is still sealed, you're still in your sin.

The only way, the only way is if there's a resurrection Sunday.

Because Jesus then paid the price for sin on the cross and his death.

We believe that this can only be overcome in the good news of Jesus Christ because he was raised on the third day.

Why was he raised on the third day?

Because he's the life.

On Friday, life died.

On Friday, life died, but death couldn't hold him, the scriptures say, because he is the resurrection and the life.

Do you remember when he proved that?

That statement, I am the resurrection and the life, comes outside of the village of Bethany, where there was a tomb, and inside that tomb was a man who had died four days earlier, and his family said that he was in there long enough where he'd begun to rot.

And yet Jesus said, Lazarus, come on out.

And Lazarus came on out.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

That's why it says here in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

The scriptures tell us that since death's power is limited to the natural realm, the only way to escape death's grip is to obtain life from somewhere else.

And that life is found in Jesus, proven in the empty tomb.

The resurrection of Jesus is the death knell of death.

Death and all who celebrate it cheered as the Son of God gave up his spirit on that first Good Friday.

But when Jesus declared it is finished, he wasn't merely saying that his life was finished.

He didn't simply say that his ministry on earth was complete.

He didn't merely say that sin's atonement was finished.

All of those things are true.

But there's more.

When Jesus hung upon that cross and said, It is finished, he announced that death was about to meet its destroyer.

Jesus was about to declare victory over sin and death, and he would crush the serpent's head with his bruised heel because death cannot hold the one who has power over life and death.

On Friday, life died.

But on Sunday, life overcame death, and so it will be for all who believe in Jesus.

And so we know that he is the one who will subdue all rule and all authority, including death.

Now we know death rules.

You have no better than one one trillionth of a percent chance of not dying.

Unless, that is, unless you belong to the one whose power is greater than death.

Why?

Because God has put all things in subjection to Christ, including death.

What are the all things that will be subject to Christ?

Every rule, every authority, every power, every enemy, including death, the last enemy to be destroyed.

It is finished.

Probably sounded more like, it is finished.

Did you catch that?

It is finished.

May have sounded more like the last whisper of the last breath of a dying man.

But there was no more extraordinary announcement of the victory of God in Christ over death.

For on Good Friday, life declared it is finished.

The humanity of Christ died, but his deity lived on.

It is finished, said that Sunday was guaranteed to open with an empty tomb.

And the truth that he was raised ought to encourage you here and now, in the middle of chapter 15, where death is not vanquished, to rest your hope in the one who conquered the grave.

Why?

Because he is the living one.

He's the living one who died, who rose again, and overcomes the death and the grave.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve.

On Friday, on Friday, life died.

On Friday, life died, and yet in the same moment, death met its destroyer.

And on Sunday, the empty tomb declared death's end.

The risen Christ, whose resurrection life was proven by the empty tomb and hundreds of witnesses, reveals that he possesses the power over death.

He's the one who offers life from another realm.

He's the one who died for your sin.

So why would you ever choose to remain in death's grip?

Listen to death's end.

Revelation chapter 20, verse 13 says that the sea gave up the dead who were in it.

Revelation 20:13

Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them according to what they had done.

And then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

That's the second death, the lake of fire.

And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

So get that.

If you belong to death all the way to the end, you join death in the lake of fire.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, death is your enemy.

You and I exist in a realm enslaved to sin and death.

Death's power is already at work in you to claim your life for itself.

Day by day, death reveals more of its claim on us.

And you face the second death determined for death itself and all who belong to it if you are not rescued from death's power by the crucified and risen Christ.

Our existence lies under the power and authority of death because we've all sinned.

And God's justice will be exacted.

Sin demands payment.

Someone will die for your sin.

Someone will die for my sin.

Death will claim victory because all have sinned.

Every grave marker and every cemetery silently shouts proof to that truth.

Oh, you may escape disease.

You may retain your physical strength longer than others.

You may gain days or weeks or months or even years with modern medicine, but the moment of your death has already been determined.

And death will come calling.

And it will demand payment for your sin.

And it will assert to you that you cannot escape its grasp.

And it will shout its victory as the grave draws you in.

But don't forget this: history is revealing.

History is revealing.

And it reveals that there is another realm, there is another power over which someone else rules.

It shows an omnipotent power greater than sin, greater than the grave, greater than death, and it reveals the power to rescue us.

You may be rescued through resurrection at the end of time.

You may be rescued like Enoch and Elisha when Christ returns.

And history reveals the mercy of that omnipotent, omnipresent God.

And in his great mercy.

The one who is omnipresent, who exists everywhere, limited himself to a human body.

And the one who is all powerful submitted himself to sinful earthly powers.

He who committed no sin worthy of death offered himself to death out of love for those who exist under the dominion of death.

And so on Friday, he died.

But on the morning of the third day, on the morning of the third day of his entombment, he took up his life again after laying it down for his own.

He rose alive, leaving behind the tomb and the grip of death triumphing over the grave, and all who believe in him, giving their allegiance to him, will triumph in him over death.

And one day, one day, all who are in Christ will witness the death of death.

For death has met its destroyer, it is finished.

If you have believed in Christ, the Lord.

Oh, we look forward to that day, don't we?

We look forward to that day with faith when we meet death face to face because we know that when we meet it, we meet it as conquerors in Christ.

It's a defeated enemy.

Yeah, it still possesses a sting, but it's a temporary sting because those who follow Christ will one day spurn death's sting when they rise again with his life, conquering forever that enemy.

For the ultimate power, Christ, our King, has triumphed over the death and over the grave.

And when he comes again, we will proclaim with him, oh death, where is your victory?

Death, where is your sting?

For when Christ declared that it is finished, he in part declared the end of death.

And when he left the tomb empty, he sealed death's destruction, leaving behind, as it were, the down payment of death's actual destruction.

My friend, why would you not see that as good news and put your trust in Christ alone?

Join the celebration of the ages.

Join with God's people now and for eternity.

Join together to rejoice that death has met its destroyer.

For it is finished.

Death is dead, and Christ is one.

Lord Jesus, we lift you up as the victor.

We lift you up as the one who conquered sin and death and the grave, and who one day will come back to take us home, to be with you forever.

You've promised that.

But Lord, in this world, it is so easy to rest in what seems to be real, that death is the ultimate victor.

So grant us faith to believe.

To believe in the reality and the truth of your word that you have kept for us, so that we might hear it and through the hearing of your word might believe.

Give us new life, eternal life.

Because of the empty tomb.

Give us life, for death is dead.

And Christ is risen.

It's finished, it's as good as done.

So come soon, Lord Jesus, to complete all of that.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.