Redemption was no after-thought of God's. Eternal life was promised before the world began. (Titus 1:44To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. (Titus 1:4).) Here we are in a system where everything turns on fallen man as the main object, but that which separates me from it is that I am in Christ's system in heaven; chosen in Him before this earthly system had a beginning, "before the foundation of the world." This thought gives great steadiness to the mind in all that we may be passing through. His and kept by Him in everything, and waiting on him to see what He will do. If heft my body to-night, I should go straight to Him; and when He leaves the throne to come and take His people home, my body will go there too; the dead raised, the living changed, all made like Himself, all to stand around Him. He the center, and they covered with all His beauty.
When God displayed His Son in the world it was as the One of whom He could say " He is the resurrection and the life." He abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. It was an eternal life, that had light in it. It burst through the grave and made death an entirely different thing to what it was before. By passing through death Christ destroyed death. He bore judgment to destroy judgment. God gave Him to it, and He willingly gave Himself. To nature, death is a dreadful thing; there is corruption, and that is all that remains of those we love best. A curtain across the path, and we cannot look through it; it is a dreadful thing. But the death of Christ has entirely neutralized death and destroyed its power, that is to say, to a saint. What is it in fact? When your work is done, you lay your head on your pillow, and go into the presence of the Lord, "absent from the body and present with the Lord."