It's Only Death

“With a loud voice they were saying, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’” –Revelation 5:12

Jesus Christ is the righteous servant of Isaiah’s prophecy who came to be rejected and despised, and we “esteemed Him not” or did not value Him, Yet, He was pierced for our transgressions and not His own. He was oppressed and afflicted. Yet, it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. So, the heavens sing, “worthy is the Lamb,” who received the promised blessings of Isaiah 53:12.

Yet, Jesus is the worthy Lamb who was slain. Past tense. He is alive now, having resurrected from the dead! Jesus who tells John He is the living One. “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18).

Jesus alone has power and authority over death. And the Lamb who was slain is alive forevermore. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that the dead will put on imperishable and the mortal will put on immortality, fulfilling the saying, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?” (I Corinthians15:54-55).

Death has lost its stinger in defeat. Sin and the law were defeated by Jesus Christ the righteous who gives us the victory. Jesus gives us the victory received by faith.

In other words, to the Christian, it’s only death. "All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus,” said the recently deceased John MacArthur. For the believer, there is no more sin to be forgiven, emptying death of all its power. MacArthur continued, “Satan is a toothless lion, and death is a stingless bee."

Death is a topic to think about because death approaches all of us. A topic to think about when death snatches another away from us. As I write this, I just heard the news Voddie Baucham has passed away. Yet, this reminds me of a quote from one of his sermons:

“You are going to hear a rumor one day that Voddie Baucham is no more. Don't you believe it! Because though I die, I will rise with Christ. It will not be the end of me because Christ is raised and I too will be raised with Christ.”

This on the heels of the news of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Why would a family man risk his well-being and his life to speak of the sins of sexual immorality and false religions, the need for repentance and salvation in Jesus Christ, in a vulnerable place on a stage in the most hostile territories, the American university campus? It’s only death.

The Gospel writers recount a time a synagogue ruler named Jairus had a daughter on her deathbed. Jairus labored to get to Jesus to bring Him in time, only to be delayed along the way. In that delay, someone from Jairus’ home told the father the news: your daughter is dead, don’t bother the Teacher any further.

Jesus went anyway saying, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.” Upon arrival to the house, Jesus questions why all the commotion and weeping? Then our Savior adds, “The child is not dead but sleeping.” It was at this the crowd once weeping the child’s death now laughs. How ridiculous!

“The message of the cross is foolishness to those indeed perishing, but to us being saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18). What a joy that Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead!

There is much laughter at this message of the cross of Jesus in our world. Christians are viewed as silly for believing God’s judgment, and worse, Christians are viewed as most wicked among humanity for proclaiming this message of Jesus to repent and believe lest you perish.

Yet, for those of us being saved, we rejoice in the resurrected Lord and our living hope found in our faith in Him.

The early church apologists spent much time and ink defending Christians from hatred and social alienation from the Roman world. They contended that Christian beliefs and morality are superior to worldly philosophies and ideas. A worldly reader may chuckle like the laughing mourners in Jairus’ daughter’s room, but it is a mockery from a hardened heart refusing to even investigate whether these things are so. They “suppress the truth” by their unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

I delight in true hope in Jesus. As I ponder death, I trust Jesus has rendered death stingless and powerless. It’s only death. For I am confident I will be in that glorious number singing His eternal praises. This hope renders all troubles in this life as “light and momentary,” and cannot be compared to the “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” that is ahead.

As Puritan Thomas Adams said, “We spend our years with sighing; it is a valley of tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.”

Reader, listen to the Good Shepherd’s voice, the mighty voice of Jesus who was dead and is now alive forevermore. He invites you to trust in Him and live, to fear death and condemnation no more. May the Holy Spirit draw you to Jesus as weak and poor, to see His strength and the riches of His grace to save sinners.

Heavenly Father, teach us to number our days, to fear our mortality, to trust in Jesus whom You raised from the dead. Grant Your people wisdom and boldness in the face of a mocking world and troubles and death, which Christ has diminished to stingless and powerless, giving us everlasting life received by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.