Freedom from Death

Pastor Simon Viss

Hello, Cornerstone!  Blessings to you during this Holy Week and on this Good Friday. 

I think it’s fitting on this day of remembering Christ’s death to finish off our freedom series with a devotional on our freedom from death.  Already this week we have turned to God’s word to discover and remember our freedoms from fear, guilt, shame, anger, bitterness, sin, and today we look to Scripture for our freedom from death. 

Have you ever heard of the phrase “dead man walking?”  It originates in our prison systems, where death row convicts walk from their prison cell to a place of execution, or it may refer to any person who is doomed in an inevitable situation.  The person isn’t dead yet, but they eventually will be.  As depicted in Genesis 3 and throughout Scripture, we have inherited the sin of Adam, resulting in our condemned status before God.  Because of our sin nature, one of the necessary outcomes is death, because we have been separated from our main source of life: Yahweh.  So you could say in some sense that in our sins we are “dead men/women walking.” 

However, the Bible displays a weight of death that surpasses our inescapable future judgment.  Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, that our due payment for our afront to God is death, but death is also considered a condition because of sin.  Romans 5:12 says that sin came into the world through one man (being Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, meaning that we are slaves to both physical AND spiritual death.  Because we are spiritually dead, Romans 8:8 tells us that our flesh cannot please God.  Paul informs us of the same reality in Ephesians, that we are dead in our sins, incapable of making ourselves alive.  Like a dead corpse, we are unable to do anything to save ourselves. 

So how is the sinner made alive?  In Genesis 3:21, God establishes the principle that only the death of a perfect substitute could make the sinner live.  He does so by clothing Adam and Eve with garments of animal skin, unfolding a trajectory of his redemption plan to provide the ultimate sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world.  God’s plan to make dead sinners live is fulfilled in the obedient death of Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 15:21-22 says “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

In addition, Colossians 2:13-15 says “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” 

                  So not only are we saved from a future perishing under God’s judgment, but we are set free from our spiritual death now! The life that Jesus gives isn’t merely eternal life in heaven but a spiritual life on earth that empowers us to live out the purpose for which he created us.  Our once dead spirits were like a deflated balloon.  We acknowledged its presence at times when we  were living for ourselves, under the dominion of sin (2 Peter 2:19; Rom. 6:16), but when we responded to the Holy Spirit, we repented of our sin, exercising faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 12:3).  God forgives our sin and credits us with the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21) and sends the Holy Spirit to live in us.  At the moment of conversion, the Spirit filled up our deflated balloon of a spirit, transforming us from lifeless, sin-filled corpses to vibrant, living children of God (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:5; John 1:12).  We have only God to thank for that because he was the only one who could do such an incredible thing!

On this somber day, may we process and remember purchase of our life in Christ.    Christ’s death on the cross exposes the ugliness and the putrid reality of my sin, that it should be me on that cross, exposed, beaten, bruised, scourged, mocked, and suffocating with nails in hands and feet.  You may be bearing the weight of a sin struggle today that you have not confessed.  Receive the new mercies that the Lord provides.  Repent and confess your sins that you may be healed, confident in God’s gracious work to vindicate you from eternal death.  You might have experienced the loss of a loved one in the past year.  Cling to the truth of Christ’s victory over death and the hope that he instills in us, that he will conquer death, the last enemy, once and for all when he returns.  Christ’s death translates to our freedom, and it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1).