The Last Enemy

Death.  It is our last enemy.

We don't like to think about it.  Our culture has sanitized it, locked it away, or just ignored it.  We might see a gruesome fake corpse in a movie, but it's all pretend.  It isn't real until you are in that ICU, hearing the words that nothing can be done.  Or maybe it's a phone call.  There's been an accident.  I'm so sorry.

I was there.  It was time to take away Mom's life support, and the hospital staff were trying to be helpful.  They said we could have music or whatever we would like.  To make it more pleasant.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of this offer of amenities.  In the end, we asked for nothing special, and it was just as well.  She didn't last more than a couple of minutes.

Watching my mother die was one of the hardest things I think I've ever done.  She hadn't been conscious for some time, so in one sense it was like passing away in her sleep, but the body struggles to live, and that last gasp was really that.  The last effort of her body to breathe.  And then she was gone.

It was then that I concluded that death is ugly.

In my Bible I read that death is the result of the Fall.  Our first parents rejected God and in turn were cursed with something new called "death."

. . . but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you shall eat of it you shall surely die.--  Gen 2:17

God had given one proscription, one simple command.  They broke it, and the penalty was death.  The original Hebrew implies continuous action: they immediately entered into a state of dying.  They became mortal.  In the New Testament we receive further light on what "death" means:

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins . . .  Eph 2:1

There is clearly a spiritual death, or separation, taught in the Scriptures.  The separation is between us and our Creator.  The cause is our sin.

Christ's substitutionary death opened the door for spiritual--and ultimately physical--restoration from the Curse of the Fall.  Eternal life is that renewed fellowship with God, which was purchased at so high a price.

And one day, physical death will be conquered too.  But like Christ, we must first pass through death's door to finally experience bodily resurrection and the restoration of all things.

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."

"O Death, where is your sting?  O Hades, where is your victory"  I Cor 15:54-55

Today, we see death in all its ugliness.  But as believers we have hope, and when we see another believer fall asleep in death, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.  We feel grief.  We feel sorrow and loss.  But underneath are the everlasting arms.

Christ is our Redeemer.  Christ is our conquering Captain.

For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.  I Cor 15:25-26