Part 1.7 - Victory (54-57)

54. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ’ Death is swallowed up in victory?

Observe, first, when the victory is not won. Not a few have elevated death into the place assigned by Scripture to resurrection. They expect to die, and if there be a happy falling asleep of the believer, it is to them victory. We hear oft of a triumphant death. But the Scripture speaks of resurrection, not death, as the Christian’s triumph. Death, even in the believer’s case, is rather Death’s victory over him - at least visibly. Though Death has been conquered by Christ for the believer, and His sting is drawn; yet death is not victory, either (1) toward God, (2) the believer, or (3) the saints.

(1.) The saint’s death is not an ascent to the glory of God in heaven; it cannot be. For death is an unclothing, and God refuses to accept the unclothed. A part of the man is still under bondage, the slavery of corruption; and God does not visibly own His sons, till they are wholly free from the effects of the curse. (2.) It is not victory to the man himself; for his soul goes into the custody of Hadees (Zechariah 9:11-12). He is a prisoner - though a prisoner of hope ; and though to depart is to be with Christ, which is far better than life. His body also is detained in the chains of the last enemy. The body of the believer is as much the slave of corruption, as the body of the godless. He has ’ fallen asleep.’ But sleep is not a victory, though it may recruit the warrior for victory. (3.) The death of the saint is not a victory in regard of the Church whence he is taken. Its aspect and present feeling is that of sorrow. It may be the dead was a chief among the servants of God, and his removal will cause a blank among the troops, and encourage the enemy to a fiercer attack. It is then an occasion of sorrow to the forces of Christ; as when a general in battle is struck down visibly and borne away, unable to take part any more in the conflict. Death is the result of sin, and till this severance of those intimate friends - body and soul - is removed, and they are reunited, victory cannot be said to have taken place.

(2.) The true time of victory is resurrection. Death is an unclothing, part of the penalty of sin. But resurrection is a victory, and it is a clothing upon.

It is the loosing by Divine Might of the prisoners of death - of the body from the tomb, and the soul from Hadees. While, then, to Spiritists, the putting off of the body is victory ; to Scripture the only real victory is the putting on of a body incorruptible.

(3.) Observe, again - Incorruptibility, or immortality, refers not to the soul, but to the body ; or rather to the man as a whole. Scripture does not speak of the natural immortality of the soul, but of the incorruptibility of the dead at resurrection. ’ The mortal is to put on immortality,’ or deathlessness. For man, while alive, is subject to that separation of soul and body, which we call death. But what Scripture promises, is, that the body and soul of the man shall be welded together, never more to be parted. "

Then shall take place the saying."

Here the Greek word means - ’ at that time.’

Observe, that it is at a future moment, affecting at once believers, both the living and the dead. In order that death’s hold may be utterly wrenched away, it is not enough that the dead should rise, and be clothed with bodies inaccessible to corruption. For living believers carry bodies in which are already the seeds of death. Nay, the Holy Spirit says- "And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin." Death, then, would be expecting the living as his prey sooner or later, after his old prisoners were wrested from his grasp. Therefore, the wisdom and power of God provide for a complete victory ; a deliverance not only of those already in custody, but of those whom Death expected soon to take captives. Salvation is not truly come till death - the effect of the curse - is for us blotted out wholly, the scars removed, and the liability to it in the living is overcome.

Paul, to prove his point, cites Scripture here, as he does generally. If the inspired man quotes the Scripture in proof of his assertions, though they are guaranteed by inspiration, how much more ought our conclusions to be so proved? The Saviour and His apostles rest on Scripture with perfect satisfaction and confidence. So should we.

Paul appeals to the prophetic word. No jot or tittle can pass away till all be fulfilled. These heavens and earth are kept in existence only until the completion of the Scripture. "

Death is swallowed up in victory."

Whence is this testimony derived? From Isaiah xxv. A section of that prophecy is found included between chaps, xxiv. and xxviii. Without the millennial key the Jewish prophets are unintelligible.

Even with that key there are many difficulties. But the section indicated is not so difficult when viewed as a connected whole, describing the great and terrible Day of the Lord, and the coming of Christ and His kingdom during that day. Isaiah xxiv. is God’s judgment of the whole earth, without respect of faces. It gives the state of the world, when smitten by the latter- day judgments of His wrath. The nations generally will have broken the covenant with Noah, which requires the putting of the murderer to death. On the observance of Noah’s covenant depends the regularity of the seasons. On the breach thereof, God’s plagues interfering with the ordinary course of nature, break in. The world will be a place of sorrow. Joy will have left it. Only a small remnant out of the thousand millions of earth’s inhabitants will survive. That day will be a fearful one, ending in the earth’s utter an- nihilation. At the beginning of that day the devil and his angels shall be cast into the pit (verse 21), and, after the thousand years and the little respite, they are called up for judgment. Then we have the prediction of the Saviour’s personal reign at Jerusalem for the thousand years, in conjunction with His twelve apostles. Chap, xxv. is the song of Israel’s deliverance from Satan and from the Gentiles. Zion (or Jerusalem) shall be the place of Christ’s glory (verse 6). The deceits of Satan, which now destroy the masses of the world, shall then be torn away. Then shall be the feast of victory at Christ’s return. Then comes our present passage.

