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“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55,57).
In our first verse today, it talks about the “sting of death.” No living creature wants to die, and man is just the same. He fights for life, unless he is in so much pain and suffering that death is preferable to more suffering. But with human beings there is a sting to death that an animal does not have. The reason for the sting of death is that man has a spirit, the God-conscious part of his being, and this spirit tells him that there is a God. It also tells him that he must meet God, and answer for how he has lived his life. The sting of death is what we read about in Hebrews 9:27—“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
That sting is removed for the believer, for his sins are all under the shelter of the blood of Christ. Judgment is behind him, not ahead of him. Death simply takes us from this life into eternity—into the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Truly God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
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