Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces… I. THE TEXT SETS CHRIST BEFORE US IN THE ATTITUDE OF A CONQUEROR OVER DEATH. "He shall swallow up death in victory," it is said, and again in Hosea, "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction"; whilst still more strikingly in Timothy, we read, "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." But what is the kind of death of which the advent of Christ was to be the swallowing up? Not spiritual death, for how many are lying under its power now — many who have seen the day of Christ — but who yet have neither rejoiced in its light, nor yielded to its power! Neither does it ever attain to His covenant undertakings to swallow up death eternal. This too has its permitted victims, as well as the death spiritual, the one being, in fact, both the sequence and the penalty of the other. It is manifest, therefore, that the expression is to be limited to the death of the body — that death, which on account of the first transgression, was to pass upon all men, the penalty and the fruit of sin. Now this death is to be swallowed up — quenched, absorbed, as the original word implies — just as something which the sea might bury in its depths, or the fire decompose into its elemental forms. II. BUT HOW IS THIS SWALLOWING UP OF DEATH BY CHRIST EFFECTED? To this we have a full answer returned by the apostle Paul. "The sting of death," he says, "is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Here it is first assumed that death has a sting, that there is a pungency of dread and horror arising from the contemplation of death, merely as a penalty, as something indissolubly linked with evil beyond itself, and a sense of the deserved frown of God. Hence, in order to show that Christ had made a conquest over death, we must show that He was victorious over the sting of death, and hath swallowed up sin in victory. 1. And this He did in His life. In this way did Christ obtain His victory over sin — obtained it too, not by the putting forth of the hidden powers of Godhead, not by any invoked succours which would be given at His bidding from the angelic world, but by means within the reach of the humblest of His followers to command. Thus, in the destroyed sting of death, was laid the foundation for its final abolition. Mortality was no longer the terrible thing to look upon it once was. Believers are bound up in the Saviour's conquests. "Because I live, ye shall live also; because I have overcome, ye shall overcome also: sin shall have no dominion over you, because I withstood its power in the wilderness, because death and the sting of death have been swallowed up in victory." 2. Again, Christ is said to swallow up death, because He has discharged the obligations of that law to which death owes all its authority. As death could have had no sting if it had not been for sin, so sin could have had no existence, if it had not been for the law. "The law is the strength of sin," says the Word. Why? Because where no law is, there is no transgression. "The law entered that the offence might abound." And this law never relaxes, never can relax. Holy, it can endure no blemish; just, it can tolerate no remission of penalties; good, it will not encourage disobedience in the many by misplaced compassions to the few; and they who are under this law must be eternally under it. Hope for us there is none, nor yet help, unless we can be redeemed from its curse, released from its thrall, discharged from its obligations by One who shall both magnify its claims and make it honourable; and Christ has done all this, and in doing it, He swallows up death, at least death as death, for the strength of this last enemy is now departed from him. The law which was Satan's only title deed thereto, is nailed to the Cross. It is all Emmanuel's land now — earth and paradise, seen and unseen, life and immortality. "He hath swallowed up death in victory." 3. And then, once more, we must include the grave as part of the conquered things spoken of in the text. Like death it has its victory — an all but universal victory. Distinctions it knows not, age it regards not: it is the house appointed for all living. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him." "O grave!" says the apostle, "where is thy victory!" Where, when thy keys are in the hands of the Saviour, when thy dust is a guarded deposit, when the bodies of the faithful committed unto thee are century by century throwing off their gross materialism, in order that in the regeneration of a glorified and spiritual body they may stand at the latter day upon the earth? For, that the prophet's ken looked thus far, is evident from what he says a little further on in the next chapter, "Thy dead men," etc. (Isaiah 26:19). Thus shall Christ swallow up death in victory; and it is added, the "Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." The same forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into our world, brought therewith all our woe. If we had not known death, we had not known tears. The whole "body of sin will be destroyed"; the glorified spirit can neither falter nor fall again: all corrective discipline will be over: there will be neither lessons to learn, nor infirmities to subdue, nor murmurings to keep down, nor mistaken attachments to correct. No erring spirit will ever seek to escape from those holy mansions, neither can any graces languish which are fed from that eternal spring, but the whole company of the redeemed, sanctified throughout by the power of an Almighty Spirit, and made one with Christ through thee blood of the everlasting covenant, shall wait in devout ministrations on the King of saints in a service that shall know no weariness, and in a kingdom that shall know no end. "He shall swallow up death in victory, and wipe away all tears from off all faces." And now let us glance at one or two practical conclusions to be derived from our subject. 1. Thus, one effect of it should be to fortify us against the fear of death. This fear, I have said is an instinct with us — is incorporated as it were upon our lapsed and fallen nature; it is not necessarily connected with any anticipation of what is to follow, but springs from an apparently universal feeling that death is a punishment for sin; that originally man was not made to die, that some wrong has been done to the beneficent purposes of the Creator of which our dying is the bitter fruit. Then it is a part of Christ's victory to have the rule not only over death, but over all that region of the invisible to which death leads. 2. Again, our subject should suggest to us the wisdom of instant submission to the Saviour's authority. A two-fold end would seem to be contemplated in giving this absolute dominion over death, namely, that He should be omnipotent to conquer as well as mighty to save — a terror to His enemies as well as a protector to His friends, and one or other of these we all are. The whole world of responsible beings is divided into those who are under the sceptre, and those who are under the rod. But why should we make a foe of Him who hath assumed universal empire only that He might be our friend, only that nothing might be wanting to the completeness of His own work? 3. Is it needful that I should remind you that this blessed promise we have been considering, like all our Advent promises, belongs to believers, and to believers only! As there is a death which Christ has not swallowed up, so there are tears which the Lord God has not promised to wipe away, but which in righteous displeasure at His despised compassions, He will leave to flow on forever. (D. Moore, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. |
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