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Death Swallowed Up in Victory, June 24
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not
for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality
might be swallowed up of life.
2 Corinthians 5:4
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The Life-giver is coming to break the fetters of the tomb. He is to
bring forth the captives and proclaim, “I am the resurrection and the
life.”
Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the
righteous go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death.
The patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and His
apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that the dead
do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until
the resurrection. In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and the
golden bowl broken, man’s thoughts perish. They that go down to the
grave are in silence. They know no more of anything that is done under
the sun. Blessed rest for the weary righteous! Time, be it long or short,
is but a moment to them. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump
of God to a glorious immortality. “For the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So when ... this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is
written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:52-54
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they are called forth from their deep slumber, they begin to think just
where they ceased. The last sensation was the pang of death, the last
thought that they were falling beneath the power of the grave. When
they arise from the tomb, their first glad thought will be echoed in the
triumphal shout, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:55
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The pangs of death were the last things they felt.... When they awake
the pain is all gone.... The gates of the city of God swing back upon
their hinges, ... and the ransomed of God walk in through the cherubims
and seraphims. Christ bids them welcome and puts upon them His
benediction. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: ... enter thou
into the joy of thy lord.”
Matthew 25:21
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