Look at what death is to the believer. The hope of the believer is not death; it is not to be unclothed (that is of himself) but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life. The purpose of God is nothing less than that we should be conformed to the image of Christ. (Rom. 8) We are to be in the presence of the Father also. Our proper hope is to see Christ as He is, and to be like Him. It is the power of divine life conforming us to Christ the Head. This is what He has wrought us for. Being in utter ruin, we can now only look to what are God's thoughts and purposes about us; but hope is not all our joy now, and when we get to heaven there will be no hope left: our proper joy is no hope at all. But now there is nothing satisfying here, and therefore one of our greatest joys is hope. What He has brought us into now is not subject of hope. We do not hope for the divine nature, or the love of God. The divine joy of the believer is having these, while rejoicing in hope, &c. We have a hope in death, but death is not our hope. There is that in it which is more than hope—the possession of life; and this death does not touch but sets free. There are some things we should be at home in, as, for instance, in God's love. Yea, at the judgment-seat of Christ, being like Him there, we may be at home. True, we shall have conflict here, trials and sufferings. The promise is “to him that overcometh.” But in spite of conflict, our hearts should he at home where God has put us. We cannot be at home here where sin is, where no water is. So far as the Spirit of God animates and fills us, we find no water here. When death comes in, it breaks every possible thought of nature—a terrible thing in this way—every thought of man gone—not a single thing to trust in—everything in nature wrecked.
Again, death is the power of Satan, which none can control. God has the power of life, but if He had called in question Satan's power in death, He would have annulled His own sentence. Death must come in, breaking every tie of nature, and bringing in every terror connected with Satan. The sentence must be executed by God Himself, and therefore it is the judgment of God. For man as he is, there is judgment after it. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.” What can this judgment be? If I die, and God brings me into judgment, I must be condemned for the sin that brought me there. “Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” I am not now speaking of deliverance. In every sense, death is a terrible thing. Besides the natural dread that even an animal has, all ties are severed; everything, however lovely, is ruined. The power of Satan ushering into judgment—it can bring nothing but the condemnation of sin. It is what God has put as a stamp on man, and no skill of man can avert it. It comes with bitter mockery amidst all the progress of which man boasts.
This is what death is in itself— “the wages of sin.” But there is another way to look at it—the way in which God has taken it up, and entirely delivered us (those who believe); so that if there is a bright spot in a man's life, it is at his death. It brings in a gleam of the future entirely by Christ. “If one died for all, then were all dead,” &c.; that “through death he might destroy him that had the, power of death, and deliver them who through fear of death,” &c. This blessed truth is simple in itself, familiar to us, that the Son of God (of whom it is said, it was not possible that He should be holden of death) has come down into it, gone under it, &c. The Second Adam came by grace into the place of the first Adam. There we were—under sin, judgment, wrath, condemnation; and He has been under it all. “God made him to be sin.” Had He not measured the sin? Yes. Did He not know the consequences of it? Yes; yet He spared not His own Son.
Did Christ not know? Yes, and He comes in the full love of His heart to accomplish the purpose of God—to drink the cup: but such was His agony at the thought of what the cup was, that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood.” It was the thought of sin, death, and judgment that made Him shrink from the cup, but He goes through it with God. The power of death was gone, in a sense, when those who came to meet Him saw Him. “They went backward and fell to the ground.” He had nothing to do but to go away then, but He does not. He offered Himself up. His disciples may go away, because He stands in the gap. Thus He takes the cup as judgment, suffering the penalty of sin. When on the cross, it is not now Satan, but God. He cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He drank the cup thoroughly on the cross. Then He dies. His body goes down to the grave. Was it the power of Satan, when He said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit?” He gives up His spirit, waiting for the resurrection. He went down under death—took up the whole thing—sin, Satan's power, wrath. He was “made sin for us.” “He died unto sin once.”
We have seen what death was for Christ. Now see what it is for us—in nature, everlasting wrath; but there is not a bit of the wrath, not a bit of the sin, remaining for the believer. Is He going to judge the sin He has put away? There is not a trace of it remaining. “He (has) put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” — “condemned sin in the flesh.” The strength of it all is in this, that He was “made sin,” because He had no sin of His own. He suffered for it. (Rom. 8) God “condemned sin in the flesh.” Christ has done it once for all, and now Be lives, and there is no more to be done about it. “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” “Without sin” means having nothing more to say to it, apart from the question of sin altogether, to take us into glory. Looked at as to the nature, He had no sin; but I had sin, and this is put away: sin is entirely abolished and annulled for me. And He has come up from under the consequences of death, after sin is put away. The life He took up is in the power of an endless life. I have new life in Him, being born of the Spirit: and the life that I live I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Then what about the old man practically? Having this new life, the old man is reckoned dead. “Ye are dead.” What is dead? The old man. We are “baptized into his death.” The “corn of wheat” must die. Death ended all that was connected with itself. It is dying unto that by which we were held. The law has killed me. The effect of the law, if we see its value, is that it has killed me. I have life in Christ. Scripture does not speak of our dying to sin. We should be dying daily, but we are dead, and are to reckon ourselves dead. “Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living [alive] in the world,” &c. The old Adam is an antagonist in its will, but I am dead to it. I have done with that which hindered my going to God. A man has done with that to which he has died.
Literally, when death comes, I shall have done with what is mortal—mortality swallowed up of life. The old nature is a thorn I shall be glad to get rid of, mortal, corrupt, under the power of Satan. The one thing that will be gone is corruption—mortality. The mortal body having died, I shall have nothing more to do with death or the old nature. What of the new nature? Is this done with? It is getting home, where the affections will have full play. It is having done with the first Adam, and getting a great deal more of the Second, in death. I have got rid of mortality when I die, always confident, “knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” Who is this person? The new man. I am absent from the body and present with the Lord.
Leaving this wretched poor mortality to be with Christ is positive gain. It will be better still to be in the glory with Him, complete in all with Christ; but now it is gain to die.
What was Christ's own thought about dying? What He said to the thief shows— “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise;” and to His disciples, “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said I go unto the Father.” In Christ there was the perfect consciousness of gain. Was Stephen less happy in his measure when he died? “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
The fact of death is leaving the old man entirely behind, and going to be with Christ. There is positive gain in having done, in measure by faith now, or in fact by and by, with mortality. Then there is the dying daily, but there is not a single thing in which death can come that is not positive gain, and for the life of the spirit. The sorrow which comes in by the breaking of natural ties is for blessing, reducing the flesh, &c. If there be will in the sorrow, it is bad; but trial is meant to be felt.
Peter did not like the thought of the cross. His flesh was not broken down to the point of the revelation he had from God. Then there must be a process gone through to break it down, either with God in secret or through discipline.