Death Is Swallowed Up

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Easter” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 19, 1987.

Sermon transcript

Our Scripture this morning is from 1 Corinthians 15. We are reading from verse 35 to the end of the chapter. Hear the word of God. But some man will say. How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? thou fool. That which thou sowest is not quickened except it doth, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. But the body of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, And another glory of the stars, for one star differeth from another star in glory.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. As so it is written, the first man, Adam, was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a life-giving spirit. Albeit, that was not first, which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward, that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy.

The second man is the Lord from heaven. And as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy. And as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I show 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 trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, men shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. and verse 26, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Truly, Lord, for your servants who declare your word this day, there is no room for vanity whatsoever. Therefore, I beseech you that you will clothe your servants with humility, the humility that comes from Jesus, that humility that is the fruit of the Spirit. And may it please you, Father, to use the word of your servants throughout the world. in order to encourage and strengthen your saints and to call your elect from the four corners of the earth. Through Jesus Christ, Amen. Is death Is death as one. Prominent figure from Pittsburgh said on national TV this last week. Nearly. The gate to the unknown. Sort of a frontier for a greater and new adventure. Or is it As the apostle Paul described it, the last enemy.

Is death, as some have suggested, but a mildly intimidating hurdle that we all must pass something like our driver’s test or is it an awesome torturous terrifying reality filled with the threat of torment and anguish of soul. Is death closer to Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, in which Fauré deliberately removes what he considered to be the medieval myths about misery and eternal damnation. is death closer to Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, in which Verdi, to be sure somewhat melodramatically, impresses upon his audience the overwhelming sense of dread with his recurring chorus, Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath and its imminence. Our approach to death has become one of calculating denial of what the Bible tells us. Even amongst those who say they believe the Bible, when it comes to death, they may well find themselves acting and thinking more like unbelievers than believers. For example, it is not uncommon to hear professing Christians talk as if death were the most natural thing in the world.

It is inevitable. It is to be expected and accepted because it is expected. Also, as a natural thing, so these people seem to suggest, it has nothing to do whatsoever with the moral order of things and our relationship in righteousness or unrighteousness with God. In other words, Death is completely unconnected to sin and its consequences. Well, despite what some folks might say, despite what they may think, the Bible is perfectly clear.

Death is not natural. It is unnatural. Death is an intrusion, a vile and malicious intrusion into the experience of mankind. We are not meant to die. But death has been visited upon us. and it has come as the consequence of sin. God said to Adam, in the day you disobey me, you shall surely die. God said through one of his prophets, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. And the apostle, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has told us the wages of sin is death. Could anything be more clear?

But it seems in our day and age, our attempts to deny these truths are now approaching the ludicrous. Bear with me in a bit of foolishness. A Texas pastor described a funeral he recently attended. It wasn’t the encounter with death that he found terribly. It was the funeral itself. There was little in that funeral to direct his attention to the riches of the gospel and the promise of the resurrection. for all who place their trust in the risen Savior. Instead, he found himself in an atmosphere closer to a social event, much more proximate to a wedding or anniversary celebration than a wake or a funeral. He found himself in an atmosphere in which he was confronted with gaudy displays by the living.

And as he heard it over and over again during that funeral, it was all so natural, life and business as usual. and I’m serious, from the people with the Instamatics to, believe it or not, the one with the video recorder. From the so-called mourner who raised her dog for one final farewell to the deceased to the one who asked about the deceased’s shoe size. To the minister who badgered the widow about the tithe on the inheritance to the relatives ruminating about insurance payoffs. He heard it all.

From the well-dressed, upperly mobile crew that circulated, unable to pass up an opportunity to network for Amway, Neolife, Herbalife, Tupperware, and the PTO’s treetop tennis condos at Heritage Village. To the ever-present, ever-wanting-to-make-an-impression, youth-filled family fool whose car, I am not lying, whose car’s horn actually plays the Eyes of Texas.

What would we do? with our funerals. More like a social outing than an opportunity to extend real comfort. An opportunity to think about the brevity of life, the eternality of God, and the prospect of our own eternal destiny. Now, you will recall that Jesus attended a funeral. That of his dear friend, Lazarus. And at that funeral, Jesus exhibited a range of emotions. Two seemed to take center stage. Emotions that may well help us in formulating our own responses to death.

