TO the believer who must pass through it, death is only leaving that which is mortal; it no longer bears the terror of God’s judgment, nor that of the power of Satan. Christ has gone into it, and borne it, and taken it away totally and forever. Nor that only—He has taken its source away. It was sin which sharpened and envenomed that sting. It was the law which, presenting to the conscience exact righteousness and the judgment of God that required the accomplishment of that law, and pronounced a curse on those who failed in it—it was the law which gave sin its force to the conscience, and made death doubly formidable.
But Christ was made sin, and bore the curse of the law, being made a curse for His own who were under the law; and thus, while glorifying God perfectly with regard to sin, and to the law in its most absolute requirements, He has completely delivered us from the one and the other, and, at the same time, from the power of death, out of which He came victorious. All that death can do to us, is to take us out of the scene in which it exercises its power, to bring us into that in which it has none... Instead of fearing death, we render thanks to Him who has given us the victory by Jesus.
J. N. D.