God gives joy to the smitten, sorrowful, battered earth.

Christ is visibly come (verse 9). This dispensation will not convert the world (xxvi. 10). Not all will rise at this day of glory (verses 13, 14). Israel, after its scattering and smiting by judgment, shall be increased and blest. The blessed of Israel arise (verse 19). Woe to the earth in judgment (verse 21). The personal coming of Christ is here.

Thus it is seen, that the context whence our passage is taken refers to the same time ; and it is manifest that the place in Rev. xx. is not ’ an isolated passage, on which no stress is to be laid.’ On the contrary, all the millennial doctrine here stands confirmed.

There is a first resurrection, when Israel is restored. Though Christians have forgotten Israel, and its place in God’s plans at the end of this day of grace, God has not. Of His calling of the earthly people He will never repent. Here Israel is brought back to its place of sovereignty and of blessing on earth, by Christ its Redeemer returned in power, as soon as they call Him blessed. This first resurrection of the Church of Christ together with the accepted of former dispensations, is not an unconnected thing. It is part of God’s counsel to gather together in His Son both the heavens and the earth.

Death, then, shall be " swallowed up." There is a reference here, I believe, to the destruction of Pharaoh and His host in the Red Sea. They were pursuing the mass of fugitive slaves just escaped, and expected soon to arrest them. They were seemingly in the height of their power, when the host of Israel was safely led through the waters, and their foes were drowned at an instant, suddenly. Israel is first set free, before destruction overwhelms their pursuers. Woe to those then overtaken by death ! So completely are the foes triumphed over, that they do not appear again. As it was said to Israel : " The Egyptians whom ye see alive this day, ye shall see them again no more for ever."

Perhaps, too, there is a reference to the scene of Korah and his friends. They who rose up against Moses and Aaron, are swallowed down by the earth, and disappear out of the camp. Thus shall death, in all its force, depart suddenly and completely from the army in which Christ is found as Head and Chief. It is a swallowing up ’in victory.’ The maw of Hadees has hitherto engulfed God’s people. But then the tables will be victoriously turned upon him. The captives shall triumph over him who led them captive. The deliverance shall be for ever.

55. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hadees, where is thy victory ? This is apparently a quotation from another Old Testament prophet. Words to this effect are found in Hos. xiii. 14. Let us for a little glance at the context.

Hosea describes the time when God, for idolatry, was casting off both the ten tribes and the two. Yet, amidst the denunciations of judgment, there are promises of final mercy (ii. 18-23). The days of visitation and vengeance will surely come. For, beside the sin of Israel’s earlier days, there are notices added of their sins against the Saviour when a man upon earth. Our Lord, when led to death, describing the time of awful woe which will overtake Israel and the world at large because of their transgressions, and especially because of the slaughter of the innocent and the holy, quotes words out of Hosea (Hosea 10:8). In this prophet we have also God’s love to Christ as the representative of Israel, and His call, when a child, out of Egypt ; as cited by Matthew (Hosea 11:1). At the close, Jehovah Himself steps into the scene of Israel’s self-made ruin, and will be their King (Hosea 13:9). Then comes ransom out of the hand of Hadees and the tomb (verse 14). There is some difference between the Hebrew, as read by the Septuagint, and the Hebrew as now found. ’ I will be ’ and ’ where ’ are in Hebrew made up of the same letters, differently arranged. The apostle agrees with the LXX., and so should we. Death and his sting will be taken away by the work of Christ.

These words, then, are the joyous cry of the captives released out of the place of long custody. They have for ever passed beyond death and his power as the enemy to trouble them. Risen from the dead, they are beyond the temptations to sin which now beset us.

They are the escaped out of Hadees - which detained them so long out of their hopes. So could Samson sing, when he came forth from the walls of Gaza, in which the Philistines thought to detain him to his death. But, through the work of Christ, ’ the gates of Hadees’ shall then no longer prevail against His people (Matthew 16:18).

56. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. This verse seems a comment on the preceding words of the prophet. A few words of explanation. The worst part of death is not the natural pains of departure ; not the breaking of purposes and plans, often of much moment ; not the disruption of earthly ties of the strongest and tenderest character. It is the sense of divine displeasure. Death might have been effected in the kindliest form possible, had not sin come in. But now it is to men in general the penally of sin; and the passing out of life and its blessings into the dark beyond, is attended with dread. But more awful still it is to go to the nearer presence of a God, against whom man has so oft offended. It is sad in the case of the infant, to see death where there is only the bane of original sin. But that trouble is increased, when to the fall men have added frequent transgressions. The sting takes its direst venom, and wounds the deepest, where the Gospel has been listened to and not accepted - and the man is dying without hope, and expecting to meet the God of justice, unforgiven. " The sting of death is sin;" and one of the chief of sins, is the putting-off or despising the Gospel of God’s grace. Awakened conscience will not be pacified, but feels that the hour of reconciliation is past. Has my reader never yet closed with the offer of Christ’s pardon ? Let him do so this hour ! How oft has the word gone up - ’ ’Tis too late now ! I am lost ! Hell is begun ! It is not the pain of body I suffer - that is a trifle ! But oh ! the wrath of God ! ’ " But the strength of sin is the law." How strange and startling the words would be to many if they heard them for the first time ! To most men I^aw is the great friend of man- they are thinking to find it salvation. They are attempting to observe what they call (and Scripture does not) ’the Moral Law,’ not perceiving that law bears nothing for them but condemnation, death, and the curse. Others, advanced beyond this to perceive that by our obedience to law none can be justified, are yet entangled in the idea that the Law of Moses, or at least the Ten Commandments, are the basis of all morality, and the Christian’s rule of life. ’ If they cannot justify, at least they will sanctify? How clearly do these few words ring the knell of such a fancy ! Does law sanctify ? It is " the strength of sin."

You think it will deliver those under it from sin. The Holy Ghost asserts, that it is the pmver of sin. This is Paul’s first utterance of that solemn truth,

M which in Romans vi. and vii. he afterwards, by the grace of God, so expanded. "

LAW IS THE STRENGTH OF SIN." For it stirs sin to activity by its prohibitions; it draws out man’s enmity of heart against God as the Ruler who forbids evil. It makes sin the more fearful in its character, the more it is shown to be opposition to God. It draws out transgression, and then pronounces sentence of death and the curse. It leaves its victim in despair, chained in the condemned cell. It gives no strength to obey its commands ; and the more an exercised conscience is stirred to attempt to match itself with its demands, the more it detects the flaws of human obedience, and the moral impossibility of obtaining approval from it by any service of ours. Therefore, God, in His great mercy, delivered Christians from Moses and His law, to set them as sons under the opposite principle of grace. Of this Jesus is Lord - and grace can justify, grace can sanctify, can impart strength, and smile approval on the efforts of its rescued ones to serve God. " Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace." "

I through law, died to law, that I might live to God."

57. But thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ’ Victory ’ - is the key-word of this concluding part. The three occurrences of it are characteristic.

1. The victory, in the first instance, lies with sin, and death, and Hadees. The souls even of the saved are still severed from their bodies, still detained in custody in Hadees. The living believer will be seized by death, if the Lord come not speedily.

2. But death, sin, Hadees, and the Law are all overcome already, or will soon be, by Christ’s power.

3. The victory, as to its source, is a gift ; not won by our own deserts, but the bestowal of God in Christ.

Hence praise must be rendered where it is due ; not to us, but to God.

Death is the huge boa swallowing down its prey after it has broken its bones. But though often the destroyer of men, Death is destined to be destroyed and swallowed up itself. There is perhaps a reference to the history of Jonah. The whale swallowed him.

Then, at God’s command, it gave him up and threw him on the land. Suppose, that as soon as the whale had touched the sand, and had yielded up Jonah, itself had been swallowed up by the yawning earth ; and you would have something illustrating this.

Over what is the victory ?

Over (1) SIN, (2) LAW, (3) DEATH, (4) HADEES.

1. Christ has put away sin by His sacrifice of

Himself.

2. He has overcome death by His resurrection. As He rose, so His people in Him.

3. Law, too, was one of our foes, which Christ must meet and overcome, ere we could be free. Man is slow to accept the tidings, that Law is one of his chief foes. Ignorant of his deserts as a sinner, and of his inclinations to evil, against both of which Law sets itself, condemning and cursing him ; he looks to it as a friend, that is to acquit and to prepare him for life eternal. It is law which has brought in sin, death, and Hadees. Therefore, Jesus obeyed law for us, as well as suffered death. Law would not let go its hold on our Surety, unless He had given it its full due. It has received from Christ both obedience as its claim, and death as the penalty due to the transgressor. Thus the Christian is free. He is no longer under law. Paul, the Pharisee, himself, in this very Epistle, declares he is no longer under law (1 Corinthians 9:20).* *That the reference is really to the Law of Moses, see in this Epistle ix. 8, 9, 20 ; xiv. 21, 34. The Redeemer from sin takes away the sting of death, law, and the power of sin. As Christ has passed through Death, it has become one of our friends. As it could not detain Him, it must in a moment let go those that are Christ’s.

Why is the present tense used ? ’ Who gvveth us.’

It seems probable that it is used in the future sense. But ’the victory is already begun. It needs only the last blow.