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Everybody can feel the fitness of saying that sin and death are two of the greatest enemies of the human race. Expressive and appropriate is the habit we derive from Scripture of speaking of them as persons, hostile powers, who make war on us. Between the two there is a terrible alliance. They are in league against us; and though, if we are even victorious over them, we are told that death will be the last to be destroyed, yet sin was the first, and sin is the greatest. Not that, except for sin, these material bodies would be immortal. Eventual dissolution and decay into their elements belong to their constitution, as much as to that of vegetables in autumn. "We all do fade as a leaf." "All flesh is as grass." But though dissolution seems a characteristic of human bodies, the doubt and terror which accompany death are due to sin, which has estranged us from our Maker, whom, in consequence, we have ceased to think of as our Father. Thus the sting of death is sin. The voyage across the Atlantic is one thing to the slave, hurried by a captor, he knows not whither, and quite another to the traveller returning home. These, then, are the two greatest evils which afflict humanity; and, now, is there any remedy for them — any deliverer from them? Christianity professes to bring a remedy, — to announce a Deliverer both from sin and death. Hence, its message is called the gospel — the good news. "The Son of man was manifested, to destroy the works of the devil"; and "our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death."

I. DEATH MADE OF NONE EFFECT. Such is the meaning of "abolished." Not to do away with altogether, but to render imperfect, and in that sense to destroy. The entire destruction spoken of in the fifteenth chapter of the First of Corinthians will come later. Christianity has made no difference in regard to the dissolution and decay which befall all mortal bodies. It is still true that "all flesh is as grass." Its language, however, is not "Death shall never again strike down a human being, or make a happy home a house of mourning," but "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." "To die is gain." So death is made of none effect.

II. JESUS CHRIST, OUR SAVIOR FROM DEATH. We may well ask, "By what rare enchantment can the king of terrors be transformed thus into an angel of light?" Who "can make a dying bed seem soft as downy pillows are?" Even he who said to a sister weeping at a brother's grave, "I am the Resurrection and the Life: whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me shall never die!" "To depart is to be with Christ, which is far better." But how so? Was He not the man Christ Jesus? And did He not Himself die in anguish? And was He not Himself laid in the tomb? Truly, if He was no more than man, our Christian hope of immortality is a baseless imposture. But the good news from God is that Jesus Christ was more; that He is the Lord of life, the King immortal and eternal, who wrapped Himself awhile in perishable human clay, but whom it was not possible that death should hold. And the reason of His coming is thus expressed in Scripture: "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death."

III. THROUGH DEATH HE ABOLISHED DEATH. By Himself passing down into the dark valley, into the silent tomb, He disarmed the grave of its terrors. And as we saw that death and sin are closely allied, — death the wages of sin, and sin the sting of death,-they are allied in regard to our deliverance from them. Our Saviour from the one, is our Saviour from the other.

IV. LIFE AND INCORRUPTION BROUGHT TO LIGHT. A great shadow was spread over the world, and it lay the deepest over human life. Now, the great light, which the people who sat in darkness have seen in Christ, brings to view the novel and glorious fact of life associated with immortality, or incorruptibility.

(T. M. Herbert, M. A.)

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KJV: But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

WEB: but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News.