Death is Defeated

“Le saintes femmes au tombeau” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Death is our enemy. It robs us of those we love. It steals time from us. There is a reason it is so painful when those we love die. We were not made for death, but for life. God is not the God of the dead, but the living (Mark 12:27). 

Yet through his death, Jesus conquered death. That is the consistent witness of the New Testament. Exactly how this happened is a mystery—a truth so profound it transcends the capacities of human reason. Nevertheless, again and again Scripture proclaims in praise and thanksgiving that through his death, Jesus conquered death, and in so doing he has opened the doors of eternal life to those who once were estranged from God. 

Mourning and Hope 

During the pandemic, death seemed to spread out like a thick blanket across the world. Millions died. This was not the glorified or trivialized death that entertains us in TV and movies, but real, gritty, up-close-and-personal death of flesh-and-blood people we knew. My wife worked at the front desk of a hospital during the pandemic. The fear, desperation, even panic she encountered day after day were emotionally exhausting. She tried to provide what assistance and comfort she could, but the need was overwhelming. Doctors, nurses, chaplains, and other front-line workers gave of themselves sacrificially. Fear seeped deeply into the fabric of society. Now we grieve this era. We mourn those we lost. 

Yet as Christians, we do not mourn as those without hope. It is not simply a cliche to say we are Easter people. Death is our enemy, but we know that death is defeated. The Gospels testify not just to a memory or vision of Jesus after his crucifixion, but an empty tomb. Jesus truly died. His body was in the tomb Friday and Saturday. But on Sunday morning, the defeat of death was manifest:

[O]n the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:1-5). 

The tomb was empty. Christ overcame death. As we reads in Hebrews, “Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (2:14-15). Christ became like us in every way, except in sin, in order to break the power of sin over us, and by breaking the power of sin, he destroyed the power of death. 

Particularly over the last 200 years or so there have been attempts to argue that the resurrection itself is a metaphor. According to this line of thinking, there was no empty tomb, no risen body. Rather, when we talk about the resurrection, what we really mean to express is the ongoing significance of Jesus’ message of [fill in the blank]. But this position simply doesn’t work if one wishes to remain Christian in any meaningful sense. If the resurrection is only a metaphor, then sin and death were not defeated. If the resurrection is only a metaphor, if Christ was not raised, then neither will we be raised. The witness of Scripture and tradition has led us into false hope. Our end is death.

Despising Death

Athanasius wrote about the implications of Christ’s victory over death for his own day. In fact, he wrote, Christians “despise death”: 

They take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead (On the Incarnation). 

We trample on death “as on something dead” because in Christ we have eternal life in the resurrection. That is our end. “Going to heaven,” our spiritual life before the resurrection, is temporary, just as this life is. Eternal spiritual existence is not God’s intended end for us. Rather, eternal life is resurrection life. It is embodied. In 1 Cor 15:44, Paul speaks of a “spiritual (pneumatikos) body” in contrast to the “natural (psychikos) body” we have now. We see a glimpse of this in John 20:19-20 when Jesus enters a locked room and stands in the midst of his disciples. He has been raised. This is not a normal body, yet he shows them the marks of the physical wounds in his hands and side. 

The Age to Come 

We don’t know exactly what our embodied existence in the age to come will look like, but we know we will have bodies that are different from those we have now. They will be imperishable (1 Cor 15:52-53). They will be part of the new creation, in which God will make a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1). Like anyone else, I would like to know more about what life will be like in the age to come, but there are aspects of that life we simply cannot fathom now. Thus the Bible uses the language of poetry and metaphor to describe the return of Christ, the end of this age, and the beginning of a new age in which God has made all things new. Consider the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matt 25:31-46, or Paul’s language about being caught up in the clouds with other believers in 1 Thes 4:17. Consider the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in Rev 21:23: “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” Jesus wasn’t really talking about literal sheep and goats. I don’t think we will fly up into the clouds. The Lamb will not be an actual lamp. These are images that help us to apprehend the transcendent work of God. 

Nevertheless, we don’t have to understand something fully to believe in it. The way we normally function, we consistently believe in things we do not fully comprehend, such as time and space. Likewise we can admit there is much we do not know in the realm of eschatology while anticipating resurrection life in the age to come. We can trust in what God has revealed to us about our salvation through Christ and eternal life, and rest in the knowledge that in the age to come the renewed heaven and earth will be a place of peace and joy. We will be in the immediate presence of God: 

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;|
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away (Rev 21:3-4). 

The Reasons for Our Hope

Some will insist that the resurrection of the body is simply wishful thinking. It is too good to be true, they will say. It is of course something we would make up to pacify our fears in the face of our mortality. But this betrays a cynical and pessimistic view of life. Why should the default view of life be one of absurdity? The pessimist, the atheist, the materialist all must defend their positions. The truth of their worldview is not self-evident. 

The God of our faith is made known to us through creation, through special revelation in Israel, through prophets and apostles, and most fully through Christ. Throughout the ages, men and women have experienced God in deeply personal, life-changing ways. Great minds have engaged the deep truths of our faith. Philosophers and theologians have worked through the intellectual puzzles of faith and emerged with profound commitments to the God revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is not as if we believe without reason. Those who wish to make the case that our hope in Christ is just a pleasant fantasy are on the hook to tell us why this is so in the face of a broad and compelling accumulation of reasons for our belief. 

Some time back a friend of mine died. Occasionally I think of something interesting or funny, and just for a moment I will have the idea that I should call him. Then I remember he is gone. That conversation is not going to happen in this life. Yet he died in Christ. I will see him again. 

If you are mourning, if you fear death, if you fear the death of others, take heart. For those who die in Christ, death is not the end. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. 

David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.