No Fear of Death

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

—1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (NLT)

 

Death is not something to be dreaded because the real you does not die. It is only the end of the physical body. And you are not your physical body. You are a spirit who has been reborn by the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ. Regenerated by His Spirit, you belong to Him. You began living with Him the moment you believed that Jesus died to set you free from sin. And when your physical body is no more, your spirit moves from living with Him or earth to living with Him in heaven.

 

Until there were standards God set in place, sin was not an issue. The Abrahamic covenant of grace covered God’s people until the law given to Moses finally defined what constituted sin. And with that Mosaic covenant, the law gave sin its power. A man could never live perfectly according to the requirements of the law. “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (Galatians 4:4-5, NLT).

 

Death has no victory. Sin has no sting. Jesus, the Son of God, a man subject to the law, became our perfect sacrifice to fulfill the law’s requirements that no one else could satisfy. Spirit became flesh for the sake of man. “The old system under the law of Moses was only a preview of good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year” Hebrews 10:1-2, NLT).

 

Struggling to make perfect in our lives what Jesus has already made perfect reminds us of our sins and fosters feelings of guilt. The Old Covenant sacrifices repeated again and again, never gave any relief from the bondage of sin. Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, became our freedom from sin’s control. Sin has no power to condemn anymore. “Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace” (Romans 6:14, NLT). And with the freedom of God’s grace, we have become God's beloved children.

 

God became flesh so that we might receive eternal life. You have nothing to fear as your spirit moves from life on earth to life in heaven. Flesh is not who you are. You are spirit as God is Spirt. Sin has no power to separate you from what Jesus has joined together. Death to your body doesn’t separate you from the love of God. You live with Him forever.

 

©2020 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2020/09/no-fear-of-death.hml