Those emotions are recorded in the space of three verses in John 11, verses 33 and 35. The first spoken of has been a bit controversial because people have not known what to do with the proper, appropriate translation of the Greek at this point. That first emotion described in verse 33 of John 11 is certainly that of anger. The translations invariably say, Jesus was troubled, or he was troubled within himself, or he was deeply moved.

Actually, the word used here denotes rage. It certainly is not rage directed toward God, but rather a rage that Jesus vents against the persistent, ever-threatening, debilitating enemy of all of his friends, death. Now, Jesus, in this response to death, is not extraordinary in Scripture. We have in the Old Testament a similar rage displayed, a rage displayed towards death, the last enemy of the friends of God. In the Old Testament, death is actually personified.

It’s turned into a people, a particular enemy of Israel by the name of Amalek. and the Amalekites. You will recall how God declared perpetual war against Amalek, because Amalek and those of his tribe preyed upon the stragglers, the weak who lay behind during the wilderness journeys of the children of Israel.

And you will recall that it was when Moses was set up upon the hill and Joshua took the warriors of Israel out against Amalek, that Moses would hold up his hands, and when his hands were held up, Israel would prevail. And when they dropped, because he was tired and weak, then Amalek would prevail. So Moses called to stand with him, one on either side, to hold up his arms, that the forces of Amalek know even deeper the forces of death would not prevail against the Church of God. Does the form of Moses in that posture remind you of the form of another? Surely it does. the extended arms of our Savior, he ran the one by whom the enemy, the last enemy, is to be defeated.

But you also will recall more about Amalek in the Old Testament, during the days of Samuel For Saul is commanded as the first king, Christlike, to go out against the Amalekites and strike them, destroy them, show no mercy, for they are the personification of the greatest enemy facing the people of God.

And you recall Samuel’s rage, and here the rage once more asserts itself. The rage exhibited by Samuel when he finds out that Saul has failed to carry out the command of God and has saved the life of the King of Death, Agath. And despite how offensive people, how offended people may be by what appears in that story of Samuel and Saul and Agath. Please understand what the Lord is telling you. Samuel, use a guide to pieces in holy rage against that personification of the greatest and fiercest enemy of the people of God. not just the man Agag, but what he represents, for Agag is the prince of death. The anger we see in Samuel before Agag appears again in Jesus before the tomb of Lazarus. Death preys upon the people of God, those beloved of the Lord, the friends of Jesus, and it preys upon them in their weakness, their weakness compounded by their sin, which is a reality.

But as Jesus has been enraged, note also, note also the second emotion. that shortest of all Bible verses. Jesus went. His rage baptized with tears. These tears hardly sentimental, but rather tears generated by the deepest perception and understanding of the human predicament. reaps its harvest, and that harvest is death. Sin and its reward, threatening, devouring, even the elect, those closest to Christ. His tears are to the end that every friend of his would be spared. And as a sign that that goal is within his grasp, he stands before that hole in the earth and the vanquisher, death.

And he says, Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus does. Lazarus, alive again, is but a sign. For he has been brought to life again in a world in which he must again die. What he and all Jesus’ friends need is a resurrection by which they will enter a world in which it will be impossible to die. Such a world.

Jesus opens. He opens for us. beyond his rage and tears, and because of them there comes his own resurrection, the sure and certain promise of our resurrection. For as Jesus is now, so shall we all become. We who trust in him. Here, then, is the power of Paul’s wonderful words. We will put on imperishability. We shall all be changed. We shall put on immortality. And when our bodies are raised in that moment, in that twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, death will have been finally, consummately defeated. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, we do not, we cannot deny death reality, nor even its horror. We, like Jesus, are enraged at it and weep because of it. Nevertheless, we are overwhelmingly confident in the face of death. Its sting, namely our sin, has been dealt with in Christ’s cross. Its strength has been broken by Christ’s resurrection.

Death itself is doomed, death itself shall die. There is the death of death, the final enemy. And certainly this death of death shall come about on that day for which we all long. to which we all look, the day when Lazarus and all of Jesus’ friends will be raised up to meet him and to live with him in glory forever. Amen. Our Father, we are those who look to you in faith to be buoyed by the knowledge of the One Risen. The last enemy is death. And the death of death is certain. And the life in a world in which death is impossible that world is at hand through Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord.

May each of us here have open hearts, may we have receptive minds to the truth of the resurrection, and Father We pray that by the power of your spirit we may live as those who have in fact believed that Jesus is alive and that the last enemy death is doomed. Hallelujah and Